This week sees the invention of a new post, “futurist in residence,” a typographical redesign, and the release of the oft-touted Times Reader.  A quick breakdown of the recent changes:

Joe Strupp at Editor and Publisher reports on the newly created post of “futurist in residence” in his recent article.  Michael Rogers, formerly of Newsweek.com and the Washington Post Company’s new media division, will fill the post.  Rogers will work with the New York Times Company’s research and development unit to generate ideas for new media expansion.

The Times has launched a subtle redesign that it is hoping will result in subconscious perceptual changes.  Tom Scocca and Michael Calderone of The New York Observer report that as of September 20, there has been a slight differentiation between objective and subjective journalism.  Whereas hard news will be formatted in justified columns with even left and right edges, analysis (including all arts reviews) will end in a ragged right edge.  Opinion pages will not, oddly enough, sport a ragged right.  Also included in the redesign are large cut-ins of columnists’ names and an abandonment of unclear tags such as “Letter From” and “Sports Notebook.”

Jack Shafer of Slate raves about this week’s release of the Times Reader in his latest column.  Although Shafer has a historically tortured relationship with the Times, he is not afraid to share his partial and slightly fanatical obsession with the Times Reader.  For the uninformed, the Reader is a digital edition of the Times paper edition that, unlike the website, shares all the aesthetic features of the paper edition.  It is free, and downloadable to hard drive or tablet PC.  According to Shafer, the Reader is navigable, readable, and delightful to use.  Of course, he is one of the few in possession of a tablet PC.

This burst of upheaval at the Times seeks to attract new readers with the promise of new media development (the futurist position), while placating older readers (subtle typographical changes in the print edition, a downloadable newspaper in that reassuring Cheltenham font). 

Sources: Editor and Publisher, The New York Observer, Slate