Saving Newspapers: The Coke Classic Strategy

by Robert Wright

I like the new online look of the Los Angeles Times. It reminds me of….. the old offline look. And that’s the point: Newspapers may need to stick with what will increasingly seem like a retro aesthetic if they’re going to remind/convince people that they carry more reportorial authority than, say, the blog item I’m now writing in my pajamas with no actual knowledge of the subject under discussion. 

This is what the New York Times has long understood (note that the new LAT looks more like NYTimes.com, complete with the serif body font) and the Washington Post hasn’t. But the Post seems to have seen the light; witness its switch a couple of months ago from that bloodless sans-serif logo back to its classic, all-the-president’s-men logo. Now about those cheesy blue sans-serif headlines….