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And aside from all that, the idea of prescreening content with consumers strikes at what newspaper people consider fundamental to the print newspaper experience — albeit a print newspaper experience that more and more of the public is rejecting. And that is the element of serendipity, the quality of unexpected surprise and discovery that any well-managed newspaper provides. Tell any self-respecting reporter that the subject of his or her latest work in progress just laid an egg with a focus group, and the reporter will reply, “Maybe so, but wait till they see what I do with it!” (While thinking, “What in God’s name has happened to our business?”)
Maybe she’ll also have a good word for the latest Tribune Company money-saving efficiency –modular news packages, designed in Chicago and Los Angeles and dropped into the pages of the other Tribune Company papers, allowing them to lay off bunches of their own copy editors and designers. Blogging designer Charles Apple reports, “The modules are built mostly in half-page and quarter-page increments, we’re told, that fit with the new standard company-wide advertising sizes. Everything is tightly formatted.”
“It is a fundamental principle of journalism that we do not give people outside the newspaper the option of deciding whether or not we should publish a story, whether they be advertisers, politicians or just regular readers. What happens the next time a source asks to see your story before it’s printed? Can you still tell them, ‘We don’t do that?’
