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To a degree, the paper is serving its readers: Perhaps only a quarter now live in the city and about 50 percent live in Milwaukee County (and these figures continue to decline). Now there’s a mix of stories from all over the metro area. Not so long ago, the Metro front page was all stories on Milwaukee and state government. Everything is getting covered, all right, but the sizing of the stories suggests it’s all minutiae, and sure enough, it mostly is. But page two is now a scattershot smorgasbord of one- and two-paragraph stories from all parts of the five-county area.
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For one thing, the Weather section was moved back to Sports. In the age of the Internet, with world news at everyone’s fingertips, the Journal Sentinel’s big selling point is local coverage, so it makes sense to emphasize it.ĭoes this mean the paper’s local coverage is expanded? Yes and no. But frequently all four stories are local, Wisconsin-oriented, while in the past, three of the five front-page headlines were often national or international stories. The front pages now typically run four stories, compared to five under the old format. So is the paper moving away from hard news by ink-stained wretches? The suspicion among his reporters has always been that Editor Marty Kaiser is more interested in features and softer fare. The overall look is softer, crisper, more magazine-like and altogether more fun. (Alas, her column had nowhere near the same impact.) Columnist Laurel Walker’s head has never been so big as in the Jan. The design also accommodates lots of play atop each section, running imagery over, under and around the logos. This, in turn, yields space to run large photos at a more dramatic size. The design does more to capitalize on the paper’s state-of-the-art printing press, which allows it to run very small photos and head shots with striking clarity. My only reservation about type choices is the white-shadowed Journal Sentinel logo, which is fun, but seems too weak for a major newspaper. It’s much cleaner, with more attractive headline fonts, bigger margins and more white space. The new design was triggered by a change to a slightly narrower paper (to save on paper costs). The new logo says it all, with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel supplanted by Milwaukee – Wisconsin Journal Sentinel. The design is a huge improvement, but I have mixed feelings about the editorial changes, which continue the push for less city coverage. Last week, the Journal Sentinel unveiled its new look.
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