Chicago Tribune backtracks on new layout after pressure from readers

Posted by Helena Deards on January 9, 2009 at 10:23 AM

In an apparent about-turn, the Chicago Tribune's latest edition contains a proposed new set of changes to the paper's layout - just three months after its big re-design came into effect. The paper issued a list of the alterations it intends to make, each of which was printed next to a reader comment or suggestion under the headline 'You spoke, we listened'.

Amongst the future adjustments were giving the Business section back its own front page, the addition of a local news section and a promise to stop jumping stories to other sections - 'we hate it too' declared the Tribune.

The Tribune and the eight other newspapers which fall under the Tribune Co. umbrella were all recently redesigned, albeit with varying degrees of success. The Chicago Tribune had hoped to increase its readership and lower its costs.

However, the paper did defend parts of its new format, such as the large front-page photographs, which it said displayed the value of the Tribune's photojournalists as 'among the best in the world'. In response to complaints over the 50/50 advertising to editorial policy, the Tribune refused to back down and described advertising as the 'lifeblood that makes it possible to bring you the paper'.

Gerould Kern, the Tribune's editor was quick to react to Editor & Publisher's description of his paper's new plans as a 'mea culpa', stating that the re-design had always been a 'work in progress' and further work on the new layout had always been intended. "We were thanking readers for their input and assuring them that it mattered," he retorted. "That's what successful customer-focused businesses do."

Source: Editor & Publisher, Poynter Online