Why did you change my newspaper?
These days, that’s what readers are asking me.
Specifically, you want to know why there now is entertainment news on Page A2 and why the editorial pages have moved to the local news section.
Longtime reader Adele Huth of Akron summed up reader feedback: “Your new format doesn’t make sense. You have upset my sense of order.”
As public editor, I listen to your feedback and share it with others at the Akron Beacon Journal. I also try to explain why things happen and why changes are made, even when they may not appear to make sense.
For example, the paper’s desire to improve its weather forecast package forced the move of the editorial pages from the A-section.
Say again? Yes, you heard me correctly.
To be candid, the old weather report was downright dreary. Many papers had gone to colorful maps and extensive weather information… though not the Beacon Journal. To fix that, the weather needed to be expanded, anchored on an easy-to-find page and run in full color.
The back page of the local news section did all those things. The problem? That page has long been used for advertising because it is one of the relatively few pages where full color can be printed.
The solution? Make more space available in the A-section, where advertisers prefer to have their ads, by moving the editorial/commentary pages to the local news section.
Many, including publisher Jim Crutchfield, argued that the editorial page has more in common with local news than it does with the national/world news in the A-section. It seemed a sound decision — gain a full-color, expanded weather package and put the editorial page with other local information.
Not according to reader Jean Iden of Akron. “Today’s Beacon is a travesty of a newspaper,” she wrote. “If you continue to publish the paper with more than two-thirds of the first section made up of ads, we will probably ask for our money back.”
While it’s true that ads now comprise a greater portion of the A-section, the space allotted for news is unchanged.
Moving the editorial pages to local news also left several readers with the impression that there now was less space given to local news coverage.
Again, that’s not the case. Space for all categories of news is budgeted, counted, measured and monitored — and is unaffected by the amount or location of advertising.
The decision to add entertainment news to page A2 also bewildered several readers.
Norma Snow of North Canton wrote: “I love Porter’s People, but that column is the ice cream after the meal. I want to read the `hard’ stuff first and then have dessert.”
Snow is one of several readers who objected to having to switch reading gears from serious news to soft, then back to serious. Too jarring. Others said they find themselves skipping the entertainment news for later reading — then never coming back to it.
Like the weather improvements, this change also was prompted by readers, who long have asked for a separate section for business news.
What does that have to do with entertainment news on page A2? It goes like this:
The most economical way to print this paper allows for only four sections to be printed at one time. With five primary categories of news, that meant one section had to be buried behind another. In most cases, business was tucked behind sports.
That riled readers.
To create a five- or six-section paper, one or two of the sections needed to be printed in advance — around 8 p.m. — leaving four sections for the primary press run at midnight. So, which of the five categories of news can be printed in advance?
For various reasons, it had to be the Arts & Living section.
The problem? What do you do with concert reviews and night-time entertainment news, such as awards shows? None of that is available at 8 p.m.
The solution? Designate a page somewhere else for entertainment news. To give the page a better identity, anchor it with the Porter’s People column.
Now the paper had to decide where to put this out-of-section entertainment page. The local news section was suggested, but it seemed really odd to have something like the Grammy Awards in the middle of local news. The most logical place was Page A2.
It also had precedence. I looked up the paper for my start date at the Beacon Journal — May 4, 1981. Page A2 contained a people column that featured items about Lady Diana, actress Jessica Lange and singer Tony Orlando. The rest of the page contained an entertainment calendar, an Art Buchwald column about a used car dealer named “Crazy Charlie,” and, of all things, a weather package that featured a drawing by 10-year-old Jenny Paskert of Cuyahoga Falls.
So this Page A2 plan was considered sound. Readers got a separate business section and, in the process, received a paper that always has the same sections in the same order.
Some readers praised the changes, especially the new weather page. Bill Jelen of Uniontown wrote: “That is an awesome new weather page! I like the complete sentences in the forecasts.”
The changes bothered reader Robin Horn of Akron, however. “I am a creature of habit. I like to read the paper the same way each day, and this is messing with my routine.”
Another reader compared the changes to her aggravation with her local grocery store, where the coffee kept moving to different aisles and shelves. Eventually she found a new grocery store.
Newspaper editors understand the value of readers’ routines and worry about upsetting them. In this case however, the tradeoffs — a better weather package and a separate business section — seem worth it to me.
