Recent reports predict the end of print newspapers by 2014: Should newspapers go fully digital to secure their longevity?

No

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by Dorothy Marie Kucera

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Newspapers need digital publishing plus a brand-new improved visual layout style of "magazine-style newspaper" to stay competitive in today's market of busy people who need to find article categories quickly. People should be able to get their local newspaper online for a fee but it is also true that a hard copy is preferred and required for many other readers. There is a better way of providing hard-copy newspapers that might increase circulation. Put yourself in the reader's chair or public transportation vehicle and consider the hindrances to the old-style of large, rag newspaper.

One of the greatest detriments to purchasing the standard style of newspaper is that people are too busy today to spend extra time finding a place to wash off the messy, smudgy ink from rag newspapers. The visual clutter is too hard on eyes and it is cumbersome to flip huge pages to get to the section you want to read. We are getting hundreds of pieces of mail each day-we do not have time to struggle with awkward, large newspapers. We need to move through the news faster and with more efficiency. Eyes are strained with so much reading material in today's "Information Age," so that is another reason to improve the visual layout. Our eyes should not be jumping all over a page of cluttered columns in varying lengths and locations. Searching should not be necessary...we need to know where to go to find certain topics immediately. Thus, the online version of getting news has become popular...the screen is backlit, it is a manageable size, there is nothing to throw out or put in a recycle bin.

Since many of us begin our days by quickly checking our e-mail and online news, that is the best marketing tool medium for modern newspapers-we need to have that option. In order to make it more user-reader friendly, put links on the top toolbar of your newspaper company's Home Page, listing your main divisions of your newspaper: Local News, State News, National and International. You can then use a left sidebar for the subdivisions. List these categories: Alerts, Arts, Cartoons, Classified Ads, Courts & Crime, Entertainment, Events Calendar, Finance, Government, Health, Living and Sports. (Travel would be included under "Living.") This type of visually, highly organized layout could also be incorporated in the hard-copy newspapers.

For both formats, stop the helter-skelter crowding of articles jammed into visually-distracting "boxes" that continue who-knows-where farther back in the newspaper. People need to read or scan quickly, not turn page after page to find where it continues, then search up and down that page to see where the end got squeezed into remaining space. This is one reason why online news has become so popular-it is easy to get to where you are going with a few clicks. However, I have seen some online news pages that hurt my eyes...it is not organized well. They have managed to create even more visual distraction on their pages than hard-copy newspapers! It is not easy to use links, you get lost in the maze. Since you are dealing with a "language" presentation, always remember to organize your links from "General to Specific." It is not a "math and science" approach where you would go from "specific to general."

The biggest reader-friendly improvement for the hard-copy magazine-newspaper should be switching the type of paper you use for the printing presses. Has anyone ever considered utilizing recycled slicker paper that has no messy ink that rubs off on everything it touches? Also, you need to bring the size down to nothing larger than 10 x 13 inches. You will have more readers if they can easily slip it into their briefcases or tote bags. There are so many metropolitan areas where people take public transportation to and from work, that commuters would really appreciate this type of "clean copy" to pass the time during transit and be apprised of the day's news before reaching work. They could open their "newspaper" on a bus, train or in a car pool without it hitting someone else in the face or blocking the view of what is in front of them (for passengers sitting behind their seat)and they could arrive at their destination without ink all over their face or clothing, having forgotten their fingers were smudged earlier when they wiped an eye, brushed their hair off their face, straightened their tie, etc.

For those readers who love the look and feel of things of the past, keeping a personal connection with history and the daily routine as it has always been, there should be certain printing companies left intact who will publish the larger type of rag newspapers that everyone remembers. They may have to specialize in the type of news they print in order to economize. Do consider, though, that the appearance of newspapers have not changed much in many decades if not centuries. I think it is time to catapult into the 21st century. We are too encumbered now with multiple issues in everyday life to be fussing with newspapers that are falling apart, getting everything dirty, taking up a huge amount of space in our homes or garages and recycle bins, etc. Just be certain that your new recycled "magazine-newspaper" is "green" and can be disposed of easily or used as burning material without chemicals making people sick.

One last and major consideration is that of cost to the newspaper printing industry to try to switch paper content and visual layout. Anyone who has toured a newspaper company will remember the large printing presses and the process of getting news from reporters to editors to the typeset to be printed, then eventually onto the trucks. Regarding the printing presses, I am thinking that the "visual clutter" current layout of type set might make it impossible to switch. Then again, perhaps the newspaper presses of today are more modern, able to make such changes with a computer programming modification.

What is ultimately important in the future of how we get our news is that we can trust it. If newspapers would go all digital, it could be manipulated. We will leave it to the journalism industry to help keep all of the concerns in balance. If power goes out, we do not want to be left without any hard copy news at all...so keep your options open. The modus operandi for the future is to stay flexible. Be able to switch back quickly from digital to hard-copy printing presses if needed. Other than that, hasten to provide online news, the whole article and not just those opening clips.

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