E-Media Tidbits

Clearly, the Internet has influenced newspaper print-edition design over the years. The latest example showed up in my driveway this morning: The Boulder (Colorado) Daily Camera introduced some changes in this morning's paper. It's not a redesign, but rather things have been moved around. "We've moved some furniture inside the Daily Camera," wrote editor Sue Deans in a front-page editor's note.

Most jarring (at least to this long-time Camera reader) was that comics, the TV schedule, the horoscope, puzzles, and Dear Abby were moved into the middle of the classified section.

Before reading Deans' note, I went in search of the comics, but of course couldn't find them. Just about the last place I'd think to look would be in the middle of classifieds. I finally figured it out by looking at the index on page 1.

OK, that was a bit annoying. But the placement makes sense. My normal behavior when I bring in the paper from the driveway is to pull out ad inserts and the classifieds and immediately toss them in the recycling pile. But with comics now part of classifieds, I'll have to pay attention to that section.

I'm one of those people who no longer uses newspaper classifieds; the local Craigslist and other Internet services have replaced them. I'm not alone in that. So I think it's smart for the Camera to force our attention to its classifieds with this trick.

The new classifieds section includes a header at the top of the page: "Inside: TV, Comics, Puzzles, Horoscopes."