April 23rd, 2007 by Wendy McAuliffe
The Financial Times relaunched today with the objective of becoming more modern and accessible for today’s readers.
The launch has been well documented by the press, but what’s interested me has been the interviews given by editor Lionel Barber, and the insight they give into the newspaper of the future that he is aiming to create.
In recent months we’ve read more about newspapers relaunching their websites than print papers, and taking this into account, the language and reasoning that Barber has been quoted on today is more akin to him discussing a website launch than print newspaper.
In the interview he gave to the MediaGuardian, Barber talks about providing “better navigation, liveliness, accessibility, sharpness, modernity and …making [sic] the paper easier to scan.”
To Brand Republic he similarly said: “These changes are evolutionary and will provide extra news, deeper analysis and comment. By improving the navigation of the newspaper we’re aiming to help our busy readers get more out of the paper so that they understand that the Financial Times is not only an informative and entertaining read, but also an essential business tool.”
It may be that we’ve all been brainwashed by internet terminology, or, does Barber forsee a change in print newspaper readership behaviour, where people will come to read them in the same way that they would scan a website for news?
It’s an observation that intrigues me. I personally believe we have a long way to go before that happens (in my generation at least), but for the younger generation who have grown up in the age of online media consumption, might their reading habits be evolving in line with the digital revolution?
