THE "READING WITHOUT READING" NEWSPAPER TREND: FROM COWS TO FILET MIGNONS

The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) reports that 57 million Americans visit newspaper websites for an average of 1.37 minutes a day.

Well, four years ago, the average reader of an US print newspaper devoted 20 minutes to "reading" the daily newspaper.

Today this figure is 10 minutes.

If this is the case, US is becoming an on-and-off line newspaper market with "Reading without Reading", following the same trend presented in the recent bestseller, The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell.

If in 10 minutes you can just "look at" and not "read" a newspaper, in 1.37 minutes you will not be able to get either too much information on any news web site.

Newspapers are now literary written for today's time-starved audiences, and the same happens with the design of our web sites.

Do we need a more powerpoint-oriented newspapers?

Do we need more briefings?

Yes.

But to write short and meaningful stories takes more time and effort than to write in the traditional literay style.

We believe that a second generation of "quick-read-formats" is needed.

Not fat.

Not McPapers.

But real beef.

The Week in the UK, the New York magazine and The New York Times Week in Review in the USA, or Expresso in Portugal, and a few other media, are experimenting with these new formats.

When you go to a restaurant and you order a filet mignon, you don't expect to get the hole cow.

Many newspapers deliver too many "cows" and only a few "filet mignons."

Readers, too, need and ask for "more in less."

Remember, this is the iPod generation.

What a challenge!