Tag Archives: Redesigns
Steiger: Reporters need to adapt
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In a Q&A interview with PR Week about the redesign of the Wall Street Journal, Paul Steiger said that the changes to the paper will continue to force journalists to think about the best format to present a story.
Steiger said, “Back in the late 1990s, we started the relationship with CNBC. There was a real culture shock. We had a lot of reporters say, ‘No way am I going to let my story loose to TV’ or ‘I’m keeping my scoops for the morning.’ That’s over. That is so over.
“Readers understand, reporters and editors understand, that more of their impact is being felt in the 24/7 space. They have a vibrant, growing, profitable Web site to write for. And they’ve embraced it.
“The challenge is not so much keeping them interested and providing new opportunities, it’s adapting the coverage and business model[s] so that we remain a vibrant business enterprise and hopefully become more vibrant.
“The way you do that is by penetrating deeper into the Web. The acquisition of MarketWatch was a big help in doing that, along with organic growth internally. And then making the best use of our print position, which is why when everybody was trying to shy away from print, we made this huge investment to go into Saturday.
“I think this is a great place for reporters now. We still provide the best [daily] platform for long-form journalism, even as we’re offering all kinds of additional opportunities – on TV, on video, online, blogging. All of that stuff is proliferating here all the time. Today, I had three proposals from reporters for new blogs or verticals.”
Read more here.
WSJ publisher Crovitz explains changes
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In a letter addressed to Wall Street Journal readers published in Monday’s paper, publisher Gordon Crovitz explained why the paper will shrink as part of a redesign.
Crovitz stated, “In an age of information overload, you tell us you want more of what the Journal uniquely offers. This includes more interpretation, analysis and context — more focus on what the rush of news truly means. You tell us the Journal already does more of this kind of journalism than any other source, at our best offering what many of you described as knowledge and even wisdom. But at a time when the bare facts of news are widely available during the day online, you count on the Journal the next morning to make sense of the news.
“As Managing Editor Paul Steiger puts it, today perhaps a bit over half of our news space is devoted to exclusive, differentiated information and the rest to essentially what happened the day before. Our goal is to move to 80% exclusive news, with 20% making sure you’re aware of the key developments of the previous day. Journal reporters and editors serve a community of interest — business executives and other leaders with similar concerns — and look forward to devoting more time and space to keeping you ahead of the news that’s essential to you. Expect to see more forward-leaning coverage, with headlines featuring predictive and explanatory words like ‘will’ and ‘means’ and ‘why.’
“We’ll launch a new feature, ‘Today’s Agenda,’ that will guide you to what the news will mean. This feature identifies news to be reported later in the day, such as economic indicators or corporate earnings, and handicaps the meaning to markets and businesses. We’ll also help you sort through information overload with a new daily feature, ‘Informed Reader,’ that identifies relevant insights from other news sources, beyond the Journal (and in the process perhaps saving you from having to go elsewhere for your information).
“In the Money & Investing section, we’ll deliver more value-added analysis of financial data. We’ll also double the number of pages devoted to leisure and arts in the Personal Journal section, giving our critics more opportunity as arbiters of taste and upholders of quality.”
Read more here.
WSJ reporters "alarmed" about redesign
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The New York Times’ Katherine Seelye has a look at the redesigned Wall Street Journal set to debut Jan. 2 in Monday’s paper, but the most interesting part of her reporting is her sentence that states, “The move has alarmed some journalists there.”
Seelye wrote, “On the front page, the column of news that runs down the left side will be gone. This thrusts the shaded, double-column ‘What’s News’ summary columns, the best-read part of the paper, into even greater prominence. With the front page already displaying advertising, the redesigned version will have room to begin only three or four articles.
“Inside the paper, items that Journal editors deem ‘yesterday’s news’ will be condensed into brief text bits and graphics. Articles will include summary boxes.
“L. Gordon Crovitz, publisher of The Journal and executive vice president of Dow Jones, which owns The Journal and smaller publications, said the changes were intended to help the time-pressed reader move faster. He said the print paper would offer more explanatory news while the Web site would break news aggressively, and between the two he hoped to keep readers all day long.”
Seelye later added, “Those who are less happy with the change include some employees. ‘People at The Journal are very concerned about quality,’ said E. S. Browning, a reporter who covers the financial markets and is chairman of the union bargaining committee that represents Journal employees.
“’Lopping a column off the paper is not a quality move,’ he said. ‘It will be harder to do long-form journalism when there is less space on Page One.’”
Read more here.
New CNBC web site is live
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As of 10:20 p.m. Sunday, the new CNBC site has gone live. The business news cable network had said that it would officially launch on Dec. 4, splitting itself from MSN Money, where it had posted news and information for the past six months.
