My local daily, the Vancouver Sun, has gone through some changes. In fact, the words of a headline writer, A new Sun is rising.
Editor-in-chief Patricia Graham has the details in an online piece.
- In brief:
- There’s been a swap and the A section is now local news; national and international news has been moved to the B section.
- A new News on the Go wrap-up on page 3
- More columnists, more analysis and “contextual content”
- More lifestyles content in the Arts & Life section and throughout the paper.
- Some new specialty areas: growth and transportation; personal health and fitness; digital life; sports and sports personalities; and celebrity trends and news
- The return of the Book Pages to the weekend review section
I paged through the print edition just now (my SO has it delivered; I rarely read it). All the changes are there as advertised. There have been few design changes other than a tweak here and there. And it seems to me that the ad ratio has been hiked, particularly for the A section. I could be wrong, but the front news sections of the paper seemed really ad heavy.
To me, the most significant part of this are the emphasis on analysis and context, and the increased lifestyle content. It will be interesting to see how that plays out in practice and how the Sun’s readers react.
What I would have liked to have seen, in conjunction with the changes to the print edition, is some work on the Sun’s website. It’s a CanWest cookie-cutter site and among the worst sites for a major daily that I’ve seen.
UPDATE: Sun m-e Kirk LaPointe, who is an avid blogger and an occasional tweeter, has a recap of the changes at his blog.
Tags: newspapers, vancouver sun
So let me see if i got this, they are going to reward their outstanding journalist and columnist by having them write more stories about what new diet is helping hollywood moms lose weight ??
I understand that the newspaper business isn’t exactly what you call stable but really is this to be their salvation ? I completely agree with you Mark, their attention should have been focused more on their website and less on the expansion of their lifestyle section.
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