The Buenos Aires Herald is one of those newspapers that, by the grace of God, simply must continue existing no matter what horrors befall the newspaper industry as a whole. Finding up-to-date information on Argentina, in English, can be exceptionally frustrating and I had the Sunday version of the paper sent to me in New York every week; perfect reading for the train ride into work. Martin Gambarotta’s “Politics & Labour” column has to be one of the most informative and well-written political columns in any English-speaking newspaper. I also enjoyed the paid announcements section, informing readers of golf tournaments in aid of the Hospital Británico, meetings of the British-Argentine Chamber of Commerce, and when the next convocation of the South America Piping Association would be held. That said, when the Herald started denominating their subscription fee in dollars instead of pesos, I had to call it quits — though very reluctantly.

All the time while perusing the newspaper, however, I kept thinking “This could be better…”. Readers know how design-obsessed I am, especially when it comes to newspapers, and the Buenos Aires Herald would be such a better newspaper if they just tweaked a few things: a more judicious font choice, standardized white-spaces between columns, a few meliorations here and there. But now they’ve gone and redesigned the thing — without seeking the input of this devoted fan! — and they’ve got it all wrong. (more…)

The Daily Telegraph prides itself on being Britain’s top-selling quality daily newspaper, but the dear old Telly has being playing tabloid of late. Compare this 2004 front page (left) to one of just a few days ago (right).

The point of a headline in a quality newspaper should be to inform the reader of what the article is about, as well as to impart information quickly to those who are scanning the page. “Payback time” the Telegraph boldy asserts, but what on earth does that tell us? Nothing; we have to go to the subheadline to find out “Cameron orders Tories to refund excessive expenses; Hazel Blears to meet £13,332 tax bill on second home”.

There is an art in creating a headline that is both punchy and informative without being vulgar, but the Telegraph seems to have abandoned this art — for now, at least.

A FAVOURITE POSTER of mine combines a number of the things I love: newspapers, architecture, and the Netherlands. Arthur Goldsteen designed this handsome poster to advertise the daily newspaper De Volkskrant in 1950.

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When it comes to newspapers, the visual element is all-important to an extent that shockingly few in the powerful parts of the industry comprehend. In the county of Westchester — my home turf — there is a monopoly when it comes to the newspaper as a means of local information delivery, and that monopoly belongs to the Gannett chain. Gannett newspapers are among the ugliest in the country, but then most American newspapers are abominations when it comes to design. The glory days of newspapers were, of course, the 1920s & 30s, and Stephen Fry’s film “Bright Young Things” — a rejigged dramatisation of Waugh’s Vile Bodies — highlights, as many Waughvian tales do, newspapers as a central plot instrument.

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Writing about the latest changes over at the International Herald Tribune, the Guardian‘s media blog “Organgrinder” linked to our “remarkably comprehensive” post covering the subject in depth. I’m slightly embarrassed to say I’ve never seen any of Jean-Luc Godard’s films, something I will have to rectify through the DVD collection at the French Institute’s Haskell Library when I’m back in New York.

Meanwhile, Erik Zenhausern, the IHT’s former Operations Director for the Americas, corrects some errors on my part and gives us an inside look at NYT-IHT operations [boldface mine]:

The New York Times ‘tightens the leash’, shutting IHT website and redesigning newspaper as Times-lite; Herald-Trib loyalists cry foul

THE SAD DECLINE of one of the newspaper world’s most historic titles is continuing as the entire industry faces the challenges of the twenty-first century. The International Herald Tribune recently suffered a host of changes on the order of its proprietor, the New York Times, that have continued to assault the Paris-based newspaper’s individual identity. The paper’s website, iht.com, has been shut down and now redirects to a new portal on the New York Times‘s website, nytimes.com. Non-U.S. internet viewers are now automatically sent to the new portal — global.nytimes.com — upon accessing the Times website as well, but can switch to the U.S. edition at the click of a button. The rationalization for the move is centered on the New York Times Company’s attempts to boost online advertising revenue as print advertising and sales figures tumble. Furthermore, the actual print version of the Herald-Tribune has been redesigned, spurning the paper’s long design identity to make it look like a more light-weight version of the New York Times.

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What a change eighty years makes! What was once filed under “English Provincial Press” is now the voice, mouthpiece, and all-but-official organ of the British establishment.

These two numbers of the Gaullist newspaper Le Rassemblement show what even a little dose of colour can do for a journal printed in black-and-white. The lack of additional colour was due to economical, not to mention technological, restraints, but we have now gotten well used to our newspapers being printed in a full array of colour. Yes, even the FAZ.

