WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

Financial Times reports:

Many of you now my mantra since the 1970′s:

The media display of the future will be the “rubber paper”

In this amazing video, “A Day Made of Glass”, Corning presents a not so futuristic way of life because “touch screens” are here right now.

But the future will a more flexible and safe material or perhaps the “rubber glass”

Watch here how this surfaces will evolve making possible INNOVATION’s “newsslate”.

In the picture, the Museum of Glass

(Thanks to INNOVATION’s Pedro Monteiro)

Alfonso Nieto died yesterday in Pamplona (Spain) but his legacy as a person, friend,  writer, thinker, mentor and leader will last for many years.

He was the absolute force behind the development of Journalism education in Spanish universities.

During his time as president of the University of Navarre we founded INNOVATION.

We learned from him many lessons and one of them was that “nothing is more practical than a good theory.”

Alfonso Nieto was a close friend of the late Leo Bogart, a founding director of INNOVATION.

Like Leo, he was a man of good manners, many friends, sharp mind and highly educated.

Both loved books and libraries.

And both loved newspapers.

But both were very critical about poor media business management.

Without credibility, values and compelling service to readers, advertisers, audiences and communities, press and media were “cathedrals without soul”.

Alfonso Nieto was  a pioneer in news media management education.

He saw very early, in the 1980′s, the big role and future of free newspapers and wrote a seminal book on this matter.

When I went to New York’s Columbia Journalism School as a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in 1978, his frequent letters to me during that year were always inspirational, challenging and really friendly.

A few months ago I got in the UK his last one, saying that he missed the Hay-on-Wye bookshelves!

They too, and all of us.

Don Alfonso, we will miss you very much.

From our man in Palo Alto:

 ”Everyone knows mobile is not just the future, it’s today”

Read here his excellent analysis about Facebook’s IPO: ” Facebook has become financial giant, but not an invincible one”

The first ever “Guardian Open Weekend” is a fantastic idea.

When many newspapers are in the “brick to click” mood, The Guardian Open Weekend extravagance is a very much needed “click to brick” marketing strategy.

INNOVATION‘s Javier Ramirez is a well known expert in this field and has been telling our clients around the world about the importance of this kind of initiatives, specially now that “virtual and digital relationships” are so “politically correct” in the media business.

The Guardian editor’s Alan Rusbridger writes today:

“… we are opening our doors -hosting a weekend at the end of March for a festival of idras, innovation and entertainment… We are looking to welcome thousands of readers to take part in the weekend of 24-25 March for an extraordinary mix of debates, talks, workshops, music, comedy, poetry, food and fun…A newspaper in 2011 is more than words printed on paper…The Guardian has no proprietor. Owned by the Scott Trust since 1936, it has been absolutely independent for more than 190 years, its main relationship always with its readers… The journey the Guardian is on is an open one…”

My talk: welcome to real people experiences, personal relationships marketing, real readers in real places. That’s the great advantage of any newspaper or media company with “soul” and loyal readers and advertisers. A new trend that has fantastic cases like the ones lead by The Times of India or the Toronto’s Globe and Mail.

The Mail Online reports:

“The Advertising Standards Authority is banning the advert, ruling that the image of Miss Weisz, pictured, ‘misleadingly exaggerated’ the performance of the product. Last year L’Oreal adverts featuring Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington were also banned for being misleading.”

My take: airbrushing reality is rocketing not just in advertising but in photojournalism. So readers and consumers become more and more skeptical about ads and news pictures because we trade reality for aesthetics: when only beauty matters, truth and credibility die.

Tom Curley, retiring Associated Press CEO in a recent interview:

“The market for news traditionally defined is growing, it’s stronger than ever, there are more people engaged with news more times a day and in more countries than ever before. The overall market is strong. The challenge is the revenue side and how to raise revenues. There’s obviously a shifting taking place. Some of that shift has involved sending money from traditional media to web players so we all have to figure out what relevance means for the news world.”

My take: news-wire services like Associated Press are excellent platforms to learn how to integrate multimedia newsrooms, and some of the best places to produce high quality news and analytic reliable content.

Great news:

Helen Gurley Brown, who edited Cosmopolitan for 31 years, gave $30 million on behalf of her late husband David, a movie and musical producer who attended Columbia and Stanford universities.

Helen Gurley Brown, will be 90 in February, and was editor of Cosmopolitan from 1965 to 1996,  a magazine with 64 editions, in 35 languages and more than 80 countries.

David Brown, along with Richard Zanuck and Steven Spielberg produced such classic American films as “Driving Miss Daisy,” “The Verdict” and “Jaws”

My take: The “David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation” is a fantastic idea. Stanford will bring the technology and Columbia the media tradition. In the past, a media school will have joint a business school in this kind of programs, but now, more and more, technology is the new media business model.

(David and Helen Gurley Brown in 1984. Photo/Hearst.)

The death of LA TRIBUNE in Paris shows that full color, size or design will not solve the problems of newspapers.

LA TRIBUNE is firing two thirds of a very small newsroom with 77 journalists, and now wants to become a printed weekly plus a daily news website, all done with less than 30 journalists.

Good luck!

More and more, bad newspapers with bad managers, no advertising and a few readers, are becoming “digital papers”… when, in reality, they were dead on print like they will be dead online.

Newspaper need more than cosmetic solutions.

You cannot change a paper just adding more color, more graphics or playing with the format.

Newspapers need more and better Journalism, more and better journalists, and more and better managers, on print and on line.

Nor less.

If not, any solution is just putting lipstick-on-a-pig.

That’s all folks!