My morning’s amusement…
I’m offended by USA Today. The context of my emotion is that I became a student journalist shortly after Watergate. Great newspapers at that time looked gray and dull, which my cohort mistook for a sign of seriousness. That’s a silly notion, obviously. Seriousness can and should come in an attractive package.
USA Today was an attempt, among other things, to make a newspaper more visually attractive. I think it failed miserably in that regard. Further, USA Today was an attempt to compete with TV by adopting TV news values, i.e. shorter articles with an emphasis on visuals at the expense of cogent, in-depth reporting. To me, USA Today just screams: Don’t take me seriously! The offense I feel is the detritus of a different age. I simply have to get over it.
Or do I? Erik Wemple speculates that one important reason the Jack Kelley affair received so little press compared to the Jayson Blair affair is that media elites do not read USA Today, the paper of “chain hotels” versus the paper of record.
From what I understand, USA Today was created to fill a niche in advertisers’ media plans. It’s a fact that color advertising sells products better than black-and-white ads, and clients were demanding newspapers add color to their press runs. Color printing presses are more costly, and many newspapers were slow to make the transition until USA Today came along and ate up the market. They did make news more visually attractive. But that wasn’t the goal. They wanted to sell more attractive ad space. And in that regard, they’ve succeeded. As for journalistic integrity, I didn’t even know he was in town.
Do You Take USA Today Seriously?
Rhetorica’s Andrew Cline has trouble with taking USA Today seriously – though he’s not trying to feel that way. It’s as simple as starting your journalism career (or just starting to seriously read a paper) during a time frame when,…
Sixtoe…yes, the move to color certainly had economic justifications as well.
USA Today was an attempt, among other things, to make a newspaper more visually attractive. I think it failed miserably in that regard.
Given the fact that it has forced every newspaper in America except the Wall Street Journal to adopt at least some of its design and “look,” I’d say it succeeded mightily.
Are you saying that the USA Today is *less* visually attractive than ANY major newspaper circa 1980-1985?
Bryan…I’m stating a personal opinion of aesthetics. You are right that USAT has had a “mighty” influence on the design of American newspapers. But is that a good thing? Reasonable people may disagree.
I fail to see it. By any design standard, (most) newspapers today (including the NYT) are more visually attractive today than they were when USA Today came out. If that’s the measure of success, then I’d say that USA Today succeeded on that front. Whatever its effect on actual reporting – I don’t know. I don’t read it unless i’m in a hotel.
It’s almost like USA Today gave other papers the excuse they needed to actually start using color more often, using more white space, different headline treatments, etc.
Bryan…no doubt, there are some attractive newspapers out there. I just don’t think USAT is one of them
It certainly had an influence as you claim. But others have done it much better.
I ask if that influence is a good thing because I think some design concepts are ugly and others detract from seriousness, e.g. the KC Star’s daily dropping of the flag for colorful fluff.
Ahh, but that’s the rub. Newspapers today are in a different media environment. “Seriousness” doesn’t sell newspapers, unfortunately. I suspect you’ll also see far more “pushing the envelope” of design in coming years as the newspaper readership declines steadily.
I agree that some design concepts are ugly. But overall, I think the added use of white space, larger photos, etc. is a good thing. Strictly from a readability standpoint, font choices, leading, column width, etc. have been helpful changes to the newspaper design palette.
But perhaps this would be a good post for its relationship to the rhetoric of the newspaper. How does “window dressing” help or hinder the rhetoric?
Bryan…great question! I’ll “answer” in a post next week. Let’s say Tuesday (I’ll be away on Monday).
I’m all for some of the design changes you mention. I am, however, not a big fan of (too much) color or some of the other changes (e.g. flag dropping) that do argue against seriousness.
If these design changes are such great things for readers, why do circulations keep going down?
I have no hard data–this is simply speculation and I could be spectacularly wrong–but I think it may be 1- the lack of seriousness that USAT-journalism suggests and 2- a dearth of in-depth and truly-connected local coverage that’s the problem with readership. Among other things, of course 
I suspect more of the latter rather than the former. As newspapers have been corporatized, newsrooms have been gutted in favor of wire service reporting on national news and entertainment-style fluff. Which is an arena where local newspapers can’t really compete with TV, national papers or the Internet.
And so the death spiral begins. Rather than recover readership by focusing on local news, papers think they can just add some color and do a redesign to attract a younger audience.
I think good design and good storytelling have to work hand-in-hand to have a product readers will want. There also has to be a willingness to be more open with readers, and challenge some long-held journalistic assumptions about the flow of news.
I await your considered “reply” on Tuesday. Good luck house-hunting. I don’t envy you that.