Lee Abrams, the chief innovation officer of the Tribune newspapers in the United States, has a blog in which he lists the 15 ways to grow newspapers:
1) Compartmentalise: If grocery stores were organized like newspapers, you’d wear out your shoes looking for vegetables, as carrots would be in aisle 6, tomatoes in aisle 8, etc…
2) Don’t assume: If you have “a reporter who spent 4 years in Baghdad. Dodging bullets… the paper should have photos of the reporter with Iraqi kids… writing diaries. Don’t assume the reader knows.”
3) Be intelligent, not intellectual: Smart, not elite.
4) Brag about what you do: If you do an exclusive, tel the world. Not sensational, but a little swagger.
5) Liberate the designers: They are the ones that will package the information into greater engagement. Eye power.
5 (b) Liberate the photographers
7) Be consistent: Compelling writing, great graphics, every page, every day.
14) Make it easy: Newspapers have a habit of making things so hard to read absorb and engage in.
Read the full story: 15 points that will grow newspapers
Howard Owens: 15 trite ideas
Also read: 20 ways to kill a newspaper
