Innovation: I-newspaper, can we think of I-Policy Brief

When some one reads at least 3-4 policy studies and dozen of policy briefs per week as I do, one wonders what could be done to make them more interesting, more unusual and still relevant and readable. This is not to complain that those policy papers that stick to the canon (ex summary, introduction, definition of problem; evaluation of policy options; recommendation) are boring. Neither one should neglect the innovative writing such as the European Stability Initiative’s policy research-cum-investigative journalism style. There is innovation out there, but is there something revolutionary?

Recently, I have come across the following article (thanks Darko): A Portuguese success story: could i be the future of newspapers? about making the I-newspaper. Newspapers are another area where form is entrenched and has rarely being changed (in the paper editions, online does not count ). Mind you I am not expert on newspapers . Yet, how many times you have immediately rushed to the international pages of a newspaper neglecting the technology or entertainment section. Newspaper sections have been standardized and around for a long time. While few object, still where the innovation could happen?

Defying the existing standards, the Portuguese news paper has the following sections:

1. Opinion is the first section of the paper, based on the key word think. No other Portuguese paper starts out with opinion.

2. Radar is the second, accompanied by the key word know. Figueiredo said the assumption was that readers will already know a lot from other sources, but Radar aims to offer a quick overview of everything that has happened in the past 24 hours. The section is eight pages long, and the longest article is half a page.

3. Zoom is the third section, connected to the key word understand. The 22-26 page section looks at between eight and 13 topics in depth, with articles taking up one to ten pages. “We deal with these subjects with a lot of care, and we use the best teams,” Figueiredo said.

4. The fourth section is called More, linked to the key concept feel. This is where anything about people’s private, cultural, social lives goes. Figueiredo explained that the team did not want to give the section a more specific name, or the content would be limited. More encompasses the fifth need that the paper wanted to address: sports, about 80% of which is focused on football – “this is very important in Portugal,” Figueiredo said.

This concept has definitely intrigued me. What could be the i-policy brief ?