The Windy City becomes Tab City
Here is publisher Tony Hunter’s memo to the staff about the coming change in format for the Tribune:
Consumers will find a newly packaged and more compact version of the Chicago Tribune when they pick up their copies at newsstands, retail outlets or honor boxes all over Chicagoland on Monday. Starting on the 19th, all weekday single-copy editions of the paper will be published in a tabloid-size format.Many consumers have been telling us that they wanted more “friendly’’ packaging, while insisting the edition includes all the useful, high-quality news and information that’s in the broadsheet. They asked, and we will deliver. Editorial content in both editions will be the same
So, will Chicago become a “tab city”? Indeed, the Sun Times is a tabloid, has always been one; Red Eye, published by the Tribune, is also a tabloid, and now a street sales Chicago Tribune as a tabloid. Well, almost all of London’s newspapers are compacts in one form or another, except for The Telegraph, and readers don’t seem to mind. I have said it before, and repeat it now, compact formats are preferred to broadsheets.
I have also said that these difficult times should allow for greater and more adventurous experimentation, this, too, is an example of that. Perhaps this is the silver lining behind the extremely depressing economic backdrop of the newspaper industry.
Read the complete memo here:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-publishers-memo-tabloid,0,1141000.story
Also of interest:
http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/news-bites/2009/01/13/trib-sun-times-gods-sake-drop-dead/
A new kind of journalism—-and “journalists”—at The New York Times
Here is a piece from New York Magazine which should be of interest to all: a group of what the author describes as “renegade cybergeeks” work hard and creatively to incorporate new content on the Times’ website. “What are they doing at the New York Times?,” asks the author, Emily Neusbaum. ” Maybe saving it.”
The New Journalism: Goosing the Gray Lady
http://nymag.com/news/features/all-new/53344/?
The Mario Blog posting #167