News-Record.com

Earlier this year, a team led by Managing Editor Ann Morris spent several months studying readership research and listening to readers.

"Readers want many different things from their Sunday newspaper, and the News & Record can't be everything to everyone," Ann told me. "But our research and conversations with readers did point up some common themes. Readers don't just read the Sunday paper, they use it. They use it to save money and to plan their time and to connect with interesting people and events in the community.

"One of our goals, then, is to give readers even more information they can act on. We've added more events listings, more stories about local people and more features that help readers organize their lives. We have also redesigned the look to make it more vibrant and easy to use.

"One thing that hasn't changed is readers' expectation that they can get the local and national news they need from the paper. Our commitment to that fundamental mission has not wavered."

As a result, the new features we are adding include:

* A page called Basics in the Life section that provides tips for making life simpler, more efficient, less expensive and just plain easier. If you're familiar with "Real Simple" magazine, you know what I'm talking about.

* More enterprise reporting in each section, going behind the stories in the news and bringing you stories about community people you should know. For instance, each week we will feature a question-and-answer interview with a newsmaker. Next week, we talk with Guilford Schools Superintendent Terry Grier.

* Features in which we want to hear your voice. The aforementioned Q&A will feature questions from readers. Likewise, the Sports section will ask your opinion on a topic of the week, and the Ideas section will include more interactive content as well.

* Listings of community events you may want to attend during the upcoming week on the front page, in Sports, Life and Ideas. With all the interesting things to watch and participate in around here, we want to make it easier to plan your week.

* A column on the front page that promotes important stories inside and new features at news-record.com.

* A menu planner in Life to help you eat in, and the latest dining information to help you eat out.

* A page of puzzles and games, adding Jumble Crosswords, Kakuro and Boggle to our usual lineup.

However, my bet is that your first impression will be of the look of the front page. Some of the changes are design refinements, such as adding more white space to reduce the sensation of clutter and using color to make certain element more prominent.

More significantly, we have abbreviated our name to N&R in our nameplate. That allows us to use that space for our journalism, giving higher visibility to stories on the front page and promoting stories inside the paper.

That change is only on the Sunday paper, which we want to have a distinctive, bolder look.
As the commercial says, life comes at you fast. We hope our new Sunday paper helps you keep up and enjoy the ride.