They are big competitors in the Spanish newspaper market.

But last Sunday they reacted with the same thinking, the same news agenda, the same picture and the same design.

Welcome to the clone journalism club!

UPDATE: Well, Nacho said that I was cloning his blog, and he is right and deserves the credit.

I agree with many disappointed readers of El Pais.

I don’t like its last redesign.

At all.

The first design by Reinhard Gade and Julio Alonso was almost perfect.

Since then, all the changes have been just cosmetic.

El Pais, like many newspapers, doesn’t need to change the design, but the content.

The newsroom management.

The news format.

The news stategy.

To attract new and younger readers.

Young readers don’t buy newspapers for the design.

But for the content.

… and, yes, for the nice free watches (hopefully they work well).

I am in Madrid.

My hotel is in the centric Gran Via.

Three newsstands around 6 PM:

Two or three El Pais, El Mundo and ABC at each of them.

And 20-25 Publicos.

The three vendors agree:

We sell one Publico for each El Pais.

Not very good news for the new national Spanish newspaper.

I don’t know about Publico’s business plan, but …

If this trend is not reversed in a dramatic way, the market has had the last word right now.

Is Publico a dead body?

The rack of newspapers was almost empty.

It was 9 pm.

No La Vanguardia.

No El Periodico.

Two Avui.

No El Mundo.

No El Pais.

No ABC.

Three La Razon.

Twenty Publico!

Publico is the new national newspaper launched a few days ago following a massive free-DVD campaign.

So, the “testing” is over.

And if this rack says something, it is that they are printing a lot of copies, but selling very few.

The cover price is just 0.50 euros ($0.70) against the one euro for the competitors.

I asked the newsstand vendor about Publico.

His reaction: “The free paper, you mean?”

Well, it’s not a free paper I said.

“Si, pero parece un gratuito” (Yes, but it looks like a free one)

The comment is quite serious.

This was the same reaction that many readers of El Periodico had after this kind of design a few years ago (too much color, too many boxes, too many short stories…)

El Periodico lost more than 30,000 copies and La Vanguardia has been the clear leading paper in Barcelona since then.

Will Publico be another Pagina 12 of Buenos Aires, Liberation in Paris or The Independent in London?

A viewspaper for a minority?

A non-profit newspaper?

Publico and its young and combative newsroom deserve a better future.

During a recent roundtable about the future of newspapers:

“The internet will save Journalism.”

-Javier Moreno, editor, El Pais, Madrid, Spain.

Amen.

Jesus de Polanco died Saturday at the age of 77.

Polanco, the billionaire chairman of the Spanish media conglomerate Grupo PRISA, co-founded El Pais and founded Grupo PRISA, which also owns radio and TV stations and publishing companies.

Grupo PRISA is the largest media company in the Spanish-speaking world.

El Pais, launched in 1976, following Franco’s 1975 death, became Spain’s most-read newspaper as the country returned to democracy.

It remains its top-selling daily.

He was the most powerful newspaper publisher in Spain.

I met him twice in my life:

The first time in Barcelona during an international seminar organized by INNOVATION.

It was in the early 90′s, and he was reluctant to accept that newspapers needed to be full-color products.

The second time in Madrid in his office at the Santillana Foundation near the Ritz hotel.

I went to see him with my friend Jayme Sirotsky, the first Latin American president of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN)

We had a very long conversation.

During these two hours, alone with Mr. Polanco, I found that:

1. He loved books. He was literally surrounded by bookshelfs.

2. He loved Latin America. He knew very well who was who in Latin America.

INNOVATION was the first company hired by PRISA to do editorial consulting for the Group.

From the sports pages of El Pais in Madrid, Spain.

El Pais is going to be redesigned.

Why?

As you know, the launch of the new design of The Virginian-Pilot was done during the Sail Virginia celebration.

The sail event, running June 7 to 11, featured a fleet of more than 50 tall ships, military and character vessels from the United States, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands and Uruguay.

This morning I went to see the blessing of the Sail Virginia fleet.

Their departure caps a six-day event, Norfolk’s contribution to celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the English landing at Jamestown.

