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Sep. 2nd The Class of 2012 arrives at Yale University, so does the newly rethought Yale Daily News

It has been a memorable night on the campus of Yale University. My colleague Dr. Pegie Stark Adam and I are here for the launch of the new Yale Daily News.  For me, it is project number 555 launching. I ask editor Andrew Mangino the significance of the number. After all, these Yale students seem to have an answer for everything.

“It’s something good, “he tells me and smiles. “But, of course, it is 666 that is known as a good luck number.”

I told him that I am not anticipating being around for project 666, but one never knows these days. As they say, the 60 of today is the 40 of yesterday, so let’s wait and see.

BACK IN THE CLASSROOM:

The afternoon began with a presentation to more than 100 student members of the Yale Daily News staff. The scene took me back to my academic days teaching an 8 a.m. class in an auditorium at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. For a moment, I wished the class was longer—as in a full semester—to be able to take these talented and smart students into the world of visual storytelling. So, we did what we were supposed to: present the new look of the YDN.

AT MORY’S

A special treat this evening, after the presentation, was appetizers and drinks at Mory’s, the historic dining club at Yale University, where photographs of Yale star athletes dating back to the founding of the University line the walls.  A highlight was the a capella singing by the fantastic Yale Whiffenpoofs, a group of 14 Yale seniors, a tradition here that dates to 1909.

I found myself telling the student editors that I would remember project #555 because of the a capella singing before production of the first day issue started. Usually, I told them, editors are too nervous and anxious for any kind of music.

I could have listened to the melodic Whiffenpoofs all night.  Is everyone at Yale University gifted?

IN THE NEWSROOM

As production of the first issue of the YDN starts, the students mingle, the editor leads a group in a sort of pep rally. I hear cheers and chants.  Silver balloons provide a distraction on a table in one of the small rooms where computers and students gather to prepare pages.  There is history in every corner of this building. Dusty volumes of the YDN going back 130 years; photos of editorial staffs from every era; the old and the new.

Tonight, several pages of new Yale Daily News history are written on shiny Apple computers. A phone from another era appears unexpectedly. Reminds me of those phones Bette Davis used in so many of her dramas, usually to send her lover to hell. And there is the bright red phone, in the entertainment department for an editor who likes everything red, including her Blackberry. Redberry?

It is Tuesday and it is Formal Dress day here, so many of the students wear ties—-why don’t newsrooms around the world ever hold Formal Dress Tuesday? God knows that newsroom dress is not what it used to be. I would settle for Semi-Formal Any Day of the Week.

HERE’S MY STORY FOR THE YALE DAILY NEWS’ READERS GUIDE

These days, when those of us in the media consulting business start a project to rethink newspapers in an environment where news travels faster than ever across a multi platform landscape, we usually have four numbers flashing in front of our eyes: 2012.

Indeed, those numbers help us focus as we prepare newspapers to face their immediate future. Why 2012?

It is the year with the first group of young adults—those turning 23—-who will have no recollection of life with the Internet.  We spend considerable time studying the reading and lifestyle habits of those prospective readers.

And at Yale University, the Class of 2012 has arrived. Yes, it is all those enthusiastic and smiling freshmen who were born around 1990. the ones who were only one year olds when the World Wide Web was born!

So imagine how interesting it has been for me and for my colleague Dr. Pegie Stark Adam to accept an invitation by the editors of the Yale Daily News to join them as they rethought the Yale Daily News, the oldest college daily in the nation.  We normally do consulting for newspapers/online operations, but almost never for student newspapers. For six months, Pegie and I have visited the campus, met with students, sat through editorial meetings and exchanged hundreds of ideas with Andrew Mangino and his talented staff.  We have especially enjoyed our work with sophomore Reid Reibstein, who interned with us at Garcia Media during the summer, and contributed his knowledge of the Yale community, as well as his tremendous interest in design and typography to the project. We have met on campus, or in New York City, or at Pegie’s studio in Ottawa, Canada. We have passed pdf’s back and forth almost daily as each of us worked in a different part of the world.

Finally, the newly rethought and redesigned Yale Daily News is here. It is still the same newspaper that the Yale University community has come to expect each morning. However, it is also an easier to read package.

What are the changes? A better navigational system to move readers from page one to the rest of the content. At a time when most readers read both online and in print, research shows that these readers bring some of their online reading habits to print. They wish to move faster, to sort of click on a headline and read the story. The new YDN provides indexes and summaries that facilitate that process.

Aesthetically, the new YDN incorporates a bit more white space, to allow for the eye to move through the page more freely. Legibility is enhanced thorough the use of a brand new font, Quiosco, which we use for text. Page headings, labels, logos and all storytelling strategies have been revised, with new styles incorporated.

Most importantly, we have worked with the staff to make sure that the new Yale Daily News provides better coordination between the print and online editions. Our workshops have emphasized what I refer to as “the path of the story” and how news travels across various platforms. For major dailies worldwide, the path of the story usually begins with an alert prompt on the mobile telephone, or via email, then moves on to online editions and eventually to print.

Editors everywhere know that the path of a story today actually follows the path and the moves of readers who get their information from a variety of sources and platforms.

Just think what it will be like in 2012, when those freshmen arriving on campus this week graduate and make media choices of their own.

Therefore, this new Yale Daily News that premieres now is the perfect tool for readers to rethink the purpose of the press in a changing society. The fact that the YDN circulates inside a university community provides the perfect setting for the newspaper to become an incubator for new ideas about journalism —how it is practiced and consumed.

We are honored to be part of the experiment.

http://www.yaledailynews.com/
http://www.yale.edu/whiffenpoofs/
https://www.memberstatements.com/login/login.cfm

TOMORROW: As we continue to celebrate the launch of the Yale Daily News, we have guest contributors. Dr. Pegie Stark Adam tells us all about her colorization concept for the YDN, while sophomore Reed Reibstein describes the typographic choices.

FRIDAY: A three-minute video, the first in our Typography series part of TheMarioClassroom: Anatomy of a Letter

Posted by Dr. Mario R. Garcia on September 02, 2008