It is good to get in touch with what the younger set prefers in terms of news consumption.
I have a front row seat with that crowd via my Columbia University class in the School of Journalism. My course is titled Multiplatform Design & Storytelling, and it is a graduate course. So, while these students are young, they are also in their 20s, sophisticated, and, as journalism students, well, better read and more interested in media than students in other disciplines, or so we hope.
The assignment this week was:
Be ready to discuss your favorite mobile news site and favorite e-newsletter. Write a short summary and submit a Word document. Include a screenshot of the site or newsletter you are referencing. Use the Instagram style for presentation of your assignment.
I offer you here a view of the various “favorites”, and a short comment from the student on why he/she favors this particular treatment. Heck, we can all learn from what these informed young people are looking for in their newsletters.
Here are some of the favorites:
DealBook, The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/section/business/dealbook
The most significant story is featured both at the top of the newsletter and in the object of the email, making it easy for the reader to understand immediately what’s happening.
The Outline
“The experience of combing through the site feels like an adventure…”
“I find The Ringer’s use of graphic photos, where they employ color and other Photoshop techniques to make the images stand out, really visually appealing, especially in a mobile format.”
Quartz
http://qz.com
“…the brief signs off with a SoundCloud link to a song the brief-organizer listened to while preparing the newsletter. This allows readers to sample new African artists, which for this particular brief, was Lady Donli and GjtheCaesar from Nigeria.”
Flash Points
https://foreignpolicy.com/newsletters/
Flash Points also is a great example of what Foreign Policy does so well, simplifying complex global issues for its readers. The headlines are straight-forward and include a one to two sentence article summary allowing readers to clearly understand the nature of the topic they are about the dive into.
The Skimm
“There are no pictures, but I find it to be a quick and informative read.”
Axios
“Without visiting the website just by reading the Newsletter briefly, you get quite enough information fast and efficiently.”
TheMarioBlog Post #2985