4-8-09: The incredible shrinking newspaper
By: Andrew Bruner
Issue date: 4/7/09 Section: Editor's blog
If you're a regular reader of The DePauw's print edition, you might have noticed that the paper has seemed lighter for about the past month - to be specific, four pages lighter.
The DePauw has not been immune from the economic recession and widely known woes of the newspaper industry, and financial concerns have forced us to make some adjustments this year. The biggest change affecting our readers has been making our standard edition 12 pages long instead of 16. The fact is that for most of our issues this semester, the revenue from our ads is less than the cost of printing a 16-page paper. We have ways of making up that difference, which I'll explain later, so cost was not my main concern when I decided to go 12 pages per issue. Foremost in my mind was the strain it put on our staff to fill a 16-page paper with empty space where more ads should be.
My favorite example of how we had to stretch content to fill 16 pages was our second issue of the year, published Feb. 6. For a story on the announcement that Career Services Director Tom Cath will be leaving DePauw, we ran a mug photo of him that took about 1/6 of the page. On that same page, we ran two in-house ads (ads for the newspaper) that filled 3/8 of the page. The next page of the news section contained another in-house ad. Finally, a short story about the debut of the Greencastle Rural Transit System was blown up to fill an entire page by running a huge map of the system's route.
Compare that to the design of our issues since going 12 pages. I think the content in news looks tighter, more professional. We've frequently printed a story on the front page to fit all the stories, whereas in our 16-page issues, the front page was usually taken up totally by teases. While I initially felt sorry about the decision to go to 12 pages, I am now starting to think it actually makes our newspaper look better.
There have been some sacrifices in coverage though. We've gone from running two side items in the features section to just one, including it on the center spread of the newspaper with the main features story. In one issue, we had to hold a non-breaking news story because it just wouldn't fit. Twelve pages present challenges just like 16 did, but as long as our advertising stays at its current rate, I think we can continue to produce a good newspaper that's a little slimmer.
The DePauw has not been immune from the economic recession and widely known woes of the newspaper industry, and financial concerns have forced us to make some adjustments this year. The biggest change affecting our readers has been making our standard edition 12 pages long instead of 16. The fact is that for most of our issues this semester, the revenue from our ads is less than the cost of printing a 16-page paper. We have ways of making up that difference, which I'll explain later, so cost was not my main concern when I decided to go 12 pages per issue. Foremost in my mind was the strain it put on our staff to fill a 16-page paper with empty space where more ads should be.
My favorite example of how we had to stretch content to fill 16 pages was our second issue of the year, published Feb. 6. For a story on the announcement that Career Services Director Tom Cath will be leaving DePauw, we ran a mug photo of him that took about 1/6 of the page. On that same page, we ran two in-house ads (ads for the newspaper) that filled 3/8 of the page. The next page of the news section contained another in-house ad. Finally, a short story about the debut of the Greencastle Rural Transit System was blown up to fill an entire page by running a huge map of the system's route.
Compare that to the design of our issues since going 12 pages. I think the content in news looks tighter, more professional. We've frequently printed a story on the front page to fit all the stories, whereas in our 16-page issues, the front page was usually taken up totally by teases. While I initially felt sorry about the decision to go to 12 pages, I am now starting to think it actually makes our newspaper look better.
There have been some sacrifices in coverage though. We've gone from running two side items in the features section to just one, including it on the center spread of the newspaper with the main features story. In one issue, we had to hold a non-breaking news story because it just wouldn't fit. Twelve pages present challenges just like 16 did, but as long as our advertising stays at its current rate, I think we can continue to produce a good newspaper that's a little slimmer.
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