Charles Apple

Jenni Glenn of the Ft. Wayne, Ind., Journal Gazette wrote Tuesday of her paper’s reduction to the 48-inch web:

Many readers do not notice when a newspaper’s dimensions change, said Brad Hamm, dean of the Indiana University School of Journalism in Bloomington. Newspapers have gradually narrowed during the past century, and the changes had little effect on readership.

“Readers don’t really have a natural affinity to a certain size,” Hamm said.

Tuesday’s page one.
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…The Journal Gazette conducted focus groups and found that readers preferred the new size, editor Craig Klugman said. That factored into The Journal Gazette’s decision to come into line with other newspapers and print smaller pages.

…The Indianapolis Star switched to a narrower format within the past two years. Editor Dennis Ryerson said he has not heard any complaints from readers. The newspaper is able to present a full range of news stories in the smaller format, he said.Changing newspaper styles may be influenced by the growth of Internet news sources, said Warren Watson, director of the Journalism Institute for Digital Education, Activities and Scholarship at Ball State University. Watson, a past president of the Society for News Design, said narrow and short columns appearing on Web sites may be inspiring the trend toward narrower newspapers.

“I think people are used to seeing something smaller anyway,” he said. “It’s an integral factor that people are looking to the Internet for news.”

So what do you think? Is there any truth to this? Readers really don’t notice? Or are they concentrating on more important matters, like screaming to have us fired when we run the wrong solution to yesterday’s crossword?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 9:55 pm and is filed under Industry woes, News design, Newspapers, Visual Editors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.