Something I’ve noticed in newspapers recently is that several papers of a specific chain have much the same (if not exactly the same) design elements; this I’ve noticed with several of the Gannetts (Greenville, Des Moines, Indy, Arizona, Nashville), and a couple of the Hearsts (Houston and S.F.). Why is that?
Branding: they want people to know that those newspapers are related. Transferability: any sections which are common information (such as International) can be set up only once and sent to everybody.
If they’ve spent time and money developing a design for one newspaper, why not apply that design to the rest of the chain. It presumably has the qualities that the company is looking for —readability, attractiveness, a contemporary feel, etc.
The problem is considering them to be different newspapers in the first place. Similar to what Nava said, many of these papers probably have a small local staff but the majority of content is from one central location. Independent newspapers are just not profitable enough anymore to be able to pay staff.
That’s an excellent point! IIRC, back when I was coming up, a lot of papers in the same chain were different from each other. But you’re right-- the sameness/similarity of design seems to be the way to tell what chain a particular paper is associated with/owned by.
Here’s a question to you. Do you consider any local NBC station to be a separate entity from the NBC chain? What percentage of content locally produced would make it separate? I’m assuming most local stations produce the local news, find local advertisers, probably not much else. It’s not much different for newspapers in this day and age.
Another excellent point! And, outside of those which are directly owned by NBC (WNBC, KNBC, KXAS, etc. [and not just them, but any network]), no, I do not consider any local station to be a separate entity in and of itself.
And similarly (and somewhat controversially), it’s common for chain newspapers to run the same editorials in all their papers.
Newspaper readers often think that their “hometown” newspaper is local, perhaps receiving news stories from some Corporate Office – but at least the editorial page should be written by the local editor, reflecting local issues and a local viewpoint.
But surprise, surprise! Pick of the sister newspaper in any city, from sea to shining sea, and find the same verbatim editorial, reflecting the view from the Corporate Office.
Cite? I’ve worked for two of the top-five, and I’ve never seen that happen. Perhaps you’re thinking of syndicated columnists? Other than that, the editorial pages are one of the few sections that contain entirely local content.
Twenty years in the business, and I’ve never worked for a paper where any content came from a “corporate office.”
As for the OP, it was an intentional choice for the Gannett papers to have the same design. Each of it’s ~80 papers are laid out each night at a few central design centers. Using the same fonts, styles, and page templates makes that possible.