• April 23.2008

Recently by Robb Montgomery

Chicago Sun-Times flip-flops Page One design

Posted by Robb Montgomery on April 22, 2008 at 8:58 PM
page one designVIDEO: Robb Montgomery chats with Michael Cooke, Editor-in-chief of the Chicago Sun-Times about the dramatic design treatment he used to draw attention to the sharp rise in shootings in Chicago's inner-city neighborhoods. In a phone interview, Cooke explains the paper's campaign and the inspiration for deploying this arresting design approach to the start of the paper's coverage of the story.
COOKE: "Chicago's children are dying. The statistics are undeniable, and they are staggering," said Sun-Times Editor in Chief Michael Cooke. "The point of today's front page was to grab readers and agree together that we can no longer turn our backs on this problem. We need to, as a city, pull together and put an end to the killing."
Robb Montgomery is the CEO of Visual Editors and trains journalists in multimedia. He blogs at www.robbmontgomery.com
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Part two: The heartbreak of U.S. layoffs, told through graphics

Posted by Robb Montgomery on April 13, 2008 at 2:09 PM
smith.jpg

Last week we shared the emotional photo documentary from Martin Gee of the San Jose Mercury News. Visual journalism is a powerful tool for conveying the impact and scope of the downsizing that has been happening in U.S. newsrooms. 


From photos to graphics map mashups
Erica Smith is a journalist and multimedia designer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and has been teaching herself Web programming skills as she has transitioned into her new newsroom roles. One of her projects has been a Google map mashup where she plots U.S. newspaper layoff announcements.

She documents at her Paper cuts blog that more than 1,711  jobs have been slashed in 2008 and more than 2,185 in 2007.

There is more than just the map here; the data she collects is richly annotated as includes monthly summaries that list the the paper, the number of positions lost and the link to the new story where the job cuts were announced.

For example her tally from November 2007:



The different colored balloons on the interactive map indicate how many positions were eliminated with red being the highest number - over 100 in one action.




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The heartbreak of newsroom layoffs, told through pictures

Posted by Robb Montgomery on April 11, 2008 at 12:51 PM
Sometimes the hardest pictures a newspaper journalist makes are the ones they take of themselves during hard times. San Jose Mercury News designer Martin Gee has posted a photo documentary of the effects of several rounds of layoffs and buyouts in his California newsroom. You can feel his heart breaking in captions as he recalls former colleagues and the spirit they brought to the newsroom.

Gee writes:
The last round of layoffs and buyouts really hurt me. i mean, each one does but this one especially. This place feels like a morgue. an abusive relationship. remnants everywhere. Empty cubicles. Empty chairs. Abandoned office equipment. goodbye emails. Besides looking for a new job and building a massive assemblage, this is a way for me to deal. There will be more photos...

On a photo of an empty nameplate holder Gee writes: "Rich Ramirez committed suicide during the last round of layoffs at the Mercury News."
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Finally, a newspaper redesign worth rooting for - The Washington Post

Posted by Robb Montgomery on March 19, 2008 at 2:18 PM
Editor announces plans to shake up the editing culture in Washington newsroom

By Robb Montgomery 
CEO, Visual Editors 

How many newspaper redesigns can you name that actually aim for the heart of the matter? Reinventing the core assumptions about a paper's editing culture and its 20th century newspaper reporting, editing and production practices is big stuff. The Washington Post has a plan to dismantle their mass-production mentality and rebuild around new realities for reporting, editing and story planning. This is the seed of a true newspaper redesign.

 Slate reports:
The Washington Post plans to abandon its "assembly-line model for news production," according to a memo from executive editor Leonard Downie. The rise of the Web is vanquishing the traditional once-a-day production cycle as reporters and editors file original stories online.

Many taboos are addressed in this memo and I think it's refreshing. Finally, someone really has a plan to redesign their journalism around how it should work rather than merely what the newspaper should look like. This is "Jobsian" thinking. (Steve Jobs, naturally!) 

We'll be watching as they plan to:
  • Shift editing resources to earlier in the day 
  • Merge the night National and Foreign copy desks 
  • Reroute the editing of feature stories and nonbreaking enterprise news pieces and projects to daylight hours 
  • Eliminate the bottlenecks that tend to form at the end of the day

I find it surprising that they would edit features and news features at night . . . but they have a key idea here that will take them forward.

If you are going to win - you are going to have be successful in planning all the story components BEFORE a word is written and then decide what dimensions of the story are best told with video, graphic, photos, text, headline, list, links, and then in what form; long-form narrative, chunky text, online timeline, blog or micro-site or special section. 

Only by pushing things forward in time and getting skilled at working stories from all angles can you migrate to a continuous publishing mindset. I expect some creaks in the old machinery and a push back from those who can report but cannot write and also those who will be asked to upgrade their mindsets to meet the demands of digital reporting. 

The Post's Managing editor Phil Bennett conveys a pointed message as he hones in a common newsroom conceit. 

The reason many newspapers rely so heavily on editors--a reason rarely spoken--is that some reporters can't write. Their copy isn't edited as much as it's rewritten. Bennett has a message for them: "Reporters who can't write are a dying breed."

So, the 'rewrite desk' is dead. 

Best wishes to the paper as it retools the future. The plan sounds like a good prescription for a new start. But it still, only a start. It is the execution and new newsroom culture that can arise from such a plan that will ultimately be measured. 

A modern redesign is as much redefining reporting and editing values and recapturing relevancy as it is improving processes and the industrial design of the product. 


Robb Montgomery is the CEO and founder of Visual Editors and principal in Robb Montgomery Consulting. He has worked as a visual editor for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune and partners with editors in the Middle East, Asia, U.K., Europe and North America to improve their digital journalism, newspaper design and online multimedia.

Blog and travel schedule » www.robbmontgomery.com

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