If you are like me, you indulge—and get spoiled—with every new New York Times digital product that appears. I have most recently discovered the very data-driven NYT Upshot, with its friendly green dots logo, as in a colon that leads to The Upshot, all about politics, policy, economics and everyday life.
That's quite a spectrum of topics and I like the mix of stories, but, more so, the headlines.
Here is the Times not forcing the rigorous style of the old gray lady into its newest products. Quite the contrary.
Its editor is David Leonhardt, a former Washington bureau chief and Pulitzer Prize winner for his columns about economics, which means that The Upshot is not only trendy and friendly, but authoritative, like everything else that The Times produces.
“The Times is in an extremely strong position digitally. We are going to be very much a Times product. Having said that, we are not going to do stuff the same way the Times does," Leonhardt told Quartz. The tone, he said, will be more like having “a journalist sitting next to you, or sending you an email.”
The moment you step into the world of The Upshot, it is new territory all the way: chatty style and use of first person in headlines, as in:
"Who Will Win the Senate? We give the Republicans a 56% chance of gaining a majority"
Because The Upshot is a product of the era of social media, its presence on Twitter is the hook that takes us to it, or at least that is the case with me. I came into The Upshot via those catchy Twitter teaser headlines.
The tweets are focused, making you feel as if you somehow need to read the story right now.
Look at some recent tweets
Amazon’s Phone: It’s Not About the Phone, Really
Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage in New York is lower than it was 50 years ago.
What Italy must do to defeat Uruguay and advance to the World's Cup next stage
Parents of college students: Do you hate FAFSA? Just two questions would yield the same financial aid
Major in subjects that command higher salaries, like engineering and finance, and do even better in a recession.**
Why tax cuts just aren't a hot topic in Washington any more.
The four best majors in a recession (and in normal times): economics, finance, computer science & civil engineering.
Journalism and architecture majors were pretty much recession proof. Wouldn't have thought that, right?**
Putting women on boards doesn't get more women into the executive ranks, a major study shows
In English and Spanish?
Bilingual is one of the things that The Upshot seems to be. At least one of their tweet teasers during the World Cup this past week was both in English and Spanish, with a great illustration to match.
What the print New York Times can learn from this effort:
We drink to the success of The Upshot (image courtesy of The Upshot/NYTimes)
I can see some of those same headlines appearing in print, which would be a step forward if the editors wish to have the Times do print more happily.
I also think that the mix of topics, including everyday life along with politics and policy, which would be a rare occurrence in print, could be a future way of looking at content.
And the surprises! Recently, during the World Cup game, when underdog Chile defeated former champ Spain, The Upshot went for a short story with the headline Raising a Glass for Chile, which included a recipe for what the editor referred to as "the logical drink to toast Chile’s success? A pisco sour, of course, the cocktail based on the grape brandy made along the west coast of South America."
This was accompanied by a great and appropriate illustration, of course.
Along with a different definition of frequency, printed newspapers such as The New York Times will be rethinking how they align content, creating new and unorthodox mixes to produce fewer printed sections and amplify how stories are presented.
It is not just the users/readers who bring a digital mentality to print. Editors should too.
The Upshot, that new product with "a little" legacy, points the way.
Of related interest
The firm that designed The Upshot's logo is Original Champions of Design: http://originalchampionsofdesign.com/work/upshot/
More examples there of the logo and how it appears online and in print.
Editor's Leonhardt's note from when they opened The Upshot:
"Our biggest goal is to serve as navigators for the news. We aim to appeal to the many people out there who wish they understood the world a bit better. We’ll be conversational without being dumbed down. We will build on all of the excellent journalism The New York Times is already producing, by helping readers make connections among different stories and understand how those stories fit together."
