Ask The Editors

The big headline today is "Congress OKs Bush-friendly war bill." Farther down the front page, there is an article about Las Vegas visitors who feel compelled to rent scooters to tour the Strip. Meanwhile, secreted away on page A6 is the story "Opposition to Iraq war at all-time high."

Instead of a fluff piece on lazy Vegas visitors, why isn't the war-opposition article paired with the war-funding article on the front page where they both belong?

Patrick Kelly

Thanks for your excellent question. Picking a front page is rarely easy, but in the case of the two stories you mention, the choice was plain.

In short: one story was news, and the other wasn't.

True, the poll story was important, and certainly timely, given Thursday's House vote on war funding. But it also was a familiar story. It was more of the same -- and no one who reads a newspaper would be surprised by it.

A story doesn't have to be surprising to belong on the front page, of course. Some are too important to go anywhere else -- like the House vote. One function of a front page is to mark significant moments in history.

But when we can replace a routine story with something that startles -- who would have imagined that able-bodied tourists would take to electric wheelchairs in Vegas? -- we do.

Just-plain-interesting stories like that also provide a dash of entertainment to balance all the serious news. A front page has to mark important events, highlight critical new information and give readers insight into the quirky world around us, all at the same time.

Posted by Jack Robinson at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why are you putting the comics and puzzles page in with "7" on Fridays? I understand that they are entertainment, but when the "7" insert fails to be inserted...it's not a pretty picture at my house.

A bowl of cereal with no comics or puzzles leaves me soggy.

FYI: If I want a weekly entertainment guide, I wouldn't mind going out and buying an extra paper, but I consider my comics and puzzles to be a standard part the subscription that I've already paid for and I expect it to be delivered daily.

Sandy Duke

Thanks for your question. All newspaper editors know that few things are as important to subscribers as the daily comics!

The Friday comics and puzzles pages moved to their current location in mid-March when the 7 magazine took the place of the Weekend section. Since 7 is the only features/entertainment section on Fridays, it seemed a logical place to anchor these pages. We figured that readers would have more trouble finding comics and puzzles in a news or advertising section.

The second issue you raise is finding 7 in your Friday paper. Our production department says it has had few reports of problems inserting the magazine. But we admit that the section can be hard to find in Friday's paper, which is quite large. This is one of the trade-offs we had to make in converting to the tabloid format, which has generally been well received by readers.

Posted by Jack Robinson at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)