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Henry Howard's Page
Profile Information
- Organization
- Journal & Courier
- Title
- Managing Editor
- Location
- Lafayette, Indiana
- About Me
- I am the managing editor of the Journal & Courier, the first daily newspaper in North America to adpot the Berliner format. I also lead our building-wide innovation team that is charged with developing new products for digital and print.
- Your Website
- http://jconline.com
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Comment Wall (8 comments)
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I'm sure you can relate to the relief Sunday night -- actually early Monday -- when it finally rolled off the press. It seems like only last week our countdown calendar said 41 days to go, then it said three.
We've spent the last three days answering phone calls and responding to e-mail. We have received some really positive comments from people, which is kind of surprising since the school of thought is that people typically don't call to offer good opinions. Of course, we've had our share of out-right negative comments about the size and some of the content changes. We're taking a look at some of those concerns to see what adjustments we can make.
I tried to upload a PDF our first A1 but it wouldn't finish. I'll attach it to a separate e-mail.
We finally ran some test papers this morning. Pretty sure I heard a sigh of relief in the building.
Here's a link to our online preview.
Dave
We haven't printed any papers yet. That has been delayed until Thursday. The press has printed some typeface examples and some limited ad copy.
Five days -- actually 4 1/2, but who's counting -- to go until we hit the streets with the new Berliner.
You know what that feels like. Excitement is picking up, and a bunch of us are running on little sleep and lots of adrenaline.We've been working on parallel test papers this week in addition to putting out the "real" daily.
Harry Deitz, editor, has been running a daily "editor's notebook" online and in print, focusing on a different topic of the redesign. We've be going out to community groups to preview the redesign and the reaction has been positive. Same with the focus groups.
But, the real test will be Monday morning when it hits porches.
Just thought I'd update you on our Berliner plans. 38 days to go. We've been meeting to finalize content plans. We'll be printing some test papers in the next couple weeks. Crunch time will really start the week before the debut. That's when we start putting together parallel editions in the new format while, of course, still cranking out the daily in the current format. Should be a fun few weeks.
Actually, I was supposed to make the trip but did not. We're shooting for a mid-February debut. We've had the prototype to focus groups, most recentlylast week, and it has been well received. People have liked the new size without us drawing attention to it.That's good to know, but the size obviously is something that's not going to change. We've been having some staff meetings to show the protoype and talk about the changes that will be required to make this all work. As you know, still a lot of work ahead.
Dave