So THAT's Why It's Called the Startlegram
I didn't think any newspaper in Texas would be able to outdo the Comical's silly redesign, which includes replacing large chunks of text with pretty pictures and renaming the features section to a symbol of a star.
I was wrong.
The Star-Telegram wins. They've purposely made their front page a "teaser" for stories all over the rest of the paper. Not a single story begins and ends on the front page:
We've known for years that many readers dislike jumps and will not follow a story to another page, so the idea is to respect their preference [note: apparently NOT in the case of your own newspaper].
On Mondays, Page One parts with longstanding tradition. There are no stories there. Instead, the page is loaded with brief synopses of content throughout the paper, including summaries of stories inside that ordinarily would have run on the front page. Turning pages to get to the rest of those stories would have happened anyway, the thinking goes.
Of all the pieces of the redesign, Monday's unorthodox Page One has drawn the most criticism among the surprisingly few readers who have called or e-mailed to express their opinion of the redesign.
News on dead tree is a dying format. Maybe the Star-Telegram actually is ahead of the game in recognizing that a web-like aggregation of stories is the best way to get readers where they need to go. The only problem is, that's fine for internet news/opinion rags (Slate anyone?), but as even the editors admit, it's not really appropriate for a traditional newspaper.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/30/04 20:13 | Other | Technorati
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Comments
Just saw the new Chronicle; it really looks like a High School paper. Even outdoes USAToday in terms of looking lowbrow. I'll take the Herald-Tribune for format anyday.
(Then again, the Chronicle (thanks to eating the Post) still has more comics than just about anybody else, which is one redeeming feature...)
Posted by Adrianne Truett @ 16:28 on 08/31/04
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