Twitter: Newspaper brain rot identified.
We San Franciscans get to watch the slow
death of our local daily newspaper. The San Francisco Chronicle just
paid a designer more than $100,000 for a new typography and layout and
it is having no positive effect. The paper keeps losing readers,
advertising and gross revenue.
One thing that newspaper designers overlook is numbers. Most newspapers, the NY Times and the S.F. Chronicle have a 150 year old hatred of numbers. These papers will not publish a number if they can avoid it. Most would not publish page numbers if they could get away with it.
Yet numbers are what the modern adult reader, Internet user wants. Proof. USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and the SF/DC Examiners are the only daily newspapers that are genuinely growing and all of them are heavy on numbers, charts and tables.
Shouldn't that send a message to the old farts who run newspapers?