TO 50-INCH OR NOT TO 50-INCH, THAT IS THE NEWSPAPER QUESTION

The incredible shrinking paper has become de rigueur in the U.S.

It is not often that I find myself in agreement with Kathie Lee Gifford – or Regis Philbin, for that matter. But last week, after USA Today unveiled its first redesign since the national daily's inception nearly 20 years ago, the two morning TV talk show hosts weighed in on the paper's new look.

They hated it. So do I.

Readers seem to be more sanguine about the whole affair – letters to the paper seem to be running toward the positive – but it's hard to swallow the notion that the once trail-blazing USA Today has subjected itself to amateur typography.

For those of you with some gray in your hair, you might remember the JustoWriter – it was a typewriter-like device that was one of the first machines to set cold type. It made justified type and was pretty good for its era – that of the late ’60s.

But the typeface? Ugly.

The first time I saw the new body face that has been designed specifically for USA Today, I said, "JustoWriter." This new face harkens back to one you would choose to make a technical compromise. The paper has said that it attempted to pick a typeface that would allow the editors to get as much news into a new page as they did the old, wide page. Part and parcel with USA Today's redesign was the fact that it – as well as the rest of Gannett's U.S. dailies and about 200 other papers – are shrinking in size.

The rationale is to achieve newsprint savings. By reducing the width of a four-page web of paper from 54 inches to 50 inches, publishers say they expect to save as much as seven percent on newsprint costs. As Senior Correspondent Julius Duscha points out inside, skeptics believe the number might be closer to three percent. Nonetheless, are we (as Duscha cites the early worries of a pressroom denizen) "screwing the public?" Apparently, the people like it. Here in California's Bay Area, we have had exposure to the narrower web width for quite some time. One of the first publishers to convert presses was Denver's MediaNews Group, which owns six dailies in the Bay Area, the most prominent of which is the Oakland Tribune.

I find the Tribune a curious feel, but it has a cohesiveness that seems to be missing from USA Today and the other narrow paper circulated hereabouts – the Los Angeles Times. Both USA Today and the Times are printed on nearby presses that have yet to have been retrofitted for the narrower paper. So the 11 1/4-inch page image that these papers send to their remote printing plants is floated in the middle of a standard 13- inch page. This is just a bizarre look. It isn't that I am totally against the trend toward narrow papers – despite the fact that I don't particularly like change at all – but I do think that publishers will have to work hard to make certain that they aren't making any mistakes when they convert.

If the compact size of the new "broadsheet" (and that term is beginning to lose its meaning) means more readers – or even happier readers – then I'm all for it. If publishers can figure out an attractive way to address the issue of reducing the overall page size while preserving the amount of space devoted to the news, then they should feel free to move to the narrower format.

But if publishers take a cue from USA Today -- and don't forget, hardly anyone used editorial color, hardly anyone had big weather maps, and hardly anyone had infographics before USA Today was founded – they will be in a pile of trouble.

The well-meaning executives at the Gannett flagship have created a largely unreadable product and should seriously rethink the work they have done. That's not to suggest they attempt to convert back to the wider paper, but they could do some tinkering with the typography. If not, I'm going scouting for a used JustoWriter. Maybe I can make some money selling them to trend-following newspaper publishers.

-- David M. Cole

Inside ...

• Reshaped, retooled NICC to be unveiled at NAA convention
• A tale of two teen tab papers, one dying, one flying
• Fifty-inch web switch takes planning – presses may be idled
• Getting members on-line is goal for Iowa Press Association
• Digital City plan to expand may be more boost than bane
• Airport scene shows power of the press
• Persons

From NEWSINC., April 10, 2000, Copyright © 2000, The Cole Group. All Rights Reserved.