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Tom Kington & Jamie Doward of The Observer lead the way

“Pope stirs up Jewish fury over bishop: The Vatican is reinstating a British priest who denies millions died at the hands of the Nazis. … Tension between the Vatican and Jewish groups looked set to explode yesterday after Pope Benedict XVI rehabilitated a British bishop who has claimed no Jews died in gas chambers during the second world war.”

Or rather, not. All the Holy Father has done is lift Bishop Williamson’s excommunication. Bishop Williamson’s excommunication had nothing to do with his holocaust denial, but rather with his willful disobedience to authority. Thus the lifting of his excommunication is in no way a “rehabilitation”, nor an endorsement of his dodgy views on history, but merely to do with the offense or state which brought about excommunication.

For some reason, this kind of misleading disinformation (whether out of malicious intent or just not being very good at one’s job) infects religion reporting more than any other field in the British media. You would think people would study or learn about the institutions they report about, but that no longer seems a requirement of the job as it presumably once was. Go figure.

The Hungarian capital’s German-language newspaper has been “independent, pluralistic, steeped in tradition” since 1854

The fall of the Iron Curtain nearly twenty years ago after a half-century of Communist domination in Eastern Europe afforded an opportunity to revive many of the traditions and institutions which — while they had survived monarchy, republicanism, and fascism — were annihilated by the all-consuming Red totalitarianism. One such institution that has risen from the ashes is Hungary’s once-revered German-language newspaper, the Pester Lloyd.

First appearing in 1854, when Buda and Pest were still two cities flanking the banks of the Danube, the Pester Lloyd was the leading German journal in Hungary. Printed daily with morning and evening editions, the “Pester” in the paper’s name refers to Pest, while “Lloyd” is in imitation of Lloyd’s List (the London shipping & commercial newspaper founded in 1692 by the eponymous properitor of Lloyd’s Coffee Shop and still going strong today). The paper first gained prominence under the editorial leadership of Dr. Miksa (Max) Falk, who had famously tutored the Empress Elisabeth in Hungarian and instilled in the consort a particular love for the Hungarian kingdom.

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The Netherlands’ premier broadsheet has gone partly English online

The moderate liberal Dutch broadsheet NRC Handelsblad is the latest of a series of European periodicals looking for a more international readership by translating part of their content into English for distribution on the world wide web. “NRC International” is partnered with the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, itself a pioneer in featuring English content in an “international” section of its website. Aside from NRC and Der Spiegel, other news outlets now featuring web-only English-language content are Germany’s Die Welt and Hungary’s Heti Világgazdaság, while Eurozine features translated and original content from a broad spectrum of continental reviews and journals. Sadly, Sign and Sight recently had to reduce their “From the Feuilletons” — looking at the culture pages of German-language newspapers — from a daily to a weekly feature. Sign and Sight also features a weekly “Magazine Roundup” doing the rounds of a wide variety of European, Asian, and American magazines.

The move comes as print newspapers of the conventional variety across Europe and America are losing circulation. Some Manhattan newsstands have seen takers for the Sunday New York Times fall by as much as 80% in the past few years. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal both recently narrowed their page width in a move to save paper costs; the change, however, also means less room for advertising and a more ungainly appearance.

South Africa’s Herald, meanwhile, has bucked the gloomy trend and increased its readership by 14.5% in the past year. The Herald, the Eastern and Southern Cape’s regional broadsheet, attributes its success to a visual redesign and reorienting content to encourage readers to link up with the newspaper’s website. South Africa is also home to The Times (not to be confused with the older Cape Times), a new upmarket broadsheet newspaper launched as a daily extension of the century-old Sunday Times. The weekday Times was started a year ago and its circulation since just June has seen a 10.4% increase.

A major problem for the industry is that formerly high-end newspapers have driven down the quality of their product to a suicidal extent over the past decades. The middle market, for better or worse, is dead, and publishers have three alternatives to this disappearing sector: 1) go lowest-common-denominator — as The Times of London has done, with only moderate success; 2) go up-market — The Times and Sunday Times of South Africa have proved worthwile; or 3) go niche — the New York Observer is still in business after two decades of aiming towards Manhattan’s yuppie community.

