WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

Just the faces.

The names.

And how much time without a job.

That’s direct.

Dramatic.

Moving.

Disturbing.

And compelling.

In a country with more than four million jobless people.

With a government that ignores the reality.

The New York Times reports:

Spain’s facts are scary: 18.8 percent unemployment; about half the age group under 25 out of work; €600 billion, or $820 billion, in mortgages outstanding after the end of a construction boom two years ago; and a real effective exchange rate that the E.U. Commission says is overvalued by 10 percent.

…

The startling thing in Madrid is its seeming absence. There’s a kind of lethargy instead. No crash program with specific goals to change the Spanish economy over the next weeks and months is coming from right-wing opposition. And the Socialist government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

So the newsroom of EL MUNDO in Madrid shows the reality.

With this political indictment animated poster.

A “show, don’t tell” way to report.

Well done!

NB: INNOVATION’s Chiqui Esteban shows here the jobless figures in another dramatic way:

Like The Economist maps and charts, the BBC uses simple and clear infographics that tell the story.

And the same does The New York Times team (Erin Aigner, Joe Burgess, Alicia Desantis, Xaquin G.V., Sergio Pecanha, Archie Tse and Charlie Williams) with these ones.

Seven people covering the Chile story with graphics, and one regional correspondent covering the tragedy… from Rio de Janeiro!

They are called “regional correspondents”.

What a shame!

The NewYork Times covers Chile… from Brazil.

Well the distance between Rio and Santiago is only 1814.31 miles…

It’s like covering Spain from Russia.

That’s the first problem.

The second is the second class content of the dispatch from Rio.

Alexei Barrionuevo reports quoting… Associated Press, Chile’s TVN Cable, the Department of Homeland Security, CNN International, Mrs. Bachelet statements, Facebook and Twitter messages, The White House press secretary, Reuters…

So here we have the most important daily newspaper of the world serving a “mix salad” of second hand news where Eric Lipton contributed reporting from Washington, and Charles Newbery from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Alexei Barrionuevo reported from Rio de Janeiro, and Liz Robbins from New York.

You better follow Twitter real witnesses, than these journalism bureaucrats.

Jonathan Stray checks for the Nieman Journalism Lab the real sources of the recent breaking-news story about the China/Google hacking case and finds that”

– Out of 121 unique stories, 13 (11 percent) contained some amount of original reporting. I counted a story as containing original reporting if it included at least an original quote. From there, things get fuzzy. Several reports, especially the more technical ones, also brought in information from obscure blogs. In some sense they didn’t publish anything new, but I can’t help feeling that these outlets were doing something worthwhile even so. Meanwhile, many newsrooms diligently called up the Chinese schools to hear exactly the same denial, which may not be adding much value.

- Only seven stories (six percent) were primarily based on original reporting. These were produced by The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Tech News World, Bloomberg, Xinhua (China), and the Global Times (China).

- Of the 13 stories with original reporting, eight were produced by outlets that primarily publish on paper,  four were produced by wire services, and one was produced by a primarily online outlet. For this story, the news really does come from newspapers.

So how are we going co cover real news without original reporting?

And who is going to pay for real reporters?

And real journalism?

Let’s get real.

Quotes and ideas from the first 226 comments published about the new Observer:

• The MAGAZINE is boring, and new font size is crazy (“please increase the font size in the Magazine to something that is readable without changing my reading glasses prescription”).

• The TV LISTINGS don’t make any sense (“The TV guide is a waste of paper. The information is easily available elsewhere”).

• THE NEW YORK TIMES section is a Guantanamo (“Why persist with the New York Times pullout?”).

• Where is TRAVEL?

• Too much POLITICAL GOSSIP.

• Go for THE SUNDAY GUARDIAN (“What my family wants is a SUNDAY GUARDIAN but with more depth!”).

• HOROSCOPE is gone!

• TRIVIAL content (“I wish you would invest in journalism rather than iPhone Apps and gimmicky redesigns”)

• The SPORTS is just a FOOTBALL section.

• We want more SECTIONS (“Sunday paper is for sharing: if you reduce the sections, we cant share anymore”). Are you sure? UK is becoming a single home occupant country!

• The CASH section is a joke (“The Cash section is so thin on content that it is laughable”).

My final take:

If The Observer wants to deliver more with less, must have BETTER CONTENT, FANTASTIC DESIGN, UNIQUE BREAKING-NEWS, COMPELLING STORIES, DRAMATIC INFOGRAPHICS, PROVOCATIVE  COLUMNISTS and more CAVIAR JOURNALISM.

Now there is too much spin and no substance.

Readers want strong double espresso, but not watered American coffee grande.

So, the new format is fine, the new content is bad.

As simple as that.

Poor value for £2.

As any economist he writes for other economist doesn’t matter if his opinions and analysis are published in The New York Times OpEd pages.

But if you go to his blog, The Consciece of a Liberal, in the same paper website, you will see another Paul Krugman.

A casual smart one.

Sharper.

Funny.

More interesting.

And easier to read and understand.

Less is more, and better.

(And don’t forget the comments the blog gets, doesn’t matter if sometimes they are quite longer than the Krugman’s posts!)

Breaking news from New York: it’s confirmed.

The New York Times announces that intends to charge frequent readers for access to its Web site.

Read here the full memo.

(Thanks to Claude Erbsen)

INNOVATION’s Michael Agar is right: this is pure infographic caviar.

100%

Brilliant.

What a great graphic!

Plenty of relevant information.

And details, details, details.

The Real Thing.

Congratulations to The New York Times.

Another Malofiej Awards winner!

Michael Wolff writes:

“Apparently the New York Times is going to start charging for online access. Putting aside whether this will work, the decision clearly means the Times has decided that the decade or so it has spent not charging was a bad idea.

Not doing so means you’re pretty much managing by crapshoot.”

Spot-on!

The York Times’ David Pogue says no way.

And in today’s stock market Google is down.

Next!