The network is planning a huge day on Monday to attract site visits. CNBC’s Steve Liesman will have an exclusive interview on the web site with Chicago Federal Reserve Bank president Michael Moskow on Monday at 9:01 a.m. EST. At noon, Maria Bartiromo will interview Goldman Sachs market strategist Abby Joseph Cohen on the web site.
Throughout the day there will be “Market in a Minute” video broadcasts on the site. Bartiromo will anchor the first one at 9 a.m.
The web site plans to air between three and eight hours of live programming daily, primarily covering events that could move markets. The site also has more than 15,000 videos of business and financial leaders available in a database, and will add 75 new videos each day.
In addition, there are seven blogs on the site being written by CNBC reporters. Among them are “Media Money” by Julia Boorstin, who came over earlier this year from Fortune, and a sports business blog written by Darren Rovell, formerly with ESPN.com. Boorstin’s blog, as well as the “Realty Check” with Diana Olick, only have two posts, while Rovell’s blog has at least a dozen posts from the past week, and some good stories.
The site also has a list of people who will be appearing on the network’s various TV shows, from “Squawk Box” to “Power Lunch” and “Street Signs.” The shows will have also their own blogs that will be updated daily.
CNBC President Mark Hoffman stated on the home page: “The extraordinary team at CNBC has created a Web site that combines all of the journalistic and production assets you have relied on for years on CNBC-TV. We’ll be gathering financial news from around the world with the latest in online technology to deliver a truly groundbreaking web experience.
“As you explore cnbc.com you will discover aggressive breaking business news coverage, in-depth analysis, and exceptional investment tools which you can personalize to best serve your needs. In addition–cnbc.com has the most extensive business video in web history, live video programming, a substantial list of topical blogs from CNBC’s anchors and reporters, and much more.
“Thank you for taking a look at the new cnbc.com. We hope you’ll be with us often on-air and online.”
First impressions: The site will be giving TheStreet.com, MarketWatch and others a run for their money. The site is nicely laid out with a good color scheme. And I like the ticker.
Wall Street Journal to unveil redesign on Monday
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The Wall Street Journal is expected to unveil changes to its design at a press conference in New York on Monday, according to an Associated Press story.
The AP story stated, “Robert Christie, a spokesman for Dow Jones & Co., which publishes the Journal, described several of the features generally but declined to provide fuller details ahead of the announcement.” Along with a size reduction equivalent to about one column, the WSJ will add more color and graphical elements, including more photos. It also will have fewer stories jump inside the paper.
The story later noted that the paper can’t be printed in Hawaii because of its current wider design than most other newspapers.
The AP story also stated, “Scott Daly, who plans and purchases advertising for Dentsu America, a subsidiary of Dentsu Inc., a major Japanese advertising company, said mock-ups of the new design he had seen suggested that it was not as dramatic a change as the Journal went through four years ago.
“‘It still felt like the quality Wall Street Journal that I’m used to, just more in the USA Today size,’ Daly said. ‘From a reader’s perspective, it is more manageable.’
“Dale Travis, who manages newspaper advertising buying for OMD Worldwide, a unit of Omnicom Group Inc., said he didn’t think the smaller format and design changes would compromise the newspaper’s reputation.”
Read more here.
Fresno paper removes stock indicators from front page, and hears about it
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The Fresno Bee recently took away the major stock market indicators on the front page of its business section, reasoning that the same information was contained inside the paper on the stock pages.
Big mistake. Readers complained.
Kris Eldred, assistant managing editor, wrote, “One change was to remove the stock indicators — the red and green arrows — to allow for a less stilted, or pre-planned, layout. We reasoned that since the same information is listed daily at the top of Page C4, it wouldn’t be missed on Page C1.
“We were wrong about our readers’ reaction.
“In hindsight, we could have better prepared our readers for the change and better informed them where to find the information they have come to appreciate.
“At the same time, we could have done a better job of letting our readers know what they will get in exchange: Better organized and more visually compelling pages that we hope will continue to appeal to long-time readers, as well as draw new readers to the interesting and relevant stories we have in the Business section.”
Read more here.
Georgia paper moves biz section
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The Walton Tribune, which serves a community outside of Atlanta, has moved publishing its business section from Sunday to Wednesday, Patrick Graham writes on today’s paper.
Graham stated, “We have moved the Business section from Sunday to Wednesday so we can continue to provide our readers with local features and columns about topics of interest and importance to the local business community.
