How can it be up for debate when you guys can’t ever provide evidence from your side? You designers and your spinning …

“We just don’t have the metrics for that.”

Then how were you ever making claims? Wishes? Dreams? Vivid imaginations?

“We know from experience that you do both competently”

You could well be the first person I haven’t worked with who has ever said that.

I argue against this group reluctantly because I think there needs to be a new model. But there is no way on God’s green earth I will ever give credibility to a group of people who have never moved any newspaper forward in a significant fashion.

The only way I can ever see that changing is for some of the people to admit their ideas have been long-standing failures at their papers. No finger-pointing and blaming — a simple admission that “good design” hasn’t attracted readers and that “bad design” hasn’t sent them running for cover. Today’s underperforming journalists pant for apologies all the time. I’m not asking for an apology; I’m asking for an admission of guilt.

“I am talking about product design. Designers make a newspaper usable by giving it order and function, at the least.”

Fair enough, although I think you napalm your credibility when you claim that designers — people who NEVER leave the newsroom — understand readers better than anyone.

“But I do think designers have played an important role in changing the culture of newsrooms by emphasizing multimedia content, web existence and design importance.”

I think they’ve destroyed the culture of newsrooms. They have dumbed them down and wrecked the chance of proper priorities being put back into place. News meetings are a circus where the only objective is the creation of Picassos For A Day, even though no copy has been read and no photos have been viewed.

They emphasize only what they feel to be important. Many of them are totally unqualified even to be in a newsroom. They have never covered a beat, never edited an article, never coordinated a desk shift. But they think newsrooms should continue to shelter them and their art degrees, even as qualified people who can read, write, edit, and think are dumped.

Anyway, you didn’t answer the question: Has the group ever done anything to provide sustained growth at any credible newspaper? The same stipulations apply — calling for proof it hasn’t is illogical in a non-time-specific situation. Citing tiny papers and their one year of circulation growth is not an example. Anything other than provable, tangible numbers is not an acceptable response. Redefining terms such as circulation or content is not an acceptable response.

Let me know if you can salvage your credibility by providing a single example that falls within those parameters. Otherwise, it’s time to admit the design-based approach has helped lead newspapers to the bleak situation they face. Either you have proof of success, or you have a pattern of failed philosophies that you refuse to abandon. But please don’t waste our time saying you want a new, futuristic model when you are dragging a Conestoga wagon of designer-concocted manure behind you.

Pitting visual against words is an old game and a tired one. We need both, obviously, in order to make any head way at all. We shouldn’t even separate words from design, we are all journalists of a different skills set.

My point that you quoted was merely an observation that designers think differently. I think that much is evident by the fact that designers design and writers write PRIMARILY. That is not to say that people can’t do both competently or even excel at both. We know from experience that you do both competently and I would venture to guess that many on the R2.0 are the same way.

When I talk about design, though, and it’s possible Mansfield means it the same way, I am not talking about visuals at all. I am talking about product design. Designers make a newspaper usable by giving it order and function, at the least. Art, PFADs and etc. is another topic all together.

What Jacobson’s and Mansfield’s group was trying to do (correct me if I’m wrong, anyone) is approach the idea of journalism’s future from a different perspective. Now whether or not you think that perspective is valid, is of course an opinion anyone is entitled to.

As for, “what have designers done?” I don’t think they were saying they’ve improved credibility or circulation because clearly that is a case by case basis and always up for debate. There is no way to measure who or what elements increase or decrease circulation. We just don’t have the metrics for that. But I do think designers have played an important role in changing the culture of newsrooms by emphasizing multimedia content, web existence and design importance.

Again, you might think those are bad things, but I think those are more measurable outcomes of design thought.

This hasn’t worked in the current newsrooms. I don’t see it working in the future.

As much as you might want to close your eyes and cover your ears, the credibility of your group is nil. Has it ever done anything to provide sustained growth at any credible newspaper? (This means papers other than tiny ones in Wyoming or other isolated outposts.)

Saying: “Prove that it hasn’t” is not an acceptable response. Taking credit for one-day circulation gains and blaming editorial for sustained circulation losses is not an acceptable response. Anything other than provable, tangible numbers is not an acceptable response. Redefining terms such as circulation or content is not an acceptable response.

Let us know if you have anything that does not fall into those categories. It’d be the first time ever.

As soon as the people whose ideas have failed repeatedly agree to stop making wild claims and to step away from the table, then I’ll be open to some collaboration.

But I have little interest in collaborating with people who fear content and spend most of their time disparaging it. Or concocting wild claims about how they — and they alone — have the way to “save journalism.”

We shouldn’t be giving credibility to groups that have failed time and again to deliver on their claims. Someday, it’ll be time to wake up and to put the blame where it belongs. There are many important things that have been ignored or destroyed because bands of non-thinkers were allowed to infiltrate newsrooms and to erode their very fabric.

As Ra’s al Ghul might say: The visual charlatans haven’t won. They have sacrificed newspapers’ sure footing for a killing stroke.

Now the ice is cracking beneath them, and they’re looking for something to grab onto.

Hmm. Your statement doesn’t seem to be any less cocky than the others you cite.

I am not going to claim I am sitting on some magical solution. I’ll leave that to the designers who have been claiming that for years and have never delivered.

But I will discuss two aspects I’m sure the visual “thinkers” who shun content have not considered:

* Long-form journalism/writing is far less odious than the visual “thinkers” want to believe. Their fear of content clouds their judgment in this area, and that will ultimately doom any effort this group attempts. I’ve known people who have never read a newspaper, but they will spend hours reading a longer piece on the Internet. The visual “thinkers” try to claim these people have short attention spans and have to be lured in by gimmicks. They’re wrong. Always have been, always will be.

* Regardless of whatever myopic model this group rushes to construct, I’m sure it will omit another important component. There has to be some sort of console where people are paying to get content. Not photos. Not visuals. Content.

Now I’m sure people will start screaming about how the paid console method has failed. But let’s put aside the “all or nothing” thinking that has doomed newsrooms and pretty much all logic today. That paid console could be 2 percent of the projected revenue. Or 10 percent. Or 25 percent. But saying that if it’s not 100 percent, then it should be zero is foolish.

Finally, I’ll conclude with a statement that Alan Mutter seems to abhor because he keeps spiking the post. At some point, the publishing/editing industry allowed itself to be overrun with morons. The current model is flawed, but creating a new model with the same failed ideas, such as the quoted sentence that starts this post, is going to solve nothing.

So, what’s your solution for funding journalism?

Tick, tock, Mike.