Less is…
I’m at the Wall Street Journal’s announcement of its new, narrower size and I can’t quite believe the coverage that lopping off three inches is getting. One reporter for another august business section jsut said to the reporters for another that they were probably all here checking out the competition. But there are also 10 TV cameras in the back. Maybe it’s the breakfast.
What’s the big deal? Not sure there is one. They certainly want to make it a big deal though, unveiling a giant version of the new front page to musical accompaniment in the Morgan Library. Gordon Crovitz, publisher of the print and online businesses, says that they are the “first to rethink what a newspaper should be in this era.” He says that others are trying to be platform-agnostic but not them. He sasy there will be more headlines with “will and why.”
The paper is trying desperately to keep the value in the paper. They’re not alone. When the Guardian, Times, and Independent went to smaller formats in London, they tried to add value as they took away paper. The Guardian invested 80 million pounds on its presses. But the Guardian also acknowledges that it is forestalling the likely death of print while pushing the paper’s journalism to the new world.
I am media-agnostic. I don’t read the Journal in print — ever. I read it online. And I don’t necessarily want different things there; I want more there. The proof in that pudding is how the Journal does in its task force, which Crovitz heads, to bring together the Journal’s journalism in all its media. I spoke with him before the fest and he said that they are reducing the duplication that having reporters work in various media has brought and they are trying to increase the depth in the paper. That helps them internally. For us, the former audience, I think there is danger in continuing to separate journalism by medium — and to promote one medium separately.
Tags: newspapers
December 4th, 2006 at 11:32 am
[...] Update: (From Jeff Jarvis) “I’m at the Wall Street Journal’s announcement of its new, narrower size and I can’t quite believe the coverage that lopping off three inches is getting.” Time posted: 8:56 am on Monday, December 4th, 2006 [...]
December 4th, 2006 at 11:35 am
As someone who has the hard copy delivered to my home and an online subscription (Wife takes the hard copy on the express bus and reads it in the morning on her way into Manhattan, while I stick strictly to the online), what I wanna know is: will my dead tree subscription nut be similarly reduced?
December 4th, 2006 at 11:43 am
This is weird because I “borrowed” a WSJ print version from a Chick-fil-A recently (I like that they have a newpaper rack, not that they’re not open on Sundays, as I can actually read real paper news products while my kid eats) and the thing wouldn’t even fit in MY humongeous purse it was so ludicrously oversized.
I “borrowed” it to read about an Iranian “terrorist” group some folks in DC are all friendly with. (Guess we don’t negotiate with terrorists except for when we do.) But the WSJ was so overstuffed that I just tossed it, and have yet to go back and read the online version. Is this typical of how paper news products are handled nowadays?
Hope those Iranians who wish to overthrow the (Iranian) government aren’t relying on folks like me for support. Middle America soccer moms are just way too busy with their kids to read paper products of any size very quickly.
December 4th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
No publisher wants to lose the $$ that print ads bring in. If they can do both print and online they make more profit. When print falters so does revenue. It is likely that print newspapers are doomed, but most pubishers lack the vision to move assets online because they’re terrified that this new reality will undecut their bottom line. While it’s to early to call this a death rattle, it surely is one of the spasms the precedes the end.
December 4th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
[...] Here is an excerpt of Jeff Jarvis’s take on WSJ’s facelift, “I’m at the Wall Street Journal’s announcement of its new, narrower size and I can’t quite believe the coverage that lopping off three inches is getting. One reporter for another august business section just said to the reporters for another that they were probably all here checking out the competition. But there are also 10 TV cameras in the back. Maybe it’s the breakfast. [...]
December 5th, 2006 at 12:36 am
You can always count on the media, pr flacks and students to show up whenever there is free food.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:18 am
[...] narrower size and I can’t quite believe the coverage that lopping off three inches is getting. [...]