“Moving the Business section to Wednesday has, unfortunately, caused us to de-emphasize and sometimes eliminate our Food section on Wednesdays, as we have with today’s edition. Rest assured, however, we will continue to provide this new feature in some capacity so our readers can get the very latest from food columnist extraordinaire, Miss Amelia Adams, as well as a recipe with a twist that can be enjoyed for dinner or on a special occasion.
“When we went to the new format you see before you in September, we wanted to give our readers something special and different without taking away any of the staples of the paper you have enjoyed for years, like local news, opinions and sports. I believe we have accomplished this important mission, and we will continue to do so moving forward.”
Read more here. Better the Food section than Business, right?
WSJ weekend draws more readers and ads
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MediaWeek takes a look at the Saturday edition of The Wall Street Journal more than one year after its launch and noted that the extra issue has added more readers to the publication as well as more advertisers.
Lucia Moses wrote, “More than a year after its Sept. 17, 2005 debut, publisher Gordon Crovitz insists the naysayers are wrong. He said 1,500 advertisers have used the section, including 900 that are new to the paper. Crovitz added that two-thirds of the revenue is incremental to the paper, and was a major contributor to the Journal’s 10.3 percent and 9.1 percent gains in ad revenue and ad volume, respectively, through the first nine months of the year.
“In addition to exposing the paper to a wider audience through pass-along to family members, Crovitz said, the weekend Journal also has helped boost weekend traffic to the Journal online. Since the section launched, weekend traffic and page views have risen 20 and 30 percent, respectively, Crovitz said.
“Ever since its financial and technology advertising was clobbered by the dot-com bust, the Journal has sought to attract more women readers and round out its ad base with more business-to-consumer advertising. The Weekend Edition has built on those efforts: More than 60 percent of its advertising is B-to-C. New clients include Land’s End, Visa Signature, Nivea and Club Med. Some, including Kiwi and Home Depot, have added Monday-Friday buys after advertising in Weekend Edition.”
Read more here.
Idaho Biz Review revamps web site
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The Idaho Business Review, a weekly business publication based in Boise, has revamped its web site to include more stories.
Managing editor John Foster says on his blog, “We’ve expanded the number of Idaho Business News stories appearing on the main page, and we’ve added a blurb underneath each headline to give you a better idea of what’s in the story.”
On another post, Foster said, “Our new site features breaking news stories, updated throughout the day every day of the work week. We also have a blog (what you’re reading now) about Idaho business and politics.
“But, most important, the site is designed to be useful for you. Over the last few months we talked with many of you about the Internet functions you need from us. We listened.
“First off, this site is free. No user name or password to enter — ever. We may ask for your E-mail address if you care to receive regular updates, but you now have access to everything on the site – archives included – without registration.
“Second, our site is easier to search. The new search engine will help you better crawl our site to research Idaho companies and businesspeople.”
Read more here. The new site launched Tuesday. The publication is owned by Dolan Media, which also owns the Daily Journal of Commerce in Portland, Ore., and Finance and Commerce in Minneapolis.
More than 2,600 readers complain about cut stock listings
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Deborah Howell, the ombudsman for the Washington Post, noted in her Saturday column that more than 2,600 “vociferous” readers complained about the decision by the paper to cut its stock listings this week.
Howell wrote, “The Post may be the last big newspaper to be doing this; most did so years ago. And most stockholders get listings online. The Post, unlike a lot of other newspapers, is offering to restore some stocks at readers’ requests and has left room for at least 200 additions.
“Jill Dutt, assistant managing editor for financial news, said, ‘Even with the cuts, we still publish more price/trading information for individual stocks and mutual funds than does the New York Times or the Financial Times. We will keep for now our full listings in Sunday Business. But trimming there also is not off the table. I considered and rejected going the way that some newspapers have gone: eliminating trading data for all but the 100 largest stocks or the 100 local stocks and instead publishing only trends and summaries of market activities overall. I see news value in publishing as many daily price change quotes as we can.’ Dutt will e-mail anyone who writes to stocks@washpost.com a short guide to tracking their investment portfolios through washingtonpost.com.
“That didn’t satisfy a reader from Olney, who told Dutt in a washingtonpost.com chat: ‘For me and for so many other Washington Post customers, Nov. 14, 2006, is the day that The Washington Post died. What
numbskull thought that to save newsprint costs, it would be wise to perform a slash and burn edit of the stock tables. In this new reduced format, they are useless.’
“Edward Wasserman, Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University, disagrees: ‘I’ve always viewed stock tables as one of the more dubious things that newspapers offer. They really are little more than promotional material for stockbrokers. . . . Plus, they’re of interest to only a fraction of the readership, and they keep alive the fiction that the stock market is a surrogate for the economy. . . . I’ll be glad to see the end of all printed stock tables.’”
Read more here.