When major news organizations born in print revamp their digital homes, more is generally regarded as more.
With its new look website this week, Newsweek has bucked that trend, going for a clean look and feel that stands in sharp contrast to the feature jumble you get from Time.com, The New York Times and other massive news operations. Rather than try to jam as much on the homepage as possible, Newsweek gives you a mercilessly pared down version of world events, surrounded by white space, all in a clear attempt to live up to the tagline, “What Matters Most.”
It might be tempting to call this approach bloggy, as Editorial Director Mark Miller and others have done, but that couldn’t be more wrong. If Newsweek leadership really wanted to incorporate the best of the culture of blogging, they wouldn’t have drained the site of the personalities that provide Newsweek with what value that still remains: Its commentators. Strangely, there’s no preening of Newsweek’s crew of heavy-hitting authors until you get to the bottom of the page, where the likes of Fareed Zakaria, Howard Fineman, Daniel Gross, and Dan Lyons are listed in tiny type. It’s a curious decision in light of Newsweek’s strategic overhaul of a few years back to focus on opinion and commentary at the expense of newsgathering and, naturally, newsgatherers, hundreds of whom were laid off and bought-out.
