IFRA

On 2 January, The Wall Street Journal relaunched its U.S. edition with a narrower (48-inch) width and new design by Mario Garcia. In addition, the company also announced changes to its content, including an intensified focus on news analysis. Here, Gordon Crovitz, publisher of The Wall Street Journal Franchise, tells us how the newspaper is shifting its editorial focus.

newspaper techniques: What factors influenced the decision to make changes to The Wall Street Journal’s content and increase the emphasis on analysis?

Gordon Crovitz: The new Journal is designed to reflect the way readers consume news today with many getting their news from multiple sources, including online.

This redesign is a way of rethinking newspapers in a new age, making the print Journal even more essential and relevant than ever – and making it easier for readers to get more information in less time.

Some of the Journal’s new features include more forward-looking articles, convenient summary boxes and easy-to-find infographics so readers can get more information in less time.

The new size is more convenient, but the content is the same Journal quality readers know and expect.

The most important aspect is that the Journal focuses even more on what the news means and less on what happened yesterday – making it different from every newspaper or news site in the country. Moving to a more standard format used by other newspapers also allows the Journal to be printed in more places.

nt: How long have these changes been in the works, and how much preparation and training were needed to bring them about?

G. Crovitz: We have been working on these changes since 2005 – so around 14 months of meticulous thought and planning went into the changes.

There was a huge level of coordination among the news, advertising, circulation, operations and technology departments to ensure that presses were rebuilt at 17 print plants, newsprint inventory was managed, the production systems used by advertising, news and production were updated and a thousands of interconnected tasks that went into this project were coordinated.

nt: The increased emphasis on analysis seems like it would be more labor intensive to produce. Is this the case? How are you doing this?

G. Crovitz: Right now about 50 percent of the Journal’s news is exclusive, interpretative and ‘what it means’ news. We are moving to 80 percent. This is part of the value-added content the Journal provides its readers that makes it different from any other newspaper in the country.

It’s important that 20 percent of our space remain dedicated to ensuring our readers haven’t missed any important news of the previous day, which we will accomplish with new features. This isn’t a necessarily more intensive or time-consuming focus, just a different one.

Our reporters are some of the smartest in the business and will be approaching stories with an emphasis on the big picture rather than just reporting the facts of a story.

nt: While switching to the smaller 48-inch web width, you have also announced that: you are devoting more space to letters to the editor, cultural coverage has doubled and story lengths have been maintained. Does all of this mean you have had to greatly increase page counts as well?

G. Crovitz: The new design leaves about 10 percent less space for news stories, but half of that loss is being made up by cutting the amount of stock tables and other statistical data in the paper.

The new size is about 20 percent narrower but the same depth as the old paper: It is produced on a 48 inch sheet of newsprint compared with the 60 inch sheet used before, similar in size to USA Today.

nt: Have your staffing levels changed?

G. Crovitz: Out staffing levels remain the same as before the redesign.

nt: I realise these changes have only just been made, but have you received much feedback from readers and advertisers so far? If so, what has the general response been?

G. Crovitz: Prior to implementing the changes, we conducted extensive focus group testing across the U.S. and reader feedback was very positive. They appreciated the convenient, easy to handle size of the new Journal, as well as the better navigation and new features.

We believed our readers will embrace the redesigned Journal and early feedback from readers overwhelmingly suggests that this is the case.