I was able to take some pictures of the Capitan Miranda, a 205-foot staysail schooner that is the sail training vessel of Uruguay’s navy.

Built in 1930 in Spain, it originally served as a hydrographic vessel.

In 1978, it was rededicated as a sail vessel for the Uruguayan navy, teaching newly graduated midshipmen to apply the knowledge acquired at the Naval Academy.

The ship is named in honor of Capt. Francisco P. Miranda (1869-1925), a Uruguayan naval officer who became his country’s navy secretary.

The ship made me think about this small but great country.

INNOVATION has great friends in Uruguay, among them Daniel Scheck, the driving-force behind El Pais of Montevideo.

More than 20 yerars ago, Ricardo Peirano, now publisher of El Observador, and Francisco Rodriguez Folle director of Research, introduced INNOVATION to him.

Daniel had a serious stroke more than two years ago and a few months after I went to Montevideo just to chat with him, his wife, Chocha, and Carola, his daughter and a former student of mine, and thank him because he was one of our first clients in Latin America, and a family friend forever.

Great memories from Uruguay thanks to this beautiful ship and happy sailors.

Well… The Capitan Miranda left after the German barque Gorch Fock, the biggest tall ship at Sail Virginia 2007.

The steel-hulled ship is 266 feet long, without the bowsprit, and 40 feet wide.

More than 11,000 young German sailors have been tested in its rigging since it was built in 1958.

It is named after a German nautical writer, Johann Kinau, who wrote sea stories under the pseudonym ”Gorch Fock.”

He died at sea aboard the cruiser Weisbaden, which was sunk during World War I at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916.

This short video shows its departure from Norfolk under the traditional Godspeed!

Last week, Time Warner Chairman-CEO Richard D. Parsons, who told a media conference audience in London:

“I’m going to say something I shouldn’t say.

I worry about CNN more now than I do about CNN.com.”

Well…

Let me say in the same way that:

I worry about The New York Times more now than I do about nytimes.com

I worry about The Guardian more now than I do about guardia.co.uk

I worry about El Pais more now than I do about elpais.es

I worry about The Asahi Shimbun more now than I do about asahi.com

I worry about USA Today more now than I do about usatoday.com

I worry about La Repubblica more now than I do about repubblica.it

I worry about The Wall Street Journal more now than I do about online.wsj.com

I worry about Clarin more now than I do about clarin.com

I worry about Die Welt more now than I do about welt.de

I worry about El Mundo more now than I do about elmundo.es

I worry about The Sidney Morning Herald more now than I do about smh.com.au

I worry about Reforma more now than I do about reforma.com

I worry about the Financial Times more now than I do about ft.com

I worry about O Globo more now than I do about oglobo.globo.com

I worry about Le Figaro more now than I do about lefigaro.fr

I worry about El Mercurio more now than I do about emol.com

I worry about Il Corriere della Sera more now than I do about corriere.it

I worry about El Tiempo more now than I do about eltiempo.com

I worry about the Dagens Nyheter more now than I do about dn.se

I worry about the South China Morning Post more now than I do about scmp.com

I worry about Zero Hora more now than I do about clicrbs.com.br

I worry about the Kleine Zeitung more now than I do about kleinezeitung.at

I worry about The Globe and Mail more now than I do about theglobeandmail.com

I worry about El Nuevo Dia more now than I do about endi.com

I worry about Argumenti i Fakti more now than I do about aif.ru

I worry about Helsingin Sanomat more now than I do about hs.fi

I worry about Segodnya more now than I do about segodnya.au

I worry about 24 Heures more now than I do about 24heures.ch

I worry about Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung more now than I do about faz.net

I worry about Gazeta Wyborcza more now than I do about gazetawyborcza.pl

It is a national 50-day advertising campaign.

Started today.

El Pais, El Mundo and Expansion published a smaller version of the same ad.

In La Vanguardia, ABC, El Periodico and other newspapers, the ACCIONA ads were bigger.

ACCIONA is a Spanish company investing and doing business in the green energy sector.

The ad today was a celebration of World Environment Day.

Using newsprint!