(Mary Nesbitt)

Add my voice to those who think the Chicago Tribune's print redesign is a great improvement rather than the beginning of the end.  It's a more visually interesting paper, it has energy and vigor, the Sunday paper is a more manageable size and there is a refreshing lack of those lengthy, worthy-but-dull eye-glazers that I'll wager very few people ever started to read, let alone finish. I'm spending more time with the paper, and not just because I study news for a living. It's just more interesting. More stuff catches my eye. I must be shallow, yes?



Here are some other things I like:

• The amorphous Q section has been focused into a smart shopping./consuming section called, appropriately, Smart.


• TribLocal has come to my town; a micronews tab inserted into the paper once a week. I'll read that rather than visit it online because it's part of the package. 


• Fewer pages. Much has been made of the fact that the ROP ad/ed ratio is now 50-50 instead of 40/60. I can't say I notice . But I do notice that I don't have the "too much" feeling any more - too many pages without anything to catch my eye, too many legs of unalleviated grey type, too much sameness and predictability.


• Much greater use of alternative story forms - charticles, graphics, lists, etc.


• It's getting a little better at being sassy, with its something-to-talk-about pages 2 and 3.


• John Kass is getting better play. He deserves it.   

Unlike many Trib readers, I'm not a lifer, though I'm a lifelong newspaper reader who feels the day doesn't start properly without a mug of tea and rub-off on my hands.  Out of broadsheet habit I subscribed to the paper as soon as I moved to the Chicago area 11 years ago.  Everything was new to me - the city, the region, the politics, the Chicago Way - but I can't say the Trib helped me understand it then.

Like many other newspapers it operated on the mistaken assumption that readers have as much detailed knowledge as editors do.  It didn't help me understand where things - news events, stores, landmarks - were actually located, something that annoys newcomers and longer-term residents alike in a metro area of this size and complexity. Nor was the Trib's idea of local coverage mine: our edition routinely had irrelevant micro-news from other distant suburban communities. It was as if the newspaper didn't understand the social and commercial orientation of our town.

Over the past decade,  the Trib's news sections didn't change much, even as it became easier for people to access other, better national and international sources.  Yes, it enriched the back of the book - local entertainment, eating, fitness, leisure, gardening, home,  things to do and places to go -  but the front sections seemed impervious to change.

It was as if 'real news' was sacrosanct. But - again, focus group of one - rarely was that news unique or particularly insightful. Often the front page led with day-old stories without a new, compelling angle. Even the Trib's excellent investigative projects, undertaken very much in the public interest, were not presented in ways to help more people understand and get more out of the first-class reporting.

I don't believe the Trib's new approach represents an attempt, as some commentators have surmised, to create younger readers out of thin air. That's not going to happen;  the company for some years has been pursuing different strategies for different segments.  Rather, I think the Trib has plunged into a long-overdue regeneration aimed at keeping us Baby Boomers - time-crunched, users of many media, sensitive to design, with tastes younger than our years - connected to the brand. If the changes induce our kids to pick up the paper from the kitchen counter, that's good too, but it's not the point.  

Of course reconfiguration and redesign - in this case, prompted by financial necessity - are not enough. A news organization has to generate news and information that, from its audiences' perspective, helps them get more out of life, provides unique and relevant value, makes them smarter and looks out for their interests. Finding the right stuff rests on journalists' ability to understand readers' lives, interests and issues and demands a commitment and eagerness to respond to them.  It needs journalists whose mission is to discover news, not just cover events as they happen, and who can tell those stories with the most effective approaches and tools.

Despite the regrettable downsizing of recent months, the Trib still has hundreds of journalists who could produce exceptional regional and local reporting of this nature. I'm looking forward to it.


By Mary Nesbitt (m-nesbitt@northwestern.edu)
Mary Nesbitt is managing director of the Readership Institute. 

Mary Nesbitt here.
Good question; thank you. I don't think it will do that, and I doubt that it was intended to be a comprehensive solution. The challenges facing Tribune and other newspaper companies -- even before the current economic turmoil -- are too complex, too rooted in irreparable changes to the newspaper business model, to be resolved by this kind of thing. (I also think assessing the results of the redesign will be muddied by the financial squeeze consumers now find themselves in --when needing to cut back expenses, subscriptions are often the first to go.) We also have to remember that Tribune is more than the main paper, though clearly it is the big horse in the print/online stable. There's Hoy, RedEye, Metromix, TribLocal, The Mash, each focused on a particular audience with particular needs and interests.

Something our research, dating back to 2000, has clearly indicated is that news organizations must develop an internal culture of change. Not change just for the sake of mixing things up, but because the success of the enterprise rests on continually monitoring and responding to (ideally, anticipating) the changing needs of readers and advertisers in a now-crowded and very competitive market. (Historically, news organizations have been change- and risk-averse. And why not -- they were virtual monopolies.)

Hopefully, that less-visible kind of change is also happening at the Trib and every other news organization in the country.

Posted by  Mary Nesbitt at October 10, 2008 8:48 AM

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