A Critique of the DMN Redesign
While the Star-Telegram gives the kids the keys to the Interweb and lets them work blue (to great effect), the Morning News today brings us its version of innovation. The paper unveils its redesign. The slogan for the redesign pretty much says it all: “Easier to read, easier to use.” This morning in our kitchen, a few of us were standing around sharing our thoughts. One of our designers liked the new, colorful section headers in their new font; our creative director didn’t much care for them. Me, I take issue with the body copy. They’ve increased the point size, used a bolder font, and aired out the leading. To my eye, it makes the paper look less serious, like less of a read. It’ll certainly make every story in the paper shorter.
Anyway, so as we were going over these changes, Zac walked in to the kitchen, listened to our critiques for a minute, and then asked, “Do they still have the same columnists?” He really is the master of the one-liner.
Hey, man, listen. I know I’m not a good focus group. I read the paper almost every day because I’m a news junkie. Because it’s my job. Because I need my daily dose of irritainment (see aforementioned columnists). But here’s my two cents: I don’t want my newspaper easier to read. I want it smarter to read, more engaging to read. I actually want it more challenging to read.
And the idea of making it “easier to use” is patently silly. It’s not a universal remote. It’s a newspaper. If the DMN is trying to reach people who are having trouble using a newspaper, they are in worse trouble than I imagined.
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well it looks like they are trying to save ink by using all that white space. maybe they could put small ads there?
of course you should see what my local paper did this past Saturday
go here and scroll down to Extreme Makeover
http://barticles.mytimesdispatch.com/
Easier to hold? WTF?
But really, could it be that all these changes are just the DMN going for the perceived audience of their print product? http://www.ojr.org/ojr/business/1078349998.php
No matter how you design it, a newspaper is to provide full, accurate news coverage in a timely fashion. Did the additional leading prevented the DMN staff from including the name of the store in which the Hispanic kids were accused of shoplifting? They were generous in saying that NorthPark security responded to the call by the store, but I didn’t see any mention of the store that created the misinformation resulting in the embarrassment for both the accused and the NP security. Since the News staff didn’t provide that info, does anyone in the FB Nation know which store is Hispanic-unfriendly?
Much as I hate to admit it, I agree with Tim. I have no desire for my morning paper to be “easier to read.” I want it to have better material, more information, better writing, and everyone once in a while, a take on an issue that gives me pause. The Belo folks already produce a “newspaper lite” for those who don’t care to actually read their news — isn’t that the purpose of Quick? Mark me down as decidedly “anti” the redesign (and whatever unspoken aims are really behind it). I fear Dallas’ only daily is moving toward being the Houston Chronicle or, worse yet, USA Today.
“I don’t want my newspaper easier to read. I want it smarter to read, more engaging to read. I actually want it more challenging to read.
And the idea of making it “easier to use” is patently silly. It’s not a universal remote. It’s a newspaper. If the DMN is trying to reach people who are having trouble using a newspaper, they are in worse trouble than I imagined.”
Mr. Rogers shoots, he scores.
That sums it up perfectly. “News”papers and the idiots running them don’t get. No matter how your parse it, less space means fewer words which means less content … or news, as some of us like to call it.
Newspapers are treating their subscribers like consumers. We’re READERS, dammit.
you folks still subscribe to the DMN? The newspaper is dead.
what’s a newspaper?
What’s this “newspaper” thing of which you speak? You say it doesn’t allow its reader to choose its font? That there is a limited range of columnists? That when it errs, it cannot immediately correct? And it’s made of pieces of tree!?
When, Tim RoDgers? did you devolve into my great-grandfather?
easier for my parrot to read on the bottom of the cage. saves me buying her glasses. she is vain anyway.
Next step: a subscription price increase!
Alfred, I’ve been meaning to tell you this for years: your great-grandmother was lousy in the sack.
I live online as much as the next guy (or almost as much). But I still prefer to do my reading — reading — the old way, with dead trees. And that’s the thing: the newspaper doesn’t seem to want to give me anything to read. What it gives me I guess I could more easily digest online.
If they’d fix that horrendous site.
Where do I scan my cue cat?
I am a news junkie and am very happy that I get to read a pristine, crisp paper every morning. I agree with Tim. However, let’s give some sympathy to the paper people. How many of us actually read a newspaper anymore? They’re trying to appeal to those people who come up with every excuse in the book about why they don’t like the paper. Maybe they feel they will keep the “paper people” and are trying to attract the “non-paper people.” I still have cue cat. I still don’t understand that debacle.
Actually, the News’ motto is “Less for More.”
If this redesign doesn’t work, they’ll just make the newspaper smaller still. And they’ll keep reducing the size until, by God, it’s the size of Quick. But they’ll charge for the News, and then they’ll wonder what’s wrong.
Tin-eared butchers. I believe that’s how you’d describe them.
Tim’s allegory, capped off with “universal remote,” was spot on. As long as BeloNews is controlled by a ‘good old boy’ egomaniac, the financial pressure to reduce and reuse the real news is never going to let up.
