Designs & Formats

The Isle of Man Examiner is to end more than 131 years as a broadsheet newspaper to instead adopt a tabloid format, says a Press Gazette report. The Examiner, one of three titles produced by the Johnston Press-owned Isle of Man Newspapers, will switch to tabloid format on May 10. The weekly paper has been a broadsheet since 1880 when it was founded by Samuel Keown Broadbent, a Methodist who vowed...

A Chinese journalist known for being critical of the government said Friday that he's been fired by one of the country's most daring media companies for refusing to tone down his writing, the latest sign of China's tightening grip on press freedom, Canadian Press has reported. Chang Ping, a former editor and columnist for publications owned by the Southern Media Group, said the dismissal wasn't...

An independent photographer and documentary filmmaker was detained and assaulted and his camera was confiscated by officers from the National Institute for Migration in Mexico. Irineo Mújica Arzate was documenting on July 16 a police action in Soltepec, Puebla, to detain undocumented Central American workers who were travelling by train to the United States, the Center for Journalism and Public...

The Chicago Tribune is said to be making changes to its dramatic new redesign just three months after it was rolled out, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. The Tribune announced on January 8 that it would bring that section back while making indexes clearer, toning down bold fonts, and adding new local sections. The newspaper in late September debuted a new format that it said was bolder and...

Afghan television reporter Mohammad Nasir Fayyaz was detained one day after his television station aired a documentary that was critical of some cabinet members and their ministries, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The programme was cut short while being broadcast, apparently at the demand of the government, media reports said. Afghan and foreign media reports said Fayyaz...

Kasturi & Sons has launched Ergo, a free daily, in Chennai, says a Mint report. Some backgrounders: Ergo, a 16-page, all-colour tabloid, is India’s first free daily from a large media house. Free newspapers try to recover all their costs—of publishing and distribution—from advertising. Globally, such free newspapers are now published in at least 52 countries. While Ergo is the newest offering, the...

BERLIN: Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Europe's most conservative daily newspapers when it comes to design, has brightened its front page by adding photographs and dropping the last vestiges of its antiquated typeface. The paper said the changes were a concession to a more hurried age in which readers had less time to navigate through the newspaper, and fewer people found time...

NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York Times is moving to a smaller format starting Monday, cutting 1.5 inches from its width and moving to what is becoming a newspaper industry standard of 12 inches. The change, which the company originally announced a year ago, will result in cost savings of about $10 million per year, spokeswoman Diane McNulty said. Several other major newspapers have already adopted...

NEW YORK When you've got one of the largest, most successful newspaper Web sites in the country (and the world), making major changes to your homepage can be a big roll of the dice. Your users have grown used to your site and branding, they rely on it to get their news there every day, and, no matter how the changes improve the site, some are going to miss things the way they were. Still, if a...

Carlos Sanchez and his newsroom at the Waco (Texas) Tribune-Herald faced an interesting challenge: how to sell the paper in three seconds or less. That was how Publisher Dan Savage's call to push single-copy sales evolved, said Sanchez, editor of the 39,000-circulation daily. Savage originally challenged the staff to pretend a row of newsboxes stood across the street from the newspaper office. How...