It was only a month or so ago that my friend (and former co-worker) Brian left ABC News for a new job with another television outfit based in Washington, D.C., but it would seem that he got out just in time–the New York Times is reporting that 400 or so staff members at ABC News are being let go.

ABC isn’t the only network having issues.  The article also mentions that CBS is having problems, too, and NBC, which is the only broadcast network (aside from FOX) to operate its own cable news channel, is apparently in the minority when it comes to making a profit–funny, considering that their ratings are generally terrible.

Add to that the fact that you can’t go more than twenty feet in any direction without encountering someone who complains about the bias that has creeped into today’s broadcast journalism.  Some say FOX News is slanted to the right (enter Media Matters), while others cry that MSNBC is slanted to the left (welcome, NewsBusters)–it’s the same song-and-dance all day long, every day, every week, every month.  Never mind whether or not the accusations are actually true, because in my book it’s irrelevant.

In my mind, the answer to most, if not all, of these problems is quite simple.  News divisions simply have to stop being required to make a profit.

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Earlier this week Newark Liberty International Airport was shut down for something like six hours when some random guy walked the wrong way (“in the out door,” so to speak) through a security checkpoint and into the “sterile area.”

I don’t know how many of you have been to Newark Airport, but the security screening checkpoints there are set up the same way as they are at many other airports–three to five “lanes” alongside one “exit lane” where arriving passengers can leave. (You can see the exit lane in this photo–it’s from the New York Daily News story above.)  This exit lane is generally unobstructed and may be observed by a TSA agent, though sometimes it is not.  Some, but not all, of these lanes are also closed off by doors that are locked from the inside, but if a big flock of passengers are all headed to baggage claim, those doors can be held open indiscriminately.

These wrong-way security breaches could be stemmed entirely with just a little bit of design know-how.  What about an automated high-capacity revolving door, for example?  Or perhaps an “airlock” type of design with one set of doors on either side?  They could be set to let people out, not in, and be locked down automatically if necessary.

This kind of breach just strikes me as a big waste of everyone’s time and money.  Perhaps that’s stating the obvious.  But it should be equally obvious that preventing these breaches is almost ludicrously simple.

Twitter is unquestionably the “it” social network/micro-blog/indescribable web app of the moment, so it’s gratifying to see that local officials in certain cities are embracing it as a way to keep the public updated.  CNN reports that police and fire departments in cities nationwide are using the service to rapidly disseminate information to the public:

“We think the police department has an obligation to get information out to the community through whatever means or mechanisms we have at our disposal,” said Lakeland Police Assistant Chief Bill LePere. “Traditional media releases, expecting the local print media to pick it up and run it in the newspaper tomorrow, is 24 hours too late.” … Public safety officials are finding the use of sites [like Facebook and Twitter] to be not only speedy, but also a convenient way to distribute press releases, Amber alerts, road closings and suspect descriptions.

Twitter is an ideal platform for this kind of rapid information dissemination, and it’s easy enough to use that even the non-tech savvy can get on board.  I applaud the police and fire departments that have chosen to use these tools, and I encourage more to jump on board.

I saw these very strange-looking “Do Not Lean on Door” decals on the subway some time ago, featuring some bizarre inconsistent typography, and Gothamist got to the bottom of it.

Says an MTA spokesman:

We did have a recent problem with a car builder who took it upon themselves to manufacture and apply subway car decals without the prior approval of NYC Transit. The cars were delivered to NYC Transit with the wrong decals. They have since been instructed not to do so going forward, and those that were applied in error will be replaced with NYC Transit approved and manufactured decals.

The world is awash with brands and logos.  Most of them are adequate–they get the job done but aren’t terribly memorable.  Some are ugly as sin, some are downright incomprehensible, and some aren’t much more than clip art or the result of a typeface chosen at random from the default set in Windows XP.  But sometimes logos and brandmarks become more than just a pictogram–they actually become icons.  That is, they become instantly recognizable, and in many cases they endure for years and years; they become timeless.

Obviously in some cases (even amongst the logos I’ve posted above) there are periodic updates here and there–the “BMW” typeface has changed over the years, for example, and the Apple logo used to be in rainbow colors (and, interestingly, the IBM logo used to be solid), but these logos have never been radically altered from their original forms.

Sometimes, though, companies unintentionally (and sometimes very intentionally) wreck their longstanding corporate identity when they modify their logos, and I can’t quite figure out why.

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