I know you are hoping for a big bang coming out of the gate for the New Year, but I just don't think that way. Other than our annual New Year's Eve Party, I don't try and make a big deal of the new year. I don't like or read annual recaps and refrain from making resolutions. If I had to pick a start for a new year it always feels to me that September is the start of the year when school starts again after the end of summer. Plus, in politics that's really the final push.
Anyway, so I just finished reading today's paper (yes I wrote paper) edition of the Wall Street Journal which launched a redesigned print edition and all I keep thinking is that it just seems smaller. Don't get me wrong, I like the smaller size. It seems to have less advertising and can be navigated easier. However, with all of their hoopla over the redesign it didn't seem much different. I saved their recap for the end so I wouldn't be influenced, but other than the size the only other part I noticed was the summary box in the articles that now gives me a little more information as to whether I should jump in on a particular subject.
My read through it felt exactly the same, if not a tad bit faster with the summaries. It used to be I'd judge an article's worthiness based on the title and the first paragraph, but now I can use a summary/title combination. So, either I missed something, or the design was very smooth and tailored to me, or the paper just got smaller.
Judging from the amount of editorial and articles written by L.Gordon Crovitz the WSJ's publisher on their mission to report news and their history/tradition I can only conclude that their fear was that people would think a smaller design equates to less worthy news. Their FAQ page in the paper seems to support this conclusion. Under So What's Different the first three out of 7 FAQs deal with size and the other 4 are pretty high level. The rest of the changes called out with graphics don't seem different to me.
So, either the design was tailored just for me and the changes had little impact on me or the WSJ proves that it is all about size. Which isn't a news worthy event because George Costanza already alerted us to the shrinkage issue. Anyway if their goal was to shrink the paper, drive more online readers, cut printing costs and if turn raise print advertising rates without disturbing the readers, I'd judge it a success from my read this morning.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
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