In a move that would raise few eyebrows in the rest of the world but is still unusual in the United States, the Columbus Dispatch will soon be decreasing the size of its pages. Over the next two months, Ohio’s award-winning capital city newspaper is completing a transformation from the classical broadsheet format to what it is calling the “new broadsheet.”
The reinvention is based on three principles: convenience, portability and navigability. With its “easier-to-handle” proportions and increased use of colour, the new Dispatch will be “more like a daily magazine,” said the newspaper’s Editor Ben Marrison. It will not, however, skimp on content; to compensate for the loss in surface area, more pages will be added. “This isn’t a cost-saving endeavour,” emphasized Marrison in an interview with NPR’s All Sides. “This is taking the first version smartphone, and creating the fifth.” With mobile phones and computers constantly being reconceptualised to better complement consumers’ lifestyles, he reasoned, “why not reinvent the newspaper?”
