Have you ever wish to clip out an article in the newspaper only to find out that if you do you will cut right through another article that you'd like to read, or perhaps also clip out on the backside.
There is a good solution for this, and I'm surprised newspaper editors and those who own newspapers haven't considered the potential eventuality of printing the second part of an article directly on the back, on the next page of the first part.
There are other options available to this as well.
For instance, if Page One of the newspaper has several articles on it which are continued on pages in the back of the newspaper, then perhaps they should be put on a page which has the next page or the backside of that page with a giant advertisement, or series of advertisements.
That way if you clip the article from the front page, and you clip the continuation of that article on another page, you aren't cutting through additional reading material.
Why do I believe this should be done? Well, because I keep old articles that are of value to me, and I file them as I might need to use them later.
You may think this is crazy, but how many of you bookmark digital media newspaper articles from your online news reading? Newspapers are at a disadvantage if they make this difficult for the readers, however if newspapers will evolve and consider how people use newspapers, and why baby boomers will continue to wish to read newspapers, no matter what digital media does in the future, then they should be able to stay in business.
Perhaps the best of these two options would be to have the newspapers continue the stories on the reverse side in the exact same Footprint whenever possible.
Yes I realize it will not always be possible due to the size of the stories, the pictures involved, and what have you, but it is easily doable, and I suppose the newspapers have laid off many of the people who do the layout for the newspaper, and they use artificially intelligent software to figure out the placement of the articles.
Now then, how hard would it be to put in the rules and code in the newspaper layout software which would provide for what I have discussed above? Not much.
Therefore as a benefit to newspaper readers, and those of us that like to clip articles and show them or send them to our friends, or keep them because they contain valuable information, this should be done.
After all, the shelf life of the newspaper is pretty poor, and this might increase the shelf-life of some of those articles.
Perhaps on the backside of the Footprint might be small ads to fill up that space, which will automatically get clipped as well.
Maybe that advertising would coincide with the article itself, just as digital media tends to place advertising that is somewhat related to the article that the individual is reading.
If newspapers do not continually evolve to serve the readers and users, then there is no way they can compete in the future and survive, regardless of what venue or industry sector they operate in.
Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.