WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

I meet Trevor Ncube more than one year ago in Montreux during the Swiss Press Congress.

In his presentation, he made a strong case for this project, and I offered him our help as an INNOVATION pro-bono work.

So INNOVATION is very proud that last week NewsDay was able to hit the sreets of Harare.

“Everyday News for Everyday People” is its slogan.

The first 20,000 copies of the inaugural issue were sold our in just a few hours, and now Trevor believes that the paper will double its circulation in less than six months.

INNOVATION’s Pedro Monteiro has been our consultant behind the project, ad he deserves our gratitude.

Thanks also to Dinos dos Santos, the Portuguese typeface designer that gave the entire Velino typeface for free in support of this amazing project.

The Velino type family is still not available to the general public.

As you can imagine, his work has not been easy.

A country in deep crisis.

With no press freedom.

And just two dozens of journalists to produce a daily newspaper…

But the lack of local resources was not a problem because all the NewsDay team had a strong will to produce a real newspaper in a very surreal country where President Robert Mugabe has been in power since Zimbabwean independence in 1980, and a media crackdown saw the last independent daily newspaper banned by his party in 2003.

NewsDay will not win many awards, but I am sure that will win the hopes and hearths of a country needed of real journalism.

As Trevor Ncube said in the first issue: this is not a regular newspaper but the “hope of a tortured nation”.

Trevor Ncube, the founding chairman of NewsDay, was the host of the World Newspaper Congress in South Africa a few years ago and he wrote the preface of that year’s INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS report.

So we wish to him and the NewsDay team all our best.

The paper needs more help, so if you are willing to support this cause please write to Trevor at:

TrevorN@mg.co.za

Watch here a video about the NewsDay launch.

Read here a vibrant column written by Trevor Ncube.

Follow its story on Twitter.

Days before the launch of the Apple iPad, INNOVATION started this Facebook Page about Digital Narratives.

The new Page is a showcase of the best digital narratives and digital news design for the iPad, mobile apps, tablets and websites as selected by Pedro Monteiro and Juan Senor.

You can subscribe here.

You don’t need to read too much abut the UN Conference in Copenhagen.

Just listen to Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace:

“Not fair, not ambitious and not legally binding.

The job of world leaders is not done.

Today they failed to avert catastrophic climate change.

The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame.

World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change.

In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through.

We have seen a year of crises, but today it is clear that the biggest one facing humanity is a leadership crisis.”

As The Guardian says today:

Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure.

So don’t be fooled by the propaganda machine and PR spin of the big polluters.

Copenhagen was not “Hopenhagen” but, as Pedro Monteiro says in his great poster, “Nopenhagen.”