As long as the editorial side is populated by leaders who won’t commit actual beliefs to paper because of the egomaniac who is the boss, the opinion side is going to continue to rot from within. And continue to spew forth the same old, same old about why Bush can still succeed if goes back to his roots, why my new religion this year is the bestest around and damn those Muslims, and why Dallas should do A, B and C and we can say so, even though we commute daily from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Lousiana.
So, we’ll always have something sweet to kick around on them in the blogosphere. Just make sure you get one of the sweet deals they do every year for “new subscribers” and you’ll never have to pay any serious coin for white space and wire reports. ‘Cause if you don’t pay, you’ve given up your right to continue to play (with them).
If you’re already a suscriber to a home address, how do you get one of those “new subscriber” deals?
I have to reveal that I continue to buy the DMN. At least I need the comics. I have conditioned my body to “take care of its needs” in the exact amount of time it takes to read my all of my favorites. If I find I need more time, I can always start a Sudoku puzzle.
“We’ve listened and made the type in our stories a little bigger….” Doesn’t that translate further to the newspaper business is hurting big time and in order to save on costs from reporters we haven’t gotten rid of yet, we’ll make the type bigger so we don’t have to run as many stories?
Maybe now since the type is so much bigger and easier to read, particularly while driving, the Dallas City Council should pass a new ordinance that prohibits reading the paper in a school zone….
Hey, lay off the DMN. They made the type larger and the size smaller so I can hold it at arms length to read it better!
I now know exactly how large is the floor of my sweet Gidget Willey’s portable bird feeding cage!
Now all that remains is to select only the most perfect, easier to use tiny bird furniture in the same, festive pastels!
The funniest thing about this is the suggestion that Tim is a news junkie.
The idiots at the paper did this to reduce paper cost. Next thing you know they will make their website narrower to save electricity.
Idiots.
so how does the print S-T compare?
Newspapers are bleeding. This isn’t a surprising move to save money.
At first, I thought the redesign was a superficial, ‘look-at-me’ approach to distract readers from the shrinkage. But a lot of the changes satisfy me (after repeated viewings.)
Stories that interest me are easier to find. Ambiguous headlines annoy the crap out of me.
Although the paper is smaller, it doesn’t mean less news, like some say. Alot of earlier articles ramble on like a “News Topics for Dummies” book. I’ve noticed that some (not all) stories eliminate the fluff and get right to the point.
I don’t love the Dallas News, but I’m going to give them a few months to see if it’s worth the subscription.
A-
Newspapers are not “bleeding.” Their formerly robust margins (30%-ish) are now a healthy 15-20%. More than ever, the papers are at the mercy of their fickle institutional shareholders.
So how do they try to drive margins and readers? “Hey, let’s subtract content and maintain a crappy web site.”
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Sam R, you are far too cruel!
The new format now provides the journalistic space for the Quick’s Lesley Téllez to interview the F!Dluxe’s David Ninh about how to prepare for a fashion show!
Can our own searing local version of the Pentagon Papers not now be far behind?
Emilio
It’s just about like buying the “new and improved” version of a cleaning product or a paper product at the grocery store—the clever new packaging tries to conceal the fact that you are now getting fewer ounces or fewer sheets, i.e. less for your money. The recent “improvements” to the Morning News—page size, font size, bright shiny colors, etc—amount to only one thing: less news. The layoffs over the past few years, resulting in less content and its using more syndicated stories instead of its own reporters, have diminished its product and DMN has repeatedly changed the appearance of the paper to compensate. In the news business, providing less content is rarely (if ever) a good thing, and only made worse by disingenuous attempts to disguise it as “improving” the paper for the reader.
At least they kept AlDia and Quick the same size. Those are the important publications anyway.
No they didn’t. AlDia and Quick’s paper size shrunk too. And if you looked closely, you’d notice the Star Tele did too when they redesigned last year.
Everybody is going to shrink or has already. Newsprint costs went up, so nearly everything printed on it has gone to the smaller size.
As a former newspaper designer who wisely got out a few years ago and found greener pastures, it looks to me like this redesign wasn’t done with traditional newspaper designers and input from news and ad teams.
The marketing team lead this project. The only news design here is, well, there isn’t. It’s all marketing dictated by latest colors, latest typography, latest design. The latest comes and goes quickly. They’ve already dated the design and probably their future.
No design credibility here, just smoke and mirrors to save money.
This redesign was done completely by traditional newspaper designers in the building. There weren’t any fonts added, in fact there were many fonts that were taken away. The body type got larger. We added spacing. We added labels. We put lines in between stories. We did everything we could to make our product easier to read for the people that spend time with us every day.
The colors were updated and used more prominently in the flags and I understand that’s not going to be loved by everyone. If we were going for “design credibility”, it was from the people who read us daily, and we’ve heard a great deal of positive comments from them- at a ratio of about 3 positive for every negative comment. You’re of course entitled to your opinion about smoke and mirrors, but there’s plenty of substance in the changes we’ve made.
The size of the paper is smaller and that certainly saves money, but the other changes were ones readers have been asking us to make and ones that we feel make the paper better.
We weren’t going for the latest. We’re simply trying to make the product better. I appreciate the criticism and discussion here and other places, but I wanted to address assertions that simply weren’t true.
Rob Schneider
Presentation Director
The Dallas Morning News
rschneider@dallasnews.com