Whichever path taken, integrating print and web operations is vital for the survival of print newspapers and other “dead tree” media. That European newspapers are providing at least part of their content in English is helpful in keeping up with events and ideas in countries like Germany, the Netherlands, and Hungary as our native English-language media are tightening their belts and cutting foreign correspondents and coverage. I hope more non-English papers follow this trend and help to permanentize it.

Francis Luis Mora, Subway riders, New York City, 1914
Print, 12½” x 9¼”
1914, New York Public Library

Center-right New York daily will cease printing at end of month

In a devastating blow to the intellectual life of the city, the New York Sun editor Seth Lipsky announced today that the small-but-influential daily newspaper will cease operations at the end of the month unless new investors can be found to put many millions of dollar into the revived title. The newspaper — known for its excellent arts & cultural coverage and willingness to lift the veil on corruption in addition to its hardcore neoconservative politics — is believed to be operating at a loss of tens of millions of dollars a year. Seth Lipsky announced the perilous state of the Sun in a letter to readers this morning:

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Watch this splendidly dated television advertisement for The European from 1991. In that year, the Soviet Union still existed, Eastern Airlines closed after sixty-two years in aviation, the IRA was still bombing London, Archbishop Lefebvre went on to his eternal reward, Édith Cresson became premier of France, and the Dow Jones closed above 3,000 for the first time — today it closed at 11,532.88.

First Christian de Lisle, now Jennifer Roche: at this rate within a year everyone I know will have contributed to the Catholic Herald! (And, incidentally, I did have a brief chat in the Travellers Club once with the chap who wrote the piece on the Assumption).

I might just have to take out a subscription, though an electronic one — probably the most convenient for we across the seas — is still a hefty £38: at today’s exchange rate that’s seventy good ole American smackeroons! Probably worth it, though.

The German edition of Le monde diplomatique underwent a complete overhaul not too long ago. Unlike the main French edition of Le monde diplo, which exhibits the exact style of a French newspaper of mediocre design circa 1996, the German edition now exudes a certain calm and composed modernity. The redesign is the work of the German typographer and designer Erik Spiekermann, whom the Royal Society have named a Royal Designer for Industry (entitling him to an HonRDI after his name; only “hon” because he is not a British subject). Mr. Spiekermann was responsible for the much-lauded redesign of The Economist, the magazine you read when the airport lounge doesn’t have a copy of The Spectator.

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TIME magazine, 26 October 1942

In the ornate Paz family crypt in Buenos Aires’ comfortable La Recoleta cemetery, honors came thick last week to the late José Clemente Paz, founder of Argentina’s La Prensa. The Argentine Government issued a special commemorative postage stamp. Nationwide collections were taken to erect a monument. U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull sent a laudatory cable, as did many another foreign notable. It was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Argentina’s most famous journalist.

Although Don José has been dead for 30 years, the newspaper he founded 73 years ago has not changed much. La Prensa is THE Argentine newspaper, is one of the world’s ten greatest papers.

Polish, Curiosity, Comics.

A cross between the London Times and James Gordon Bennett’s old New York Herald, La Prensa is unlike any other newspaper anywhere. In its fine old building the rooms are lofty and spiced with the odor of wax polish, long accumulated. Liveried flunkies pass memoranda and letters from floor to floor on an old pulley and string contraption. But high-speed hydraulic tubes whip copy one mile from the editorial room to one of the world’s most modern printing plants—more than adequate to turn out La Prensa’s 280,000 daily, 430,000 Sunday copies.

Argentines are minutely curious about the world. Although newsprint (from the U.S.) is scarce, La Prensa usually carries 32 columns of foreign news—more than any other paper in the world. Four years ago most was European—today New York or Washington has as many datelines as London.

La Prensa’s front page is solid (save for a small box for important headlines) with classified ads. So, usually, are the following six pages—one reason the paper nets a million dollars or more annually. Lately La Prensa has made some concessions to modernity: it now carries two comic strips, occasional news pictures.

Deliveries, Duels, Discussions.

La Prensa will not deliver the paper to a politician’s office; he must have it sent to his home. It will not call for advertising copy. No local staffman has ever had a byline.

South American journalism is more hazardous than the North American brand. La Prensa’s publisher and principal owner, Ezequiel Pedro Paz, Don José’s son, has twice been challenged to a duel. Because he is a crack pistol shot, neither duel was fought. Now over 70, Don Ezequiel shows up at the paper punctually at 5 p.m. for the daily editorial conference with Editor-in-Chief Dr. Rodolfo N. Luque. Present also is his nephew and heir-apparent, handsome Alberto Gainza (“Tito”) Paz, 43, father of eight and ex-Argentine open golf champion. Significantly, La Prensa’s owner-publishers visit their editor-in-chief and not vice versa.

