Reading Newspapers

In his Guardian article, Michael Wolff pointed out the difference between two magazines published by the New York Times: The New York Times Magazine and T: The New York Times Style Magazine.

“T looks like a modern magazine. It has lots of photos and illustrations, both small and large, many call outs, and keeps its type blocks to a minimum. You flip it, rather than read it. The Times Magazine, although it has tried to add modern details, still seems old fashioned, page after page of type. It needs to be read and that seems, I believe to almost everybody, exhausting.”

I loved Andrew Sullivan's response to that last line about it needing to be read:

“Reading: who needs that shit any more?”

But when I thought about it, I realize that I am in that set of “almost everybody” who finds reading articles in the newspapers to be “exhausting” (I can still read long paper books though). As I wondered why my reading habit differed between books and newspapers in the physical world, I realized the answer lay in that grand disruptor, the Internet.

On the Net, I expect an article to meet these conditions:

- The font is easy to the eye,

- The byline tells me what the article is about...and not in a somebody-just-died tone,

- Gives me an estimated time to read (either explictly or something I can figure by scrolling down).

(P.S. That's also why I hate those Next Page buttons on the Net: I have no idea how long the article is).

So how does a newspaper fare on those 3 parameters? I can't change the font (it's printed after all); the byline is mind-numbingly dull, if one even exists; and good luck trying to estimate time to read by combining the number of columns when the height of the column varies for each article!

Maybe there's some feedback for newspapers in all this...