Courier-Journal readers will notice several changes in the pages of the newspaper in the coming week, and today’s column is a heads-up about them:
Two of today’s weekly sections — Arts and Travel — have been merged into one 10-page section called … Arts & Travel.
The new section will be found in each Sunday’s edition, starting today, and it features the local news, photographs and information found in the previous separate sections.
Arts coverage dominates the first half of the new section, and that means you’ll still read Andrew Adler’s Role Call column and classical music reports, Diane Heilenman’s visual arts stories, and Judith Egerton’s theater and film articles. Inside, you’ll still find “The Week Ahead” calendar for notable arts events, as well as the Show Clock for film-philes.
Travel coverage completes the section. Old favorites such as travel stories and news briefs, Road Trip features, Trip Clicks (readers’ photos), Gadgets & Gizmos and the weekly geography quiz are still featured.
Starting in Tuesday’s Business section, the daily stock listings found in the print edition of The Courier-Journal will be pared to a more concise, locally focused report called Money & Markets. At the same time, online options regarding broader financial information will be expanded for courier-journal.com users.
In the print report, the overall ups and downs of a variety of indices will be illustrated. Three dozen or more stocks of local interest will continue their traditional listings, as will mutual funds offered by some of the area’s largest employers to their workers through retirement savings plans. Also, the stock action of four major industries of local interest – automotive, health care, restaurants and industrial transportation – will be followed in the new presentation, as will local grain and cattle prices.
The online component to the report is expanded, to go along with the changes in print.
The provider to courier-journal.com is the Associated Press, which will offer analytical and explanatory stories and features, as well as Morningstar data on 7,000 stocks, 17,000 mutual funds and 300 exchange-traded funds.
Importantly, the online edition will be interactive and personal, allowing users to choose which stocks to follow and providing customized updates as the market moves through the day.
On Thursday, the Health & Fitness section will merge with the daily Features section.
Local health coverage will receive major display on the front of the eight-page section, as well as inside — much the way Food coverage is emphasized in Wednesday’s Features section and the Home & Garden theme dominates the Saturday Features section.
Readers will still find these Health & Fitness features each week: stories by Courier-Journal staff writers Darla Carter and Linda Stahl, the Gadgets & Gear features, Bryant Stamford’s Body Shop column, reader health and fitness questions answered in the Q&A column, and local health briefs and health news in the News Flash column.
Additionally, the section will still be home to Angie Fenton’s The Buzz column (which keeps its spot on the Features front page), Tom Dorsey’s TV reports, the TV listings, The Incredible Inman’s column, comic strips, puzzles, horoscopes, bridge and Annie’s Mailbox columns and the Show Clock.
Other changes: Linda Stahl’s “Getting Out” column moves to the Friday Features section; the consumer-help column, Lemme Doit, will go to the Saturday Features section (its Sunday appearance in the Metro section stands); and Smart Shopping and Smart Living are taking a break until further notice.
Newspapers and other news organizations are in a time of great change, and tough choices are being made in terms of conserving dollars and, for newspapers, newsprint.
For instance, many newspapers — including national papers such as The New York Times and regional papers such as The Atlanta Constitution-Journal and The Orlando Sentinel — already have dropped fuller stock listings, which can be found immediately and in abundance on television and online. When stocks first were listed in newspapers, such widespread accessibility to easy information was not the case.
A recurring theme in all the C-J changes I’ve mentioned is the commitment to try to keep all the local news that was in previous, separate sections, in this week’s new, merged print sections, and on the Money & Markets page.
There’s a very good reason for that. Local and regional news is the C-J’s franchise, and the print version of the C-J is read by almost a half a million people on weekdays and almost 630,000 people on Sundays. That’s a huge and important audience for what the C-J does best, which is report on area people, places and things.
But research shows that nearly two-thirds of Courier-Journal readers access the Internet in a typical 30-day period. That means most print readers also have access to non-local news and information – such as stock listings, and wire stories previously found in the sections. Take a look at the new packaging this week and as always, don’t hesitate to let us know what you think.
