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Bertha HarianBertha Harian

News Reports

Old wine, not-very-new bottle

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Some features that were in yesterday’s ST put in place in response to feedback, have been discarded, in response to feedback. And, in response to feedback, old stuff were brought back. Like The News in 5 minutes which used to be on Page 2. It’s returned except that there doesn’t seem to be a specific slot for it which would have made it easier for readers to flip to. Then the Page 2 column which was intended to showcase the best column is now just another Opinion, the re-named Review pages.

Sports moves to the back of the paper again replacing Money, which I recall back-stopped the paper in the past because the pages had more readers than Sports and advertisers wanted a faster way for readers to reach their property ads…But Money has been split into two, local and foreign, and the foreign bits tucked into the back of World pages (I think). Pity the poor business reader who can’t get his money news in one place. I mean, you don’t split up Sports into what’s local and what’s foreign?

What I really like is the absence of turns from Page 1. They really irritated me. Besides not ”breaking” the story naturally, the back half always seems to be just slotted in whatever available Prime space. And that is now called Top of the News…

And the masthead…take a look…

My favourite is the one in the foreground – prior to August 2008. So elegant don’t you think? Yesterday’s had that orange square at the end of the masthead – which I could never understand why.

Anyway, I have never been in favour of changes to the masthead. Quite pantang about it. I wonder which newspaper in the world has changed the look of its masthead as often as ST. I certainly don’t think the new one looks anything like “updated” to me. Then again, I suppose that’s subjective.

Never mind the way ST looks though, it’s whether content stays the same.

I hope not.

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It should improve.

Written By

An ex-journalist who can't get enough of the news after being in the business for 26 years

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