High profile magazine editors who left print for the promise of the digital world are back: they now edit Newsweek, WSJ magazine, Lucky, Martha Stewart Magazine.
A recent post in the Mario Blog at GarciaMedia takes a no-holds look at myths of the modern newsroom, and dispels them in classic Mario fashion.
(A quick bio for readers who aren’t familiar with Mario Garcia – his is a heavy hitter in the American newspaper industry, as a designer and consultant. He currently serves as the Hearst Digital Media Professional-in-Residence at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He knows a thing or two about journalism in this transitional age).
Garcia starts right off dispelling the whole “print is dead” thing, thankfully getting that put to bed quite succinctly.
“Melancholic attitudes about print have given way to optimism and a new way of approaching the role of print,” says Garcia.
With that out the way, he takes a look at some of the subtler myths that are infiltrating the dialogue around journalism, including the idea that “digital first” means no attention is paid to print. And that only a mega-publication like the New York Times has the ability to tell a multi-media story like “Snowfall.”
“Multimedia storytelling begins as a state of mind, when editors and designers tell themselves: we are going to approach this story across platforms, we will appeal to the senses, and we will milk the content of the story for all possibilities,” says Garcia. He asserts that most any newsroom has the talent to make it happen. It just needs to be brought out and nurtured.
We like Garcia’s straightforward look at the state of the industry, as much for his no-nonsense style as his rational optimism.
Is your team suffering from any of these creativity-killing myths? This article might help you bust them wide open.
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