Towson Patch | BaltimoreSun.com
The Baltimore Sun’s b, currently published Monday through Friday, becomes a weekly starting July 13. Launched in 2008, b will come out on Wednesdays — the same day that Baltimore City Paper hits the streets. City Paper publisher Don Farley says of b: “Obviously cutting back to one issue is admitting it’s a failure.” Sun publisher Tim Ryan says b is relaunching its website “as a 24/7 Baltimore-focused website covering news, entertainment and pop culture.”
This move acknowledges younger consumers’ media habits — they go online repeatedly throughout the day. Leading up to the weekend, they invest more time looking for information in print and planning their free time. Changing our format better aligns with their routines.
Modeled after Chicago Tribune’s RedEye, b’s looser style took some getting used to in the Sun newsroom. An early issue had the cover hed, “DOUCHEBAG!: 56 ways to tell if you are one.” Editor Anne Tallent told colleagues who questioned the headline and story: “Douchebag means something different to you than it does to b readers. I understand that to each of you it sounds offensive, but to our readers it is a commonplace term to describe a particularly lame type of guy.”
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