It’s brighter, bolder and occasionally free for the taking. The Daily News debuted its new look makeover today, a re-design that offers up some colour photos and appears to announce the end of the Weekly flyer wrap the Extra (a much maligned effort that probably won’t be missed and will cut down on the amount of material you haul down to the recycling centre each week).
They also announce a new pricing scheme for their publication a combo of free issues twice a week (Wednesday and Fridays) and then its back to paying your 75 cents at the news stand for the other three as you catch up on your daily dose of local information.
It’s an interesting strategy to give the paper away twice a week, though you wonder if that's a long term plan or just an introductory gimmick for the new look. The question to ask however is, once you start to give away your product, are people going to want to pay for it the other three days of the week. Will pressure from your readers mean that they will end up having to give away their product for free every day of the week or, is this the slow road to a free but bi-weekly local? (We also wonder if their website edition will now be free, but we digress, back to the issue of the ink)
The change is no doubt spurred on by the sudden influx of community newspapers in the region of late and the Daily’s bid to keep as much of its share of the advertising lineage as it can.
For a long time the Daily News has pretty well had the news market to itself, the two radio stations CBC and The Mix (CHTK) long, long ago downsized their staffing levels for gathering news in the northwest. If you go back twenty years or so, the CBC used to have a full fledged operation with three shifts through the day and a much larger presence in the Northwest. TK at the time had a full complement as well, including a three person news department and a full time sports reporter. Those were the days when there was a serious battle to get the story out first and get it out correct. Prince Rupert’s version of the newspaper wars of the bigger cities.
The gutting of those operations over the years has left the community a hole that hasn’t been filled to any satisfaction since and gave the Daily News a huge step up on the business of gathering news and selling advertising in the market. An advantage that at times over the years they took for granted and letting editorial and news content slide on occasion.
The way we access our information is changing as well however, these days you’re just as likely to get your daily news information from a bulletin board such as hackingthemainframe, it’s a form of information gathering that has taken off across the world. It’s easily updated and immediate. There’s a good example of a new media oriented version of this system in place in Prince George with Opinion 250, an online combination of an old style newspaper and an instantaneous feedback forum. It perhaps is the face of the future for news in our neck of the world.
And of course there’s that old fashioned way of getting your info, by word of mouth, from hanging around the coffee shops in town and listening to the rumour mill that runs rampant in this town. Granted it’s not researched and verified, but for a good portion of the time the facts from there seem to give a wider picture than the more traditional methods we have become used to. There's always the chance that you'll get the story wrong, but then that's not unknown to happen with the mainstream media either. And as an added bonus, you don’t have to take anything back to recycling when you are done.
The moves announced today seem designed to keep it relevant in the face of new competition and changing times. It’s a brighter look for sure, new bells and new whistles, but in the end a newspaper is only as good as the news it delivers. That will be the eventual test for the Daily as it strives to stay relevant in an ever changing media landscape.
The publisher Chad Graham offered up some of the details of the new look Daily News with his Editorial page synopsis of what’s ahead. We follow it up with an address from the Editor who does his own bit of reminiscing as a new era at the Daily News begins.
WELCOME TO YOUR ALL NEW DAILY NEWS
The Times are changing and so are we.
Welcome to your new Daily News
By Chad Graham
Publisher
Prince Rupert Daily News
Friday, September 15, 2006
Page Four
Starting today every household in Prince Rupert will be receiving a free copy of the Daily News on Wednesdays and Fridays.
The Wednesday issue will include not only full coverage to Prince Rupert but will cover the Queen Charlotte Islands as well. The Friday issue will contain most of your flyer package that was being delivered through our Daily News Extra.
You’ll also notice the colour running in our paper. We added another press unit and this gives us the capability to run colour photos and ads.
We’ve increased the overall quality of the print job through the use of a new machine called an image setter, which allows us to print at a higher resolution by going straight from the computer to a negative. The image setter saves two stages that used to drip the quality of print in the old press.
We also have redesigned the paper in the way it’s laid out to give it an easier read and a fresh look.
We have been publishing and printing The Daily News right here in Prince Rupert since 1910 and we look forward to the next 96 years as Prince Rupert’s only daily newspaper.
TODAY IS A NEW CHAPTER IN A LONG HISTORY
By Earle Gale
Editor
The Daily News
Friday, September 15, 2006
Page Four
When I first got the opportunity to work at the Daily News a little more than two years ago, one of the things that really excited me about coming here was the incredible history of the paper.
We were around in Rupert’s early days when settlers spilled off boats and engineers laid rail lines.
We were here when portions of the waterfront was reclaimed, when port facilities were built, when the mill started up for the first time, when men marched off to two world wars.
Heck, we were even there to report the death of Charles Hays aboard the Titanic back in 1912.
As the little strip across the top of the front page proudly states, we have been printed right here in town ever since 1910.
It was with that knowledge, and with some humility, that I took the job as editor of this newspaper, acutely aware of the long line of editors who have sat in this chair during the preceding 96 years and with an overwhelming need to carry on serving our loyal readers at least as well as those who came before me.
And it is with that strong sense of the history of our newspaper in my mind that I welcome you to new chapter in our story.
We know we have three of the best reporters in the business here in our newsroom and we want to share their stories about this fantastic town with as many readers as possible. We believe the best way to do that is to deliver our newspaper to your doorstep for free every Wednesday and Friday.
We are also thrilled to be able to bring our readers photographs in colour, I can hardly wait to see how beautiful images of First Nations dancers, our sensational natural environment, Christmas plays and the like will look in colour instead of black and white.
As I said before, when I came to the Daily News, I was determined never to let our readers down, I was always going to view any proposed change with caution. Today’s changes are massive in a way, but they are good changes. They are all about continuing to bring our readers the best possible newspaper and continuing our long and proud history.
No comments:
Post a Comment