Column: Readers will notice a few changes in Lifestyles section
Published 12:00 am Saturday, October 4, 2003
If you came to this page early in your Tribune-reading experience today, you may not have noticed a change in the paper. If you have already looked around a bit, you may be wondering what in tarnation is going on.
Of course, if you’re reading this on the Internet, you’re not going to have a clue what I’m talking about. So, stop reading now and go buy the paper (our circulation director is going to love that line).
What am I talking about? The Tribune’s Lifestyles section has gotten a facelift, as well as
let’s see, what’s a surgical metaphor for taking some content out and putting it somewhere else maybe liposuction?
The front page of the section has a new logo and there are a few other cosmetic changes that the observant reader might notice. We hope these changes make the section look better and set it apart from the rest of the newspaper, but mostly, they were designed to mark a more substantive change in the way the Tribune approaches the Lifestyles section, especially the front-page features, the ones at the top of the page.
Lifestyles Editor Geri McShane, with some input from others at the Tribune, has been working for a while now on a new emphasis. We’re going to be trying new kinds of stories, as well as new kinds of art and design to accentuate, illustrate and accompany them.
It’s not that there was anything wrong with the content that was going there before. Many of the main Lifestyles stories were features or human-interest stories that people enjoyed. In fact, discussions with readers in the past have indicated that people like our Lifestyles section.
We’re not going to stop doing those stories; they just may appear elsewhere in the paper. It’s also worth noting that popular Lifestyles features like Al Batt’s &uot;Nature’s World,&uot; Ed Shannon’s &uot;Looking Back&uot; and wedding and engagement announcements won’t be changed at all.
But we did realize that the front page of the Lifestyles section each week presents a unique opportunity. It’s a spot where there are few rules, a blank canvas that can be whatever the newspaper chooses.
The change starts with the kinds of stories you’ll see there. You may notice that many of the articles on the page will be more geared toward things that reflect the kinds of, well, lifestyles that people in our area live. I’m talking about things like social trends, hobbies, contemporary issues, and tackling life’s big events. Some will be seasonal, like a story on what high-school students do to get ready for prom; others will be about ideas that are catching on, like infant massage, just to name two examples.
It’s kind of a subtle difference, but it’s one that should be noticeable. One reason you might notice is that these ideas are often going to be more conducive to creative use of photos, design elements and supplemental information.
In addition, some of the content that had been publishing in Lifestyles will move to the &uot;A&uot; section, leaving more space in Lifestyles. That leads to the creation of a new page in the &uot;A&uot; section each Sunday that might be called a variety page; it’s going to include staples like Dear Abby, horoscopes, the bridge column and puzzles. We’ve also added &uot;Through the Looking Glass,&uot; a weekly roundup of strange news items.
At the request of readers, we’ll also be publishing the Saturday &uot;For Better or For Worse&uot; comic strip on this page. We don’t have a Saturday paper, so readers were sometimes missing out on parts of a story line. Of all our comic strips, this one relies most on continuing stories that affect the characters, and now fans won’t have to miss anything.
We think these changes will add up to a better Sunday paper. We’d like to know if you agree.
And as we shift the focus of the articles on the front page of the Lifestyles section, we’re interested in hearing your ideas for what might make a good story. If you know of a notable local trend or a custom that deserves a look, if you participate in a hobby others might want to hear about, or if you have any other ideas for feature stories about the way people live, contact Geri at 379-3436 or lifestyles@albertleatribune.com.
(Dylan Belden is the Tribune’s managing editor. His column appears Sundays. E-mail him at dylan.belden @albertleatribune.com.)