Front page got makeover in March
This column has more than once addressed changes in your newspaper and reader reaction to those changes.
Today, we have no reader reaction to share, because the change hasn't happened yet. Starting Wednesday morning, March 4, the front page of your Enterprise will look different.
The changes are the next step in an overall redesign to update the look, feel and content of the newspaper. We believe the change is for the better, though we recognize that some readers, accustomed to the previous format, might disagree.
Among the most noticeable differences will be a more contemporary nameplate with a big ".com" and smaller "Beaumont." The ".com" acknowledges the growing number of ways readers receive and interact with their news and community. The downplayed "Beaumont" recognizes that more than half of our readership and much of our content extends beyond those geographic limits.
The feature "On Beaumont Enterprise.com,"previously found inside the A section, moves to the front page in recognition that one of a newspaper's important new roles is to help people navigate and make sense of the online world. It is more prominently positioned than it was, but it takes up no more space than it did inside, merely a matter of rearrangement.
The most noticeable difference in the front page will be the greater variety of ways we signal stories' importance, newsworthiness and relevance. The front page will have fewer traditionally presented stories but more stories throughout the paper represented with front-page headlines.
Everyone's news judgment is different, as phone calls and e-mails frequently attest. So we've come up with a more flexible presentation that abandons the traditional rigid structure while emphasizing news and indispensable knowledge.
Instead of handing readers a full plate cooked to our order, we will present more of a menu, with a few choice items and a selection of other items readers can choose from elsewhere in the paper. A lot happens in your world every day. The new approach tries to reflect the value and validity of more of it.
This isn't the last of the big changes we plan to make, but we are close to wrapping up our overall redesign of your newspaper.
* We made one additional change to your comics page this week, discontinuing the "For Better or For Worse" strip and adding "Pearls Before Swine." One reason for the change was that the author of FBorFW decided to travel back in time and start over. A year ago, the comic featured parents John and Elly Patterson and their adult children, Elizabeth and Michael, along with younger daughter April. The old story line wrapped up on Sunday, Aug. 31, with Elizabeth's wedding to Anthony and a projection into the future of the family many readers had grown to love.
On Sept. 1, it started over with a young John and Elly, Michael as a toddler and Elizabeth as a baby. It has become the comic version of a movie prequel, except the story already has been told.
So we changed to a different comic, the plucky "Pearls Before Swine," about which you will hear more later. FBorFW will continue in our Sunday comics section.
* A number of readers continue to object to the discontinuation of the daily Dennis the Menace comic and its replacement with the Dinette Set comic. Several have called the Dinette Set "stupid" and have questioned our decision, saying they simply don't like it. That's fine. Actually that's the way it is supposed to be.
Just as some readers might grab the sports section first thing to look at the scores and others never open the pages of our sports section, we try to have something that appeals to everyone, knowing there is no way to make every story on every page of our paper appeal to everyone.
Newspaper content is not (at least not yet) about creating a product with every reader's likes and none of their dislikes. It's about creating a product that contains something for everyone who wants to read the newspaper.
That's what we are trying to achieve as we continue to change and adjust our content and presentation.
Today, we have no reader reaction to share, because the change hasn't happened yet. Starting Wednesday morning, March 4, the front page of your Enterprise will look different.
The changes are the next step in an overall redesign to update the look, feel and content of the newspaper. We believe the change is for the better, though we recognize that some readers, accustomed to the previous format, might disagree.
Among the most noticeable differences will be a more contemporary nameplate with a big ".com" and smaller "Beaumont." The ".com" acknowledges the growing number of ways readers receive and interact with their news and community. The downplayed "Beaumont" recognizes that more than half of our readership and much of our content extends beyond those geographic limits.
The feature "On Beaumont Enterprise.com,"previously found inside the A section, moves to the front page in recognition that one of a newspaper's important new roles is to help people navigate and make sense of the online world. It is more prominently positioned than it was, but it takes up no more space than it did inside, merely a matter of rearrangement.
The most noticeable difference in the front page will be the greater variety of ways we signal stories' importance, newsworthiness and relevance. The front page will have fewer traditionally presented stories but more stories throughout the paper represented with front-page headlines.
Everyone's news judgment is different, as phone calls and e-mails frequently attest. So we've come up with a more flexible presentation that abandons the traditional rigid structure while emphasizing news and indispensable knowledge.
Instead of handing readers a full plate cooked to our order, we will present more of a menu, with a few choice items and a selection of other items readers can choose from elsewhere in the paper. A lot happens in your world every day. The new approach tries to reflect the value and validity of more of it.
This isn't the last of the big changes we plan to make, but we are close to wrapping up our overall redesign of your newspaper.
* We made one additional change to your comics page this week, discontinuing the "For Better or For Worse" strip and adding "Pearls Before Swine." One reason for the change was that the author of FBorFW decided to travel back in time and start over. A year ago, the comic featured parents John and Elly Patterson and their adult children, Elizabeth and Michael, along with younger daughter April. The old story line wrapped up on Sunday, Aug. 31, with Elizabeth's wedding to Anthony and a projection into the future of the family many readers had grown to love.
On Sept. 1, it started over with a young John and Elly, Michael as a toddler and Elizabeth as a baby. It has become the comic version of a movie prequel, except the story already has been told.
So we changed to a different comic, the plucky "Pearls Before Swine," about which you will hear more later. FBorFW will continue in our Sunday comics section.
* A number of readers continue to object to the discontinuation of the daily Dennis the Menace comic and its replacement with the Dinette Set comic. Several have called the Dinette Set "stupid" and have questioned our decision, saying they simply don't like it. That's fine. Actually that's the way it is supposed to be.
Just as some readers might grab the sports section first thing to look at the scores and others never open the pages of our sports section, we try to have something that appeals to everyone, knowing there is no way to make every story on every page of our paper appeal to everyone.
Newspaper content is not (at least not yet) about creating a product with every reader's likes and none of their dislikes. It's about creating a product that contains something for everyone who wants to read the newspaper.
That's what we are trying to achieve as we continue to change and adjust our content and presentation.
posted by Sheila Friedeck at 3:39 PM
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