Re: Future of Pub Design

I had the wonderful opportunity of being hired by a newspaper before the somewhat fast disappearance of most staffers in the industry. The first year was wonderful and at some point during the second year we were told to make photo galleries. We made a few here and there but it took forever because of the system they had us using. Once they shut our printing press down and moved that operation to the Baltimore Sun, we were moved into a small office building and the insanity began. We were trained on software that would allow us to instantly put up stories (even if they we only partially done, the full story would end up in the paper later in the week) on the web for all to see. For a while the photo's were being left out but that all changed. Once we shoot an assignment it has to be turned around as soon as possible, sometimes we have to sit in a McDonald's or a Panera to send our photo's to the story folder where editors choose what will be attached to the story online. If we take more then a 5 photo's, god forbid, we have to make a gallery. If we don't, emails begin to fly wondering if someone is going to make a photo gallery or not. Let's not get started on shooting video. Our entire industry is changing, print is still here but a lot of the focus is being put towards the web. Personally I would like to hold a paper in my hand and read, I don't mind online but its hard to imagine not seeing a newspaper anymore.  Everything you see in the paper can be seen on our website for free! It's all about how many page views we get because the more page views the better for selling advertising on those same pages. I have a sinking feeling that newspaper are going away, maybe not tomorrow but soon, I hope I'm wrong.