La Prensa’s foreign affairs editorials often wield great influence, but have not budged the isolationism of President Ramón Castillo. The paper has supported Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, pumped for the United Nations, denounced the totalitarians. But it speaks softly. When Argentina’s President Castillo gagged the press with a decree forbidding editorial discussions of foreign events, admirers of Don José recalled how he once suspended publication in protest at another Argentine President’s like decree. If old Don José were now alive, declared they, he would again have stopped La Prensa’s presses rather than submit to Castillo’s regulations. — TIME, Oct. 26, 1942

TIME magazine, 16 July 1934

Prensa Presses

On the roof of the imposing La Prensa building in Buenos Aires’ wide Avenida de Mayo is a large siren. Its piercing screech, audible for miles, heralds the break of hot news. Long ago a city ordinance was passed forbidding use of the siren and the publishers rarely sound it nowadays. But when some world-shaking event takes place, La Prensa’s horn shrills and a Prensa office boy trots downtown to pay the fine before its echo has died away.

Last week the fingers of La Prensa’s acting publisher, Dr. Alberto Gainza Paz, itched to push the siren button. There was much to celebrate. Not only was it Nueve de Julio, Argentina’s Independence Day, but potent old La Prensa was formally inaugurating a new $3,000,000 printing plant, finest in South America. Its holiday edition ran to 725,000 copies— 150,000 more than its previous record.

The plant is housed in a new building a half mile from the main office, in the rent-cheap industrial district. It is linked to the editorial rooms by pneumatic tubes. The installation includes a 21-unit Hoe press similar to that of the New York World-Telegram. The press is driven by 56 motors, is fed by 63 rolls of newsprint and two six-ton tanks of ink. A normal edition of 250,000 copies (400,000 Sunday) is spewed out in considerably less than an hour. Since Buenos Aires is so far from the Canadian pulp market, La Prensa keeps on hand up to 7,500 tons of newsprint, enough to supply its needs for three months or, in emergency, to produce a smaller paper for a year.

Completion of the new plant marked the almost complete retirement of La Prensa’s publisher and principal owner, Don Ezequiel P. Paz. Son of the late Dr. José C. Paz, who turned out the first copy of La Prensa 65 years ago on a tiny hand press, Don Ezequiel started to work around the shop as a youngster in 1896, took full charge while still a young man. He devoted his life completely to his newspaper, spent nearly all his waking hours in his incredibly ornate office, denied himself to practically all callers except his editors. Past 60, of nervous temperament, he lives nearly half the year at his French estate near Biarritz. On his transatlantic trips he customarily takes a large party of relatives, and for the sake of his diet, a cow. The cow makes the round trip but must be sacrificed in sight of her native land because of Argentina’s rigid quarantine against all imported cattle. Don Ezequiel sailed for Biarritz last month, regarding the new plant as perhaps the last important milestone in his publishing career. Childless, he turned his responsibilities over to his nephew, youthful Dr. Alberto Gainza Paz, whom he carefully tutored as he himself had been trained by Founder José. So puny in boyhood that he was not expected to live. Dr. Gainza made of himself one of the foremost amateur athletes in Buenos Aires.

Beyond dispute La Prensa is the leading newspaper in South America, is read throughout the continent. Sternly independent, it truckles to no political party, even refuses to accept political advertising on the ground that if any politician is really as good as he claims, he is legitimate news and will be reported accordingly.

To U. S. newsreaders, a typical copy of La Prensa is a curious sight. Prime headlines are massed in a six-column box on the front page, which is otherwise filled with classified advertisements. The “classifieds” run through the next six pages and supply the wherewithal for Publisher Paz’s proud boast that La Prensa is independent of large commercial advertisers. The news pages begin with a lengthy, learned article which most readers skip, but which is supposed to wield strong influence in high places. The news columns proper are top-heavy with foreign news. Probably no other newspaper in the world spends so much money on cable tolls—a fact partly due to Argentina’s cosmopolitan population. La Prensa demands important political speeches in full. It “discovered” Albert Einstein for the world press by first requesting United Press to interview him on his theory of relativity 15 years ago. After La Prensa printed it, U. P. decided to try Einstein on its U. S. clients. La Prensa gives any amount of space to amateur sports, demands play-by-play coverage on important chess matches, but refused Argentina’s Prizefighter Luis Firpo more than the barest mention even at the height of his popularity. It prints voluminous market news, lottery drawings, crossword puzzles, no comics except on Sunday. Its newsphotos are rare and inferior. On Sunday it offers rotogravure in color.

