By Anne Baker
Newspapers, with their sticky newsprint and classy typeface, tend to illicit a heavy sigh from the kids of the iGeneration. Too preoccupied to look up from our cell phones, PDAs or gleaming white laptops, we often forgo newspapers to get the day’s news from Matt Drudge or Perez Hilton (I’ve already addressed how I feel about the latter).
But established newspapers have noticed that a five-column headline screaming, “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN” doesn’t do much to get our attention these days. We like things of the flashier variety. We like pizzazz and sparkle. And no newspaper has noticed and taken advantage of our need for “flashy” more than the New York Times.
Anyone who has glanced at The Times is well aware that the paper doesn’t often go for the superficial. It doesn’t have all that boring-looking text on its page for nothing; in the upmost corner of every print edition, you’ll find the words, “All the news that’s fit to print,” and the Times means it. It’s a serious newspaper for serious people.
That’s fine and dandy, but the online edition will show anyone who treads on the fluffier side of life a whole other world of the New York Times.
NYTimes.com has everything you could ever hope for. Sassy videos? Check. Interactive Internet-only fashion magazine? Check. Lots of really, really big pictures? Check!
It has it all. Want a healthy dose of easy cooking without the grating voice that emanates from Rachel Ray? Check out the videos of the Times’ food columnist Mark Bittman, also known as The Minimalist. Bittman puts the 30 Minute Meals star to shame with easy entrees that focus on using only a few ingredients to pack a powerful punch of flavor – all in videos that last less than five minutes. Yum-o.
For those with a more sports-oriented sensibility, NYTimes.com offers blogs and special features where the paper’s sports critics lay out their picks for the NCAA championships. This year there were tables where you could compare your bracket with that of The Times writers and the developments of the series.
It also offers plenty of opportunities for readers to question the people behind the iconic paper. The “Talk to the Newsroom” feature allows readers to pose questions to editors from different sections of the newspaper, allowing a rare chance for the readers and the writers to gain some mutual understanding.
But what does it all mean? Yes, The Times may be fighting back against a changing time for newspapers (really, newsprint is sticky). But do we, as a people who generally look for a quick and dirty hit of news, really benefit?
The answer, resoundingly, is yes.
Believe me, I love newspapers. I love the rustle of the pages turning. I love the silliness that headlines can bring (the aforementioned “Dewey Defeats Truman” is a good example). But I can see with perfect clarity why newspapers are quickly becoming a thing of the past for many: they’re stale.
Back in the good old days of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, publishers actually created wars out of thin air to sell newspapers. Publications relied heavily on sex and violence to grab the attention of potential readers. Ah, yellow journalism.
But nowadays, papers like to focus on this silly little thing called ethics. They like to make sure their stories are accurate and fair and give the truth and nothing but the truth (so help me, God). And yeah, I mean, it’s nice that they care so much about getting the story straight and not throwing innocent people under the bus with slander and the whole thing. I’m just saying that maybe the big newspaper corporations should stop crying foul about lost readership.
It’s not only the readers who have changed, Mr. Sulzberger, but it’s you, too.
And what The Times has done so well here is to inject some life into its organization without jeopardizing the seriousness that has made it arguably the foremost newspaper in the country. Yes, it has a healthy dose of the flash, but none of the actual news has been compromised or washed away.
It’s all there online, and what’s more, right beneath it is a video of two well-respected journalists discussing the messages the presidential candidates want to get across to viewers. There’s a lot of talk about how journalism is changing, and change isn’t always a bad thing.
And, to the newspapers, I leave you with some borrowed words from fellow journalist Mary Tyler Moore: “You might just make it after all.”
– Anne Baker can be reached at
