WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

The Washington Post Print Paper ‘Probably’ Dead in 10 Years.

Well, it seems that Tom Brokaw wants to join the “wrong predictions club.”

Welcome to the club of Ted Turner, Bill Gates and other famous predictors who have said “in five, ten years … you will be dead.”

Dead?

Really?

Perhaps we will see the end of the evening TV news programs before print newspaper die.

So, what we need, Mr. Brokaw, is not silly announcements about our coming death, but serious help and suggestions about how to make the transition from print to digital.

And how to migrate toward quality digital journalism.

Our business is not, and never has been, to print paper, but to find, edit, present and deliver the news.

But what will never die is the demand for quality news.

On print.

On air.

Online.

All the time.

Everywhere.

Newspaper companies know best.

Our future is multimedia.

The ones that will die (for sure) are the mono-media print companies.

AP reports:

Many Spaniards were so amused when their king told Venezuela’s president to “shut up” they want to hear the words every time their phone rings.mobile phone ringtone featuring the phrase “Por que no te callas?” or “Why don’t you shut up?”

That’s what King Juan Carlos told Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during a heated confrontation at a summit in Chile last week.

The ringtone is thought to have generated around $2.2 million for the companies selling it, El Pais said.

T-shirts and mugs featuring the words are also becoming a profitable business, and videos of the confrontation have been a hit on the YouTube Web site…

“The king said what Venezuelans have wanted to say to Chavez’s face for a long time,” said Jenny Romero, 21, a student…

The spat last week began when Chavez repeatedly called former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar a “fascist.”

Spain‘s current prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, asked Chavez to be more diplomatic and show respect for other leaders.

As Chavez repeatedly tried to interrupt, King Juan Carlos leaned forward and said: “Why don’t you shut up?”

The instant, viral, political marketing popularity of King Juan Carlos comes when the monarch’s role was questioned inside of Spain.

This politically incorrect expression has made the King into a popular figure inside and outside his country.

He confronted the clown like a circus ring’s master.

Well done!

The New York Times Sunday Magazine includes this interesting credit today:

Interview conducted, condensed and edited by Deborah Solomon.

Well, condensing must be part of the editing job.

Big news from the BBC.

Newsroom integration.

Period.

Peter Horrocks, head of the BBC Newsroom, explains:

“Today is a very big day for BBC News which has now been re-organised in a fully multimedia fashion.

As the head of the new multimedia newsroom that is responsible for our core output on web, TV and radio, I want to know about our audiences’ preferences in the world of multi-platform news.

I hope you agree, if you use our services on a number of platforms, that the BBC has a generally strong reputation in all media.

But up until today the editorial decisions have been taken separately in three different departments – Radio News, News Interactive and TV News.

Now those proud departments are no more.

Instead we have a new system that allows the great strengths of each of our editorial areas to create an even stronger editorial proposition.

We have re-organised into two main departments responsible for our audience-facing services:

• The multimedia newsroom comprises the BBC News website, the radio summaries and bulletins (except for Radio 1), BBC World Service news, BBC News 24, BBC World, BBC Breakfast and the bulletins on BBC One at 1, 6 and 10, among others.

• The multimedia programmes departments contains Five Live, the Today programme, World at One, Newsbeat, Newshour, Newsnight, Panorama, the Andrew Marr Show, Hardtalk and a wide range of other diverse programmes.

This new structure will help us to be more efficient and so save money to invest in improvements to BBC News.

We will be putting more into on-demand news – for instance developing content for new platforms such as mobile and IPTV; increasing personalisation and providing purpose-made audio/video for the web.

The new organisation also allows for our journalism to be used more dynamically across our three main existing platforms – web, radio and TV.

But I’d like to know how far we should go with this.

So for web users such as you I’d like to know if you mainly look to BBC News for an in-depth approach on the day’s most significant stories, or do you value more diversity in the range of subjects we cover?

If we drive our stories more across platforms you will see greater consistency within BBC News – with similar editorial judgments being made across different services.

We could concentrate resources on developing the most significant and original stories in greater depth.

However the downside could be a narrowing of the range of stories we cover, with less coverage that is distinctive and tailored for each medium.

Of course, I’m painting a somewhat polarised view of the strategic choices available to us.

In reality we will choose a balance between these two extremes.

But it would be helpful to know your broad preference– should we move in a more coherent or a more diversified direction in our core news?

For thousands of journalists in BBC News, today is the start of one of the biggest changes we have ever been through.

Many of the people who bring you the news are uncertain of their own futures, but I know that all of us are determined to improve further the service we bring to you.

BBC News wants to be the most successful multimedia news operation in the world – competing with and excelling against the best newspapers, broadcasters and news aggregators on the globe.

The list of the 2007 winners will be published on November 21, at 11:59 pm (one minute before midnight), German time.

This will be the 9th edition of the competition.

Almost 300 European newspapers are represented each year in a contest that values not only design but also the editorial concept.

Last year, INNOVATION won the European Newspaper Award as the best-designed weekly newspaper of 2006 with Expresso of Portugal.

Sad words from the late Norman Mailer:

“Newsrooms these days all sound like you’re in a monastery.

All the computers are so silent.

I miss the old days.

Lots of journalism writing is bad because the pressure of being a good writer is not the first talent you need to be a good journalist.

The first talent you need is the emotional readiness to introduce yourself to strangers and pick their brains.”

And he didn’t know that now in many newsrooms journalists don’t even speak to each other, they e-mail instead!

You will not change newspapers if you don’t change newsrooms.

You will not improve newspapers if you don’t change the workflow.

You will not have better newspapers if you don’t have better newsrooms.

No comment.

I asked INNOVATION Director Thomaz Souto Correa about the ASME winners and these are his remarks:

The best cover of the year is really … the best cover of the year: New Yorker, September 11.

It is a double cover, and – in my view – has to be shown in two steps.

First, the reader sees the white cover, with the walker suspended in the air.

When you open the magazine, you see a second cover, where the reader sees ground zero

down below.

It’s brilliant and innovative.

The second best cover, in my opinion, is Time’s cover with the elephant going away.

It’s the winner in the “best concept cover,” and it’s also brilliant and innovative.

Creativity has to be reinforced, because it is in a very low moment…

Thomaz Souto Correa was the executive vice president of Editora Abril and past president of the International Federation of the Periodical Press (FIPP), and now is working with Juan Cano and Guillermo Nagore on the first Innovations in Magazines Global Report.

The IHT reports:

The leading Italian financial newspaper, Il Sole 24 Ore (345,000 copies a day), is going to sell a third of the company to the public this month.

The newspaper owner, the Italian employers’ lobby Confindustria, wants to raise as much as €300 million, or $440 million, in the share offering.

Well, first it was Reuters.

Then Dow Jones and Les Echos.

And now the largest European financial newspaper.

What about the instant success of the new Fox Business TV?

The financial news boom continues.

INNOVATION sees more deals of this kind in the near future.

Financial newspapers have a lot of potential and synergies in the new online media landscape.

Murdoch is not stupid.

Il Sole 24 Ore is a great newspaper.

(Picture of the newsroom by Dutch Schultz)

From AP:

In central London, excited shoppers flooded Apple’s largest store for the gadget’s 6 p.m. launch. The first buyer out of the store was 20-year-old architecture student Tom Jasinski, who said he had been waiting outside for 26 hours.

“It was worth the wait,” Jasinski said.

Yes Tom, it is great!