WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

Powerful photo.

Strong picture editing.

Excellent copy.

What’s next approach.

Brilliant!

CBS’ s David Letterman asks Obama about racism and he knockouts the question with the best line of the day:

I was black before the election.

Brilliant!

New leaking sources, and an old reporter, reporting:

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict “will likely result in failure,” according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”

His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team.

Afghanistan?

Another Vietnam.

With the generals playing the same song:

“While the situation is serious, success is still achievable.”

Give me a break!

President Obama, a Blackberry addict that, I am sorry “media terminators“, reads print newspapers and thinks that good journalism is “critical to the health of our democracy”:

“I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding,”

(Via http: Huffingtonpost)

Let me start a new collection of fantastic and dramatic quotes from some of the most vocal “media terminators” of the world.

And, please, send me suggestions.

Many of them they must not have any real media experience.

So, like your mother used to say:

“If you don’t play well, at least play loud!”

So, they are very funny.

Read what they say, and do the opposite.

This first is from Denmark:

Your job is not making old business models work in the new world. It’s to destroy them, so that you can make new ones.

Oh, boy!

Yesterday, LIBERATION published the second issue of Le Mag.

This is the new weekend section that includes a terrific mix of log stories and smart short ones.

INNOVATION’s Javier Errea project for Le Mag is working very well.

See a sample of the brilliant content and design.

Unique visitors in August 2009

Google : 148 million. UP.

Yahoo!: 239 million. DOWN.

Facebook: 128 million. DOWN.

eBay: 76 million. UP.

MySpace: 55 million. DOWN.

cnn.com: 29 million. DOWN.

Twitter: 23 million. UP.

nytimes.com: 16 million. UP.

Beautiful pictures from a sad La Habana.

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, a Cuban blogger captures in a frenzy mood the daily life of a dying city.

The End.

From Reporters Without Borders:

Two bloggers, Luis Felipe González Rojas and Yosvany Anzardo Hernández, were arrested and beaten by police in the eastern city of Holguín on 10 September and their computers were confiscated.

González was released after four hours but Anzardo is still being held.

His detention brings the number of detained journalists in Cuba to 26.

Read here an amazing report about blogging in Cuba.

And a fact:

An hour of Internet use at hotels and cybercafes can cost 160 pesos (US$6), about one-third of a Cuban’s monthly salary.

(Picture by Reuters/Claudia Daut)

INNOVATION’s Pablo Ramírez is working this week in LIBERATION with their graphics team.

Today the newspaper has this double spread that presents in a very visual way the results of an European survey.

This is great stuff, simple icons but rich information and good use of the word clouds.

Yesterday they had another excellent visual double spread.

Well done!