If the current redesign of USA Today tells us anything about the future of newspapers, it is that surveys prove readers love pictures, colors, and circles, like babies love mobiles dangling over their cribs. USAT is a cacophony of just that, more like a web splash-page printout than a newspaper—a parody of a newspaper, some reliable sources have called it. So for the traditionalists out there, here is the New York Observer (the original 1866 version, in “Religious” and “Secular” editions) before it was fashionable to use even the slightest hint of inelegant imagery or headlines or subheads or any other jab at the eye. Now that’s a newspaper! Or is it?
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Scott Dadich’s must-see webinar on Best Practices in Digital Magazine Publishing streams tomorrow, September 27, at 2:00 p.m. EST.