Newspaper xhtml redesign

August 2, 2004 10:36 AM

When Wired News redesigned as nearly standards compliant xhtml in fall of 2002, it was cause for a great deal of celebration. Since then other prominent sites like ESPN and PGA have jumped on the standards bandwagon, as have countless personal sites. Today the SF Examiner launched a new site design which does validate as xhtml. More interesting to me are their category archives and date archives, which mimic a weblog's simple and useful layout. Heck, I even love the story pages which feature large leaded text (space between lines - the amount of "double spaceness") which is also blog-like, and makes for comfortable reading. As far as I know, SF Examiner is the first, but will this start a new wave of bandwidth-saving, well-designed newspaper redesigns? [via veen]
posted by mathowie (11 comments total)

Paul Ford also did a bloggish redesign for Harpers a year or two ago, and that's what I was expecting to see when I saw the word "blog-like." SFExaminer had me pleasantly surprised. Lovely work; they've got the trendy new "pinstripes and drop shadows look" down pat.

Coding the content management on this must have been a heck of a job, too; it's a right awesome challenge to do a CMS which can throw the content together into such a refined, integrated package.
posted by brownpau at 10:53 AM on August 2, 2004

Weblogs have had a wonderful effect on web design.
posted by bitpart at 11:36 AM on August 2, 2004

All these CSS sites seem to look the same for some reason...
posted by zeoslap at 11:38 AM on August 2, 2004

Just like newspapers look the same, and most magazines for that matter. The point is to make it readable for as many people as possible.
posted by Satapher at 11:59 AM on August 2, 2004

Clean, content-centered. What online journalism should be, IMO.
posted by signal at 12:27 PM on August 2, 2004

but will this start a new wave of bandwidth-saving, well-designed newspaper redesigns?

Perhaps, but in Canada we're seeing most of our national online newspapers turning to mandatory registration. (Well, OK, not mandatory. But it's mandatory if you actually want to read it.)

Sorry, I know that doesn't have anything to do with CSS, but I'm getting depressed at the extent to which access to public information is being throttled by "registration", "subscription", and the need to "log in" just to read.
posted by 327.ca at 1:08 PM on August 2, 2004

it was cause for a great deal of celebration.

wow. i must have missed that. was there dancing in the streets?
posted by quonsar at 2:41 PM on August 2, 2004

Dropped a line to Mr. Ramsey to say great job. Was impressed to receive a note back from him w/in an hour. Good design, great philosophy, and nice folks to boot. So much better than my previous online daily [nudge nudge, ChiTrib]. Thanks for pointing this out, #1.

say, weren't you recently spotted in SF? For work purposes? Nah, couldn't be...
posted by Fezboy! at 3:03 PM on August 2, 2004

wow. i must have missed that. was there dancing in the streets?

Where would we be without you to make sure every parade has its mandatory share of rain?
posted by yerfatma at 4:37 PM on August 2, 2004

Are the Albany Times-Union and the San Francisco Examiner owned by the same people, or is it just a coincidence they have nearly the same masthead logo?




posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 5:07 PM on August 2, 2004

I'm getting depressed at the extent to which access to public information is being throttled by "registration", "subscription", and the need to "log in" just to read.

Newspapers (well, most of them anyway) are commercial organisations and need to fund their websites, hell even make a profit, by way of targeted advertising. And the only real way to give advertisers true targeted advertising is to make users register and login. Hence I (were I a newspaper proprieter) can now target ads specifically to, for example, all male users aged between 40 and 50 who own a Volvo and I can see if and when they clicked on my ad and I can now sell ads on that basis. That's gold dust to advertisers because they can really hit niche groups and hit them hard (by way of annoying popup ads etc!).

If you want to completely avoid the need for login maybe the BBC here in the UK should be your preferred news site. Funded by the licence payer, the BBC is pretty much non-commercial hence no ads hence no registration!

Stepping back, I agree that while this is 'public information' it's public information that's re-purposed by highly paid and highly-trained journalists and web teams so who says we have the right to get it for free anyway? You pay to get cable on your TV, you watch adverts on TV thereby paying for the TV you watch, you buy newspapers etc. Websites have to be paid for somehow.
posted by andyHollister at 5:08 AM on August 3, 2004