FW Star-Telegram redesign

Anyone seen the redesign?

I haven't since I don't live there, but my mom back in FW is pissed. She ranted to me tonight that the newsprint is shitty quality and the ink comes off on your hands. And she says the new templates make it hard to tell the real articles from the ads with fake articles. Granted, she's in her 70s. She also said the paper looked "all jammed together," without much white space. Thoughts?

 

Oh, my God, it's hideous. It looks like something you'd pick up for free at the grocery store.

 

I used to be excited about seeing it.

After Sunday, well ... not anymore.

 

can someone post a pdf or link of the "new and improved" fwst????

 

Here it is, with a link.

http://www.editorsweblog.org/print_newspapers//2007/05/us_fort_worth_star_telegram_redesign.php

 

I just looked really closely at the front page and here's a question: where are the stories?? It's just a big photo with a bunch of teasers ...

 

Answer: There are none. The new, improved FWST front page consists of a big photo and a bunch of teasers. Every day.

As I said before -- hideous.

 

Welcome to the future.

 

One of my former papers just did something similar to this, though not quite as bad. They're limiting nearly all of its stories to about 8 inches.

I really don't like the direction this industry is heading.

 

The push to make stories shorter isn't horrible. I don't see a problem with shorter stories and more sidebars.
However, to say no story can be longer than eight inches is silly and is extremely insulting to our readers.
Some readers will never read long stories, but how do you cover certain things — like debates about why we're in Iraq — in just eight inches? You can do it, but not effectively.
Sometimes our job is to give people things to think about. It's hard to do that well in eight inches.
(You can start the eight inches=penis jokes now.)

 

That is my point. Only a couple of stories per day can be over 8 inches.

 

Trying to make newspaper content into little besides photos and briefs is as dumb as, say, Jose Canseco pitching. You're not making the best use of what's there...wasting potential.