‘Stapling is a must
for the modern newspaper
And mankind will never abandon the printed newspaper,' these words of conviction come from Carlos Soria, newspaper design expert and chairman of the Innovation International Media Consulting Group. “But the physical quality must undergo a quantum jump,” he adds in an article published in WAN’s report “Innovations in Newspapers 2009”. Looking towards the future of the industry, Soria concludes that stapling is a must for the modern newspaper.
Carlos Soria is one of the world’s leading experts in newspaper design, having worked in the industry on almost every continent. He is adamant that paper will retain its role as a vehicle for journalism. “Newspapers are not going to disappear and they are not going to turn into a marginal relic of an ancient information medium,” he writes. But they do need to transform to keep their appeal. “The modern newspaper must be stapled or perfect bound along the spine,” Soria adds. “Today, they are obese, hard to read and they tend to fall apart. They are onion-like, peeling away in the readers’ hands.”
Over the years, Carlos Soria has witnessed the search for new formats, with some newspapers shrinking slowly by the millimeter while others shift directly from broadsheet to compact. Both format and functionality are important and go hand-in-hand with each other. “Format helps newspapers achieve the goal of being user-friendly and more functional,” he says. “But the changes newspapers have or are making are not enough. The objective is a news-magazine format.”
Reader demand remains key, adds Jan Melin, CEO of Swedish stitching manufacturer Tolerans. “From our experience, the readers prefer a newspaper that is kept intact. By stapling the newspaper, one important and cost effective step has been taken to satisfy readers.”
Soria proposes his successful scenario; a super-compact Monday-to-Thursday edition with few pages, complemented by content-rich magazine-like Friday to Sunday newspapers. Breaking news would be free online around-the-clock. “The printed newspaper will need to be analytical, explanatory and a tool for greater understanding,” Soria adds. “It will need to stress the ‘why’ instead of all the five W’s (who, what, when, where, why) and provide a rich menu of exclusive enterprise journalism.”
