Last week, the Journal Sentinel unveiled its new look. The design is a huge improvement, but I have mixed feelings about the editorial changes, which continue the push for less city coverage. The new logo says it all, with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel supplanted by Milwaukee – Wisconsin Journal Sentinel. From big city to big state newspaper?
The new design was triggered by a change to a slightly narrower paper (to save on paper costs). It’s much cleaner, with more attractive headline fonts, bigger margins and more white space. My only reservation about type choices is the white-shadowed Journal Sentinel logo, which is fun, but seems too weak for a major newspaper.
The design does more to capitalize on the paper’s state-of-the-art printing press, which allows it to run very small photos and head shots with striking clarity. This, in turn, yields space to run large photos at a more dramatic size. The design also accommodates lots of play atop each section, running imagery over, under and around the logos. Columnist Laurel Walker’s head has never been so big as in the Jan. 23 unveiling of the new design. (Alas, her column had nowhere near the same impact.)
The overall look is softer, crisper, more magazine-like and altogether more fun. So is the paper moving away from hard news by ink-stained wretches? The suspicion among his reporters has always been that Editor Marty Kaiser is more interested in features and softer fare.
The front pages now typically run four stories, compared to five under the old format. But frequently all four stories are local, Wisconsin-oriented, while in the past, three of the five front-page headlines were often national or international stories. In the age of the Internet, with world news at everyone’s fingertips, the Journal Sentinel’s big selling point is local coverage, so it makes sense to emphasize it.
Does this mean the paper’s local coverage is expanded? Yes and no. The Metro section news hole is bigger. For one thing, the Weather section was moved back to Sports. But page two is now a scattershot smorgasbord of one- and two-paragraph stories from all parts of the five-county area. Everything is getting covered, all right, but the sizing of the stories suggests it’s all minutiae, and sure enough, it mostly is.
Not so long ago, the Metro front page was all stories on Milwaukee and state government. Now there’s a mix of stories from all over the metro area. To a degree, the paper is serving its readers: Perhaps only a quarter now live in the city and about 50 percent live in Milwaukee County (and these figures continue to decline). But Milwaukee still has more readers than any other city, and City Hall and Milwaukee County still generate stories with the most impact.
Consider my favorite headline in last week’s Metro section: “Request by Mid-Moraine judge denied.” Would this be different than a request from an Upper-Moraine or Lower-Moraine judge? As it turns out, the story concerned the weighty question of whether an appearance at the Mid-Moraine Municipal Court in Jackson, a lovely village with some 5,800 people, should be mandatory for juveniles accused of drinking alcohol or being truant. I’m as opinionated as the next man, but I’m having trouble taking a stand on this issue.
As the metro population moves ever outward, it becomes ever more difficult to cover everything without seeming to cover nothing. Once the paper is simply a mishmash of stories from throughout the metro area, you lose any connecting thread, any ongoing narrative of the news. This city and county provide larger characters, like Scott Walker and Mike McGee and Sheriff David Clarke, who generate an ongoing story line. Once you’re covering every Tom, Dick and Mid-Moraine judge in the five counties, without much difference in the sizing of stories, even the most delightfully designed paper could have trouble sustaining readers’ interest.
Who Tom Barrett Really Fears
In yesterday’s Journal Sentinel, Mayor Tom Barrett declared that he hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about his potential challengers in 2008. Really? Then why has Barrett hired a survey firm to poll people on possible opponents?
I know this because I was one of those the pollsters called and interviewed. And the questions tell us who Barrett is worried about. Would you believe Ald. Bob Donovan?
Actually, I wouldn’t either, but the pollster asked me to choose between Barrett, Donovan, Sheriff David Clarke and former state legislator and current state bureaucrat Antonio Riley in a race for mayor. Donovan, I suspect, may have just been a stand-in for a white, South Side candidate, which could be a concern for Barrett if it’s a multiple-candidate primary. Riley, too, may be a stand-in for a black candidate, though he did make noises about running a year or two before the 2004 election.
Barrett’s pollster also asked respondents whether they approved or disapproved of other politicians, presumably to test their potential strength: That included Aldermen Willie Hines and Mike D’Amato, state Sen. Lena Taylor and City Attorney Grant Langley. Notably lacking was Congresswoman Gwen Moore, suggesting Barrett is certain she won’t run. As for Langley, his citywide seat and long-term incumbency has left him in a good position to run for mayor for the last 20 years, but he never has. No matter. For a man who isn’t thinking about potential challengers, Tom Barrett seems worried about nearly every live body in Milwaukee.
The survey also asked respondents to rate Barrett on handling education, taxes, crime and cleaning up City Hall corruption. But there were more questions about crime than anything, suggesting this is what he’s most worried about.
If crime looks out of control six months from now, Barrett might be vulnerable to a law-and-order candidate. Clarke could be tempted to run, but after his lackluster showing in the 2004 race and after scraping by in his re-election for sheriff against a weak candidate like Vince Bobot, Clarke doesn’t look too formidable. Ah, but Grant Langley, he’s just enough of a threat to keep the mayor awake at night.
From the Online Gushing Department
Perhaps no one at the Journal Sentinel causes more eye rolling than irrepressible Sports Editor Garry D. Howard. He’s likeable but lightweight, with a penchant for writing occasional sports columns with a gushy, naïve enthusiasm no veteran reporter would be caught dead using. The latest from Howard is a cutesy, online interview of Howard himself, done by his prep sports writer, Anthony Witrado. Not surprisingly, Witrado has nothing but praise for his boss. For that matter, so does Howard, who tells us that if he had chosen to be a high school coach, “I probably would have won at least 10 high school championships by now… I would be a legendary coach.”
Perhaps he missed his calling.
And check out critic Ann Christenson’s Dish on Dining.
