Two serious publications have recently fallen to the trend of larger print, more colors, more illustrative drawings -- and less text. As of Christmas, the Economist, arguably the best English-language weekly (strong ideological bias notwithstanding), has joined most other publications in coming ever more to resemble an old-fashioned comic book. The Wall Street Journal, which used to serve its texts straight, now also seems to hold that, if I am to read an article about this year's wines then it must draw me a picture of a person drinking from a wine glass, and so on. At the rate we are going, by the year 2020 every newspaper page (assuming that there still be such a thing) will carry one word, six colors, and at least two cartoons. By the way, thanks Arianna, for keeping the Huffington Post relatively free from such infantilization.
I confess that I'm an old-fashioned guy when it comes to text (and old otherwise, having just turned 79). I would love to hear from younger readers: do they find such illustrated texts and larger print truly attractive or necessary? I try to empathize. I agree that if a text looks the way newspapers looked 100 years ago, with tiny, crowded print like the back of an airline ticket, I too shy away from reading them. Still there is a world a difference between a bit more spacing and somewhat larger fonts -- and a cacophony of flashing colors, cartoons that bleed into the text, and such merry making. Should there be no difference between the way we present an article on, say, recent developments in democratic theory and the art of cooking lasagna? Does not the way text is presented communicate a subtext about how seriously we should take the content?
Particularly annoying (at least to one reader) are the multi-layered headlines, which further cut into the space available for text, in newspapers whose pages have been trimmed and whose number of pages have been curtailed. Thus, a recent Wall Street Journal page tells me first--in a line that runs across the page -- that the section before me deals with "personal finance"; then it informs me in big letters -- and another full line -- that the subject is "Money and Investing"; another large heading indicates that a particular story is going to deal with "The Little Island That Could" before I get to read another heading which finally gives me what I need to know to decide whether I want to read the given story. (Still before I get to the text, I get to view a picture of Singapore and a map, is case I don't know what a city looks like or where the island is.) No wonder the report itself is breathless and short. It must leave room for the next multi-layered headings.
I would love to hear if other readers find these devices attractive and get them to read texts they otherwise would shun. Or, do they too prefer to be given the needed words, straight, and unadulterated?
Amitai Etzioni is University Professor at The George Washington University and most recently the author of Security First: For a muscular, moral foreign policy (Yale, 2007).
www.securityfirstbook.com