It’s been just over a month — five issues — since The Laker/Lutz News became a bigger newspaper. And reaction from our readers has been overwhelmingly positive.
Yes, we’ve received a few calls from people complaining that our new size is cumbersome to hold while drinking a cup of coffee. But that’s truly the only complaint we’ve received.
The most common comment we hear is that our larger format makes us a “real newspaper,” apparently because we’re now the same size as a daily newspaper.
That perception has surprised us.
From our perspective, we’ve always been a real newspaper because we employ real journalists who write balanced stories about people and news in our community. We’re real because we publish every Wednesday without fail, and spend lots of money delivering our free paper to 30,000 homes, and at more than 300 newspaper stands, so you can read us every week.
It reminds me of that old adage, that perception often is more important than reality. So I suppose that we should be happy by the perception that our new size makes us more real, even though my staff and I thought we always were real.
I imagine this must be how Pinocchio felt when he finally became a real boy.
Just so you know, the content of The Laker/Lutz News has not changed with our larger size. We have the same reporters writing the same types of stories about our community.
What’s changed is our design staff now has more room to place stories, create bigger headlines, and use bigger photos and more graphics. We’re one of few newspapers in the state to have color on every page — even our classified pages — so our artists have more to work with now that we’re bigger and more colorful.
Our bigger size also gives us space for more stories. This week, for example, Michael Murillo is launching a new feature, “On the Cheap.” His first column tells you about a super deal at the beautifully renovated Capitol Theatre in Clearwater that sounds like great fun for families or couples. Michael will be writing about inexpensive things to do on a regular basis to help you plan your weekend.
Our bigger size also allows us to enhance the presentation of other features we’ve been publishing for some time. For example, B.C. Manion’s monthly column, “Worth The Trip,” is now profiled on the front page of our new B section. Don’t miss this week’s story about Haslam’s Book Store in St. Petersburg — an amazing place for book lovers and those just looking for someplace new to explore.
Our other two monthly columns, “Getting to Know You,” by Michael Hinman, and another column by Michael Murillo, “Presenting the Past,” are published the other two weeks of the month.
Our goal is to give you a special feature to look forward to every week, in addition to our usual news and feature stories. These first-person columns by my staff give our papers a unique voice, and lets you get to know our writers on a more personal level.
The other big change we hope you’ve noticed is our bigger ads. Because our page size is taller, our ad sizes are also bigger — actually 30 percent bigger. This gives our advertisers more space to tell you about their products and services.
At five weeks in, I guess you could say we couldn’t be happier with the changes we’ve made to make The Laker/Lutz News bigger and better. The positive comments we’ve heard from readers, and the support we’ve received from our business community, encourages us to continue to work hard to bring you the best community newspaper we can.
Published September 3, 2014
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