McCaleb: Changes keep focus on local news

Are newspapers dying?

If you followed blowhard sports columnist Jay Mariotti’s resignation from the Chicago Sun-Times, you might get that impression.

Mariotti last week said he quit his well-paying print gig because he realized that the future of his business was online, not in print.

Love him or hate him, there’s some truth to Mariotti’s words.

Journalism – sports, news or otherwise – does have a healthy future on the Internet. But that doesn’t mean print newspapers are going to go quietly into that good night.

What it means is that newspapers are having to change dramatically to keep up with current economic and market realities.

That brings me to today’s Northwest Herald.

As you picked up the paper, you might have noticed that the image size is a bit slimmer, meaning that there is about a half inch of extra white space down one side. That’s because in a day or two, we will shave a half-inch off the side of each page to save on paper costs. The size of the type hasn’t changed, just the width of the paper.

We’re also reducing our daily page count by an average of about four a day. That means that we’ve had to make some tough decisions about what content stays.

When editors began meeting to work through these tough decisions, we kept a strict rule in mind: Local content stays; it’s what makes us unique from all other news media outlets. We will continue to be the best source of news and information about McHenry County.

Now on to the content changes in today’s paper:

• Our comics lineup has been juggled and reduced. We brought in three new strips and eliminated nine older ones, for a net total of six fewer strips.

• We have introduced Sidetracks Thursday, an expansion of our Friday Sidetracks brand. Features Editor Scott Helmchen writes about this change and introduces the new comics in a column on page 1D today.

• Our TV grid and puzzles page – including a new puzzle, the Jumble Crossword – has moved to Classified, where it will appear daily.

• The New York Times Crossword and Spider-Man strip, which appeared in Classified, have gone away. We’ve already heard from some readers about the crossword and are reconsidering that decision.

• We’ve introduced a new backpage, which includes a reduced weather package as well as TV and entertainment news.

• This page. Page 2A now will host our community columnists and a new feature, Northwest Outtakes, a local photo shot by one of our photographers capturing a slice of life in McHenry County.

Other changes will be introduced throughout the course of the next few days. As always, we welcome your feedback.

I’ll be back in this space Saturday to share some of your thoughts.

• Dan McCaleb is Editor of Northwest Herald. He can be reached at dmccaleb@nwherald.com or by calling 815-526-4603.