Tampa reaction: Not good

It's about freaking time. In an era of dopey corporate stadium names that one took the cake. And too much money.

 

From The Pipeline:

From Janet Coats:

Everyone,



As most of you know, we’ve taken a lot of reader calls and emails about the changes to the paper. We’ve listened carefully; I’ve talked to a couple of hundred people myself on the phone, and about that many in email. Here’s what we’ve heard, and what we are going to do about it:



Our core audience loves the Tampa Tribune. It’s not just that they love newspapers; they love this one. St. Pete is not a true substitute for them – they want this paper. Any sense that the newspaper has become a commodity for those readers isn’t the case – they recognize and appreciate the distinctions between us and our print competition.
The multiple section habit is deeply engrained. It’s clear that trying to change that habit through a single news section is not something readers are going to accept. As Duke said, we’ve interrupted the way our most loyal readers communicate with each other in the morning – through handing the paper back and forth and sharing items with each other.
The Tribune has always been a strong sports paper, and that is a distinction for us. But the changes we’ve been making for the last year have tipped sports out of balance with the rest of the newspaper. While sports remains important, in a world where the economy is imploding and a presidential election is upon us, we’ve overemphasized that part of our content.
The problems readers had with the changes had to do with sectioning and placement of some types of content. The alternative story presentation, shorter stories, and fewer jumps have not generated a strongly negative response.


In the interest of keeping my promise not to do stupid, we’re going to start making some changes to the design. These changes will begin with the Monday edition; we were already scheduled to have a separate sports section on Friday, and we return to sectioning on the weekends.



We’ll go to a three-section presentation. Local news stays up front. National and international news will remain in the first section, as will the editorials. Obituaries move to the A section.
The second section will contain sports and business. Sports will be on the cover; business will have the back cover and page inside from there.
The third section will be classifieds and will also contain the comics, puzzles, Abby and the horoscopes.


We will continue to follow the same story formats we’ve been working with this week. That means limited jumps, shorter stories inside and alternative presentations will continue to be the order of the day.



During the next few weeks, I’ll be monitoring newshole and working to determine how we should allocate it through the week. One of the advantages of the single section was being able to accordion space based on the news of the day, and we’re not going to be able to do that anymore. So we’ll have to be much more disciplined about living within our space between the two sections.



So, am I sorry we tried this? Hell no. We live in a time that calls for making some bold moves. This one was a move perhaps ahead of its time; it certainly was ahead of what our readers are ready to accept. We’ve learned from it, the story format is working (we’re actually hearing some positives about that) and we’re going to respond quickly. This is the first test for our audience-focused newsroom; we’re going to listen to what our audience is telling us instead of trying to just outlast the complaints.



Questions or other feedback are, as always, welcome.

 

"This one was a move perhaps ahead of its time; it certainly was ahead of what our readers are ready to accept."

The arrogance is astounding. 'This idea was obviously brilliant, our dumbass customers just didn't get it!'