WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

Mario García, the well known Cuban American newspaper designer, writes in his blog after a review on how the international press has done presenting the news from Haiti, and ends his post asking about the Haitian papers.

“Although I have tried to get a pdf of a Haitian newspaper, I have not been able to do so. Perhaps they are not even publishing, but if anyone has access to a Haitian newspaper, please do send me a pdf.”

Are you kidding?

Here in Wales, we had a lot of snow in the recent weeks, so milk was not deliver, posted mail was late, food supplies didn’t arrive… but John, our loyal and brave newspaper boy (that must be in his late 50′s), delivered the papers to our front door everyday.

With no excuses.

He is my hero!

But to ask about what ad how the papers in Haiti are doing is too much.

Just go to the web and see what they have online.

It’s as tragic as the earthquake.

This country, yes, is very poor, so you cannot expect too much for their on and off line new operations.

And here is the proof from today’s homepages.

Life as normal?

Soft news day for the Haiti Star:

Here, at least, the front a picture tells the real story:

The Haiti Progress, an “alternative” voice, is almost out of business, just talking about…Peru:

The Haitian Times is in real news business, but continues offering appropriate advertising when the population goes almost naked, and I suppose not too much interesting in lose weight:

Le Nouvelliste does better than the rest, but still keeps a non sense poll that sounds like asking a dying country if they prefer to have holidays in the French Riviera or Cascais:

And they have created this special bare website that delivers real pictures and real news from the chaos.

So I don’t know Mario about any print papers here, but don’t expect too much.

If, as Leo Bogart used to say, “the crisis of newspapers is always the crisis of their cities”, Haiti is a dead matket.

Founded in 1893, De Telegraaf in Amsterdam is one of the worst designed newspapers in the world, but is the largest Dutch daily national popular morning newspaper.

The average circulation is about 808,300 copies, which makes it by far the biggest newspaper in the Netherlands.

During summer it even exceeds 1 million.

The average reach of De Telegraaf is 2.4 million people, that is 18.8 % of the Dutch population aged 13 years and older.

And, yes, its Web site has no better design.

Busy, busy design!

If these print and digital editions work with this amazing look, imagine the results with a more reader-friendly design.