Rehashing the Redesign

By Karl Klockars in News on Jan 9, 2009 9:25PM

The Tribune had a wraparound yesterday laying out some of what they're calling progress in terms of their redesign, which you'll remember kicked off towards the tail end of last September. Editor Gerould Kern laid out what they've done, what they've changed since the redesign, and what they're going to continue to do. Cliff's Notes version: Business section is back, jumping stories to other sections is done, more clear-cut organization of the paper is being implemented, and "refining" the use of graphics is underway.

Rosenthal and Lazare (the poor, poor, poor man's Feder) have sounded off, respectively here and here, and - go figure - ST'er Lazare is harsher than Rosenthal, calling the wrapper a "retraction."

Kern's letter was done up with big headlines and graphics that made his remarks seem more emphatic and potentially more embarrassing than they needed to be. Among other things, Kern said in his letter that readers were upset because the paper had become "too loud."

Yet there Kern was Thursday, still seeming to yell at his unhappy readers.

Retraction? Yelling? A "black eye?" Were we looking at the same piece of newsprint? What we're looking at right now seems like a pretty sober, six-inch-voice explanation of the changes, and how they've reacted to listener feedback. It's not a temper tantrum, it's more of a discussion. Call it the equivalent of the 90-day performance evaluation that most of us get when you start a new gig. In addition, it's hard to accept criticism of the Trib from the same column that has a completely ballsed-up email closeout:

Would someone please close those mailto: tags or whatever it is? People in glass houses...

Rosenthal chose to address the equally dismal times that newspapers are going through, noting that both the Tribune and Sun-Times have had pretty tough years. Between the bankrupcy of the Trib company and the recent slaughter of a dozen local Pioneer Press papers and request for a salary cut for its union members on the S-Ts side, it's hard to say who's treading more treacherous waters.

Sun-Times Media Group, which last year cut $50 million in costs, now is trying to find another $45 million to $55 million to slash...On Thursday, a day after it told its unions it needs employees to take a 7 percent cut in compensation, word broke of its plan to kill a dozen of its Pioneer Press weekly newspapers next week, followed by layoffs to match.

Things here at the flagship paper have changed faster than the ability of many inside and out of Tribune Tower to process. Layoffs and buyouts shrunk a staff that might have benefited from earlier, more gradual reductions as circulation declined. An effort to save money by reducing the size of the paper in a hurry came with a fast-tracked redesign.

So how do the rest of us feel about the redesign, three months out? It's hard to overstate how journalism junkies and j-school dropouts like us love living in a two-newspaper town, and if anything keeps us living in a Trib-v.-Sun-Times world, then so be it. If sales have been up 17% year-over-year as Kern states in Editor and Publisher, then that's a good thing. In fairness, there's been little things like the election of Barack Obama and the Blago situation that have pushed up news usage over the past three months as well, so perhaps we should take those numbers with a grain of salt. (And, in fairness, the Trib broke the story about the Blago arrest first, and they've doing pretty damn good with their coverage ever since.) Still, any increase is a reason for celebration.

Do we still miss our "Tempo" section? Yeah. Are we glad they're re-expanding their regional coverage? Of course. Have we gotten used to the expanded use of graphics and photos? Is it smaller? It sure seems so, but if the fat-cutting comes at the expense of reprinted AP stories we can get anywhere else, then it's a welcome chop. Have we become accustomed to the change in the masthead? Yes, but the head of that "Live!" section still bugs us. (Does it have to be so...red?)

Even their new advertising campaign is pretty good. Although, whoever decided that the photo for "Bride Wars" needed to be the entire above-the-fold in the "Movies" section didn't catch the part yesterday where Kern said, they're "being more rigorous in editing photos so their use is commensurate with storytelling value." Maybe someone on the photo desk as a crush on Anne Hathaway. And would you find a proper place for our beloved Tommy Skilling? The "'Movies' section today, 'Live!' section yesterday" cat-and-mouse game is a pain. But on the whole, we're living with it. You?