Employing no advertising salesmen, La Prensa never solicited an advertisement. Until a few years ago it would not permit advertisers to use large display type. It rejected a substantial Wrigley campaign because it hesitated to introduce the gum-chewing habit to Argentina. It saw no sense in a Quaker Oats breakfast food advertising program because Argentinians do not eat breakfast. However, La Prensa does print many an advertisement of doctors specializing in venereal diseases. La Prensa is one of the wealthiest newspapers in the world. The Paz family took from it enough to live in ease, plowed back huge sums for improvements and. notably, social services. One of the oldest services is a general delivery postal service, begun after the great immigration of the 1860’s when the Argentine post office proved hopelessly inadequate. To this day a letter addressed care of La Prensa will reach any Argentinian of known residence. Also La Prensa maintains free medical and surgical clinics for the poor, free legal service, and a free three-year music school. Its building houses banquet rooms, lecture halls, library, gymnasium.

The Paz family likes to regard La Prensa as Argentina’s property, themselves as hired managers. — TIME, July 16, 1934

CUSACK’S NOTE: La Prensa was confiscated by Peron’s dictatorship and its assets given to the Peronist CGT trade union. The family’s assets were restituted in 1988 and the newspaper refounded, but its readers had by then moved elsewhere and the La Prensa continues to this day in a much reduced form; its old headquarters on the Avenida de Mayo is now the Casa de la Cultura. The conservative La Nacion is now the only broadsheet in Argentina.

When I was a kid, The European — the weekly broadsheet that billed itself as “Europe’s national newspaper” from 1990 to 1998 — was my favourite newspaper and was an indelible part of our Sunday routine in the Cusack household. First Mass, then a trip to the pastry shop, then pick up The European at the newsagents next door, and back home to read and munch al fresco.

The paper was fiercely Euro-federalist until Andrew Neil took over, so I suspect were I to look back on a few copies now, I would probably strongly disagree with its politics. The late Peter Ustinov was a columnist, and he was not just a European integrationist but indeed a major supporter of world federalism (i.e. the abolition of nations and the rule of the planet by a single government; in theory democratic but inevitably a dictatorship of course).

Nonetheless, it was a very broad paper, with news from all across the continent from Cork to Constantinople, and I have no doubt its coverage played at least some role in the formation of your humble and obedient scribe.

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We are of the opinion that the more publications, the merrier, and so we certainly welcome the foundation of the Primera Revista Latinoamerican de Libros. The PRL, which is a sort of Hispanic version of the TLS, started printing last September and is based right here in New York. The bimonthly is published in Spanish but reviews both books that are printed in Spanish and books printed in English. Again, like the TLS, it is not limited to book reviews but features other literary essays as well.

The head honcho at the PRL is Fernando Gubbins, who has earned a master’s degree in Public Affairs from Columbia here in New York and a philosophy degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. Mr. Gubbins previously edited the opinion & editorial section of the Peruvian newspaper Expreso, and has worked with the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Not being a hispanophone, I am not qualified to render judgement on the quality of the publication’s content, the PRL in print is well designed and has a very traditional but modern feel to it, and it was a pleasure flicking through its pages. The Primera Revista is a welcome addition to the literary world of New York, and of Latin America.

Gerald Warner of Craigenmaddie, one of Britain’s greatest living journalists, now has a splendid blog over at the Daily Telegraph called Is It Just Me? I am sure you will all want to take a look at it. Already he has an appreciation of the recently deceased Franz Künstler, until his death the last living soldier of the Hapsburg army, a brief missive pointing out how terribly un-British the idea of a “Britishness Day” is, and a forthright post on the value of the stiff upper lip in times of crisis.

Much of what Gerald says is, to sensible people, simply obvious. But one of the great dangers of our modern age is that what ought to be simply obvious is becoming less and less so due to deliberate obfuscation by the political and media classes. Gerald’s talent is that he tells you what’s what and that he manages to do it with a graceful alacrity, and often wit, that are a welcome — and, sadly, rare — treat. Go, read, enjoy!

Warneriana: Gerald Warner Axed | ‘The Mass of All Time answers that need’ | Martyrs of Spain, Pray for Us! | Warner on the Gotha

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