More changes coming at the Sun-Sentinel

[SF_Express]

Sigh.

Posting these kinds of things to keep everybody up to date is what we do here, but geez, it's getting depressing. So I apologize to those this further depresses.

Some more changes coming at the Sun-Sentinel. They're going to start importing "pods" of news pages from the Tribune directly into the Sun-Sentinel news pages, mostly on national and international news. So, according to this, the Sentinel will be running pages with Tribune typefaces. This after a big redesign.

They're doing away with the "Fit" section because it isn't making money. It hasn't been around all that long. It's going to fold into sports.

Other changes coming, too. Believe it or not, I'm glad they're keeping the awards. A bright spot in the gloom, as far as I'm concerned.

Again, sorry. If we've reached the point where we really don't need all this kind of thing here, I understand:

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/party_on_sun-sentinel.php

 

[Editude]

An editing peer says she read the Sunday Sun-Sentinel and noticed lots of shared content, including a "new administration" section with stories from the Tribune's Washington bureau. Using collective copy is one thing, but importing templates with another paper's typeface sounds a little jarring.

 

[SF_Express]

An editing peer says she read the Sunday Sun-Sentinel and noticed lots of shared content, including a "new administration" section with stories from the Tribune's Washington bureau. Using collective copy is one thing, but importing templates with another paper's typeface sounds a little jarring.

Yeah, one has been around for a while. The other -- I don't think I'm going to like it.

I'm sure I've got a renewal notice coming -- this might be it for me.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Their Sunday section used to be among the best in the business. I haven't seen it in a couple years, but I'm guessing it's not even close to what it used to be.

It will be interesting to see what other changes happen, especially if The Herald folds as many fear it will.

 

[jlee]

"Earl also stressed that the future is LOCAL, LOCAL, LOCAL, even moreso than we already are."

Great, more original ideas.

One commenter gets an A+ in reading comprehension: "Let's recap: there's going to be less space, less design initiative, more pre-packaged (expletive) shared across the nation and fewer reporters covering municipalities -- but the future is 'local, local, local' and we need interns! If you can save one copyeditor's job by not subjecting a college boy or girl to this (expletive) maze, you'll be doing a real public service."

 

[Some Guy]

"Earl also stressed that the future is LOCAL, LOCAL, LOCAL, even moreso than we already are."

Great, more original ideas.

One commenter gets an A+ in reading comprehension: "Let's recap: there's going to be less space, less design initiative, more pre-packaged (expletive) shared across the nation and fewer reporters covering municipalities -- but the future is 'local, local, local' and we need interns! If you can save one copyeditor's job by not subjecting a college boy or girl to this (expletive) maze, you'll be doing a real public service."

I want to work for that reader.

 

[SixToe]

At what point does "local, local, local" become too much?

The next step is, literally, covering the little leagues and garden club meetings and things weekly newspapers do. Are the daily papers becoming grander weeklies?

What a sad state of affairs.

 

[SF_Express]

Don't know if it's true, can only go visually, but I believe my A section today had a page that might have been from the Tribune. The typefaces certainly looked subtlely different.

Anybody who can confirm or deny this is the case, I'd be interested to know.

 

[VJ]

They're doing this at the Baltimore Sun as well.

 

[Joe Williams]

This is the Clear Channel-ization of newspaper content, thanks to Zell's radio mongols.

 

[BTExpress]

Three Tribune pages in today's Sun-Sentinel A section. All "Nation/World"

While many typeface changes are subtle, the quote outs aren't even close to the same style. Gee, so much for those 358 memos we got from Design Director making sure that we use the proper style and spacing for cutlines and quote outs.

And, of course, any errors spotted cannot be fixed.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

This is the Clear Channel-ization of newspaper content, thanks to Zell's radio mongols.

How'd that work out for Clear Channel? [/rhetorical]

 

[SF_Express]

Three Tribune pages in today's Sun-Sentinel A section. All "Nation/World"

While many typeface changes are subtle, the quote outs aren't even close to the same style. Gee, so much for those 358 memos we got from Design Director making sure that we use the proper style and spacing for cutlines and quote outs.

And, of course, any errors spotted cannot be fixed.

There were THREE of those pages? Hmm...I could kind of tell, but not that well. The page with the prehistoric snake on it was the most obvious.

So the ads can be changed, but the type can't? Reason I asked is because of the S-S house ad at the botttom of column 1.

 

[Football_Bat]

Are they just sending over PDFs or the actual InDesign file of the page? If the latter, the fonts can be easily changed — that may screw with the inch counts, but again, those can be adjusted by changing the leading or kerning.

That is, if they use InDesign. Stuff like that in Quark is a little more labor-intensive, but we're only talking 3 pages, right?

 

[WriteThinking]

Are they just sending over PDFs or the actual InDesign file of the page? If the latter, the fonts can be easily changed — that may screw with the inch counts, but again, those can be adjusted by changing the leading or kerning.

That is, if they use InDesign. Stuff like that in Quark is a little more labor-intensive, but we're only talking 3 pages, right?

This was my question/thought, too.

I'm no tech/production guru -- and I thought that, in fact, be my problem in understanding this. But, it seems as if it should/would be possible to make type-face/font changes on-site, even if a page is imported.

Sort of as is done, say, when formatting for differences between regular type and agate type? No?

Now, whether a paper's staff has the time, willingness and wherewithal to do it may be another matter. But it seems it should be possible, somehow.

Can anyone help me out?

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

This **** amazes me. In only a few years we've gone to polar extremes, from the prevailing wisdom being that we had to localize every ****ing wire story in the paper, no matter how absurd that doctoring may be, to the notion now that it's good business for a newspaper in Chicago to run several pages a day that are so generic that a paper in Florida can run them in full without any localizing at all. Three pages a day, you've got to be talking three salaries, max. At the expense of looking completely moronic? Pre-Internet, some of the syndicated feature services used to sell "photo-ready copy" -- canned features with heds on them already so all you had to do was paste them up. So the idea has been there for a while. But only the tiniest papers with no self-respect did it. Other papers sometimes used the same content, but wanted the control of editing it and designing it themselves rather than have their paper look like a ransom note.

 

[HarryNutsack]

I saw that Sentinel A section today and not only did it have different typefaces all over the place but all the nation and world stuff was just mixed up and thrown around.....how about putting all the national stuff together and all the world stuff together....I mean, at least pretend to have your **** together, Sun-Sentinel. And I keep the hyphen in because that's it's name. **** this idea that they can just take out the hyphen on a whim. That's the cherry on top of the stupidity oozing out of that ****hole these days.

 

[Fredrick]

Wow. Newspapers are "not worth buying" any more. Not because of the immediacy of the internet. Because they are not worth buying any more. Cut those baseball box scores everybody.

 

[SF_Express]

Pre-Internet, some of the syndicated feature services used to sell "photo-ready copy" -- canned features with heds on them already so all you had to do was paste them up. So the idea has been there for a while. But only the tiniest papers with no self-respect did it.

Easy, Frank ... I worked for one of those papers -- the late and not-lamented Jupiter Daily Journal -- but we DID have self-respect.

At least that I can remember.

 

[Fran Curci]

Re: Running pre-fab pages for wire news.......... I don't see where it even saves much money. How long does it take to edit wire stories, especially if no one is worried about localizing them or improving them?