You always post dummy pages in twitter. How important is a dummy for the newspaper?
We view the sketch of our front page as a brainstorming session where other editors and journalists can weigh in. It benefits us from a collaborative standpoint because you can sketch really fast and show people, and they can share their opinions. It’s practical because you can draw up as many versions as you need in a short amount of time, and you don’t have to worry about presenting your screen to a meeting, or having people watch over your shoulder while you do it. You draw it and you hold it up, and people get to feel involved. After we do a sketch everyone is happy with, we turn it into a digital page, of course.
How do you design NY Times page one? Is it story driven design or design driven story?
We have a toolbox that can factor in any news situation from a dull, slow news day to the biggest events in the world. So we let the content determine which tools we will use. You can see this in the page every day. We choose our A1 lineup without considering design at all. The quality of the stories must be worth the front page before we can even think about how they might look.
How challenging is it to design the page one of New York Times? What are the things you must be completely aware of?
You have to be aware that people will see it and read intent into the design every day. Politics is the biggest example but far from the only one. Someone might see a front page on social media and say, “The Times put this story on top of Page One because they have an agenda,” but in reality we put the story on top of Page one because it was the best story we had that day.
As a planning editor what are the things you have to take care of?
I have to know everything that is going on the newsroom, and I have to be able to then take what I know and give the best assessment of our newsroom plans to print designers and print editors, so that they may organize, design and edit each day’s paper. And I also need to know when we have special plans for digital, mobile or even video and audio products, because often we will still want to take digital journalism and fashion it into print journalism even if it may not seem possible.
These days’ newspapers are cutting down the story length in the view that readers have not much time to read the lengthy text. But NY Times most of the time sticking to the traditional way of storytelling especially in page one. Your thoughts on this?
Short, informative stories are the way audiences around the world consume breaking news. You see this at The New York Times in our live coverage each day. We’ll have live briefings and live blogs that are only a few hundred words. But, when we go to make a newspaper, we aren’t looking at the paper as the place where we are breaking news. We are looking at the paper as the place where we are explaining and assessing the news. Obviously, you don’t want to drone on and on in a long story and bore a reader, but we do want readers to come away enlightened. If we do it right, the quality of the story will dictate its length, rather than some arbitrary, outdated notion that “only” short stories can reach readers.
How challenging is it to design a newspaper for mobile age?
The challenge is providing value in print that works in concert with the digital experience. I’m not saying that print needs to be above and beyond what readers see digitally, but I am saying that it needs to be organized in such a way that makes it interesting and compelling. When there is big news, readers will react to how it looks on the print front page much more viscerally than they will react to how it looks on the home page of web or mobile. You can be flippant and say “You can’t frame a computer screen” and you would be right, but more deeply than that, you can use your front page to signal something is important, even if that means your reader will then pick up their phone to actually read about it.
What is the future of print?
Well we just discussed print’s role in big events and historical coverage, but from day-to-day, print has a finality to it that digital does not. There’s a rigid print deadline (every night, every week, every month, whenever) but digital publication can go on forever. Whenever that deadline is, you want print to be a snapshot of that moment in time, and you want it to be interesting. That’s how print can work in concert with its multimedia counterparts now.
Many newspapers all around the world are focusing on e-paper. How will you differentiate the print and the digital edition?
If you are committed to an e-paper, I think you still need to treat it like a paper. There still needs to be some finality to its experience, and authority in its tone and voice. If you can do that, then you can have the same complementary experience that you would have if you were reading a true paper.
Do you think since the digital reader is different one has to prepare or design another one to cater them?
I do not think digital readers can be catered to in print. If you have sworn off print, I do not think it is a valuable use of my time or my colleagues’ time to try to win you back. Doing that is what leads newspapers to come up with all sorts of crazy rules or designs trying to replicate a digital feeling in print. I think you’re better off to curate a print product that is interesting, that flows together without overwhelming, and that — again — captures a moment in time. If you do that, you can still impact digital readers. You just might be impacting them by causing them to pick up their phones and search for your front-page story so they can read it there.
Do you think a newspaper should surprise the reader every day with its design or should stick to the templates?
I don’t believe in templates. If templates really worked, they would have saved newspapers a decade ago when executives and consultants would claim that they would allow newspapers to do more with less. What they actually did was save exactly the amount of money of the salaries they cut, and then cost the company two or three times that amount in the drop in quality of the product.
What I do think print and digital design can do is have a standard feel and a standard tone, so that when you break out of that, you are sending a powerful signal to your readers that “something is different today.” It’s not quite a surprise for readers as it is a point of real emphasis, and when you do it right, it reflects powerful news judgment.
Infographics is one of the striking features of NY Times. What is the future of infographics in print as interactive graphics on the web is now popular?
I don’t know of any legacy outlet that viewed infographics as expendable in 2012 that is even close to succeeding in 2022. Graphics are an essential, core component of journalism. Without them, you are cutting off an avenue of information for a reader.
That said, the focus on graphics must be multimedia. You have to think about how one infographic will look on a laptop or a phone. You have to think about how an interactive video can be experienced at so many sizes, and then you have to fit your journalism into it. You need to do all that first, and experience it as a multimedia product for yourself, and THEN you can ask yourself, “Now, what from this graphic can I use to inform print readers.” But it needs to be the last part of the process rather than the first. Otherwise, you risk insulting your audience by forcing a flat, static print graphic onto their phones or computer screens. They’ll see through that trick.
As a planning editor can you tell us about a story you have approached (planned and designed) differently?
A recent example is an audio investigation that we did last week. We reviewed audio from phone calls that were made by Russian troops in Ukraine to family members. This audio is frightening and stands in stark contrast to the message that the Russian government is sending. Here is the link. You can listen to the audio and see the translations right in front of you digitally. But, in print, you cannot do any of that. You have to re-think your approach. The designer in this case (Carrie Mifsud) spent several days working with the team that put this investigation together to basically start over for print. The result is a compelling timeline of words, organized for maximum impact.
What comes first, design or story?
Neither. Journalism comes first. That is different than saying, “The story comes first.” Sure, most of the time you want a well-written story and a design that follows it. But there will be times when you know the only way you can tell a story is by showing them four pages of impactful photography, and after you decide that, you will then want a story that can supplement those images. That’s all okay, as long as your commitment to your audience is what is driving you do to it.
While designing page one did you ever think about eye movement of the readers?
I don’t think about eye movement as much as I think about “staying easy on the eyes.” The eye-track studies are valuable information for designers, but remember, a lot of readers follow news that way because journalists trained them to do so. I don’t put the lead news story at the top right of a page because I think that a reader is going to make a Z-shape with their eyes as they scan over it. I put the lead story on the top right because a reader expects to see it there and is comfortable seeing it there. The same goes for traditional notions of dominant art and headline hierarchy. As long as those notions make sense for the content, they’re great. But at times they fight the needs of content, they fight the impact of the journalism. When that happens, you can’t be committed to the rules.
If you’re a designer, think about your favorite designer in the world. Then ask yourself, “If I make a rule about eye movement or hierarchy, would I still enforce that rule if my favorite designer broke it?” And then you’ll almost certainly refine your approach to conventional design notions.
How important is the interaction with the editorial team?
I’m going to take the words “editorial team” to mean our reporting and writing colleagues. And my answer is, it’s the lifeline of journalism. At The New York Times, we want a design which makes our reporters want to be a part of it. We hope they aspire to see their story on the front page, or in a special section, or framed by a reader. At its best, that is what the dynamic of our newsroom can be.
