The content isn’t good enough.
As Brian Cook of MGoBlog explains:
99% of sports journalism as practiced by newspapers is repetitive, inefficient grunt work. Sports stories come in three flavors, as far as I can tell:
This game happened in this way.
This was said at a press conference.
Player X is a nice young man.
There’s a reason everyone wants a column, right?
via mgoblog | Michigan football, basketball, hockey, and general what-have-you.
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I also blogged some similar thoughts about Time Inc.’s belated attempt to reinvent the magazine, , Mine.
Another factor is that they don’t take advantage of their strengths. Broadsheet newspapers are semi-permanent, flexible, portable display devices with a screen that opens to 22 3/4″ x 24″ and ~ 100 dpi resolution.
Unfortunately, they are usually printed on shoddy greyish paper, and most information on the full screen broadsheet is broken into at least twelve columns and quite a few boxes.
Why not print broadsheets on higher quality, crisp, clean white paper and design every 2-page spread as a full “screen” unified by graphic design, like the beautiful graphic data spreads that the New York Times does? Why not have navigation in an unobtrusive “menu bar”? Why not make ample use of full-spread art? Why not print in 133 dpi? (most PCs only do around 100 dpi now). Why not make the papers easier to save and *less* disposable?
I believe the broadsheet newspaper will be back when someone figures out how to take advantage of the strengths of the format relative to the competition.
Newspapers also take way too much for granted in terms of their design.
The New York Times has no design unity. Every section looks different and has a different audience. The Wall Street Journal does much better at having a unified design.