By the time you have reached this opinion page you have noticed this morning your Dickinson Press has been through a redesign.
The staff of the Press for months has been putting together all the necessary pieces of the new design behind the scenes. We have spent countless hours researching other newspapers, consulting newspaper designers, reconfiguring the press, trying different type, headings and layouts.
The new Dickinson Press was designed to allow us to give you, our readers, a modern; easy to read newspaper that whenever possible gives preference to local news and keeps it up front.
Years ago a customer service representative at the Plainsman newspaper in Huron, S.D. gave me the best description of what your local newspaper should be like. She said when you open your local newspaper you should read stories and see pictures about people you know. That may seem a simplistic way to look at the business of newspapering, but it has been the foundation of successful small town newspapers since the invention of the printing press.
Last year the Dickinson Press celebrated 125 years of publication, and local news has always been the connection we have with our customers.
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Starting at the beginning, the redesign allows more space for local type and pictures, by reducing the size of the banner across the top of the front page. Obituaries are back to Page 2, because of their importance to you, our readers, and the new configuration of our printing press allows us to have full color pictures and advertisements on the next three pages. Page 3 will be home to more local news and Page 4 will be home to our daily Lifestyle page. Page 5 will be devoted to North Dakota, regional and national news. Page 6 will feature our opinion page, Page 7 markets, and the remaining pages are for senior, agriculture, kids, food, health, national, international and business news.
The second section (which runs Wednesday through Sunday) will still be home to sports, outdoors, classifieds and comics, except now we have more color pages available to feature local athletes and residents.
We were very careful to keep the size of the newsprint the same. Local information is our foundation, but you have to be able to see it to read it.
The Dickinson Press is blessed with readers who have a wonderful sense of ownership of their Press. So we hope you enjoy the new design, and would appreciate your comments, questions, criticisms and suggestions. Now that the printed edition is complete, work begins on The Dickinson Press online edition which will roll out in May.
Feel free to send comments to newsroom@thedickinsonpress.com .
-- Brock is the publisher of The Dickinson Press. Reach him by e-mail
