"New and improved" paper
The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram redesigned the paper a week or so ago. (No jumps, among other changes.) David House, the paper's ombudsmen, rounds up a sampling of reader comments. He includes his own thoughts: speculation is that approval is somewhere between 30 percent and 50 percent, but who knows?
We've redesigned several times since I've been here and approval between 30%-50%, while on its face seems disappointingly low, is actually about normal. Readers are comfortable with their newspaper; we want them to be. We publish recurring features and columnists. We publish them in the same place on the same days. We encourage loyalty and attachment. When we change things, even when we "improve" them, we disrupt that.
I wouldn't have taken the same course Ft. Worth has, but no matter. The reader comments House published are about par for the course here, too. Some are substantive and thoughtful. Some contradict others. All are heartfelt. And no matter how much work goes into the "big" things, many of the complaints deal with the "small" ones: dropping Helsinki from the weather page, changing TV listings and eliminating a few comic strips.
Editors actually like the kind of reaction that Ft. Worth got. It means readers care and feel passionate enough about the paper to speak up.