Star-T Startles Readers With Skinny New Look

The “New Look, New Size, Same Great Content” version of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram was revealed today.

A more accurate slogan might be, “Odd Look, Small Size, Even Less Content.”

The paper’s width was trimmed an inch, but the length remains the same, making it appear long and narrow – kind of like Shrek’s toilet paper.

The newspaper touts its “bold changes” as improving readability and service for readers but leaves out a few telling details.

The new color-coded sections “make it easier to find your favorite sections,” the story said. And a new typeface improves readability.

So, based on the Star-T ’s story, the redesign was an effort to improve readability and please subscribers.

What the story doesn’t say is that cutting the paper down an inch in width – which is two inches in width when you spread the paper out – saves the newspaper money in printing costs.

Narrower pages also mean fewer stories. And it would take a marketing genius to convince readers that fewer stories in their paper each day is a reader benefit. So the Star-T ignored that fact and played up the "we did it all for you" angle.

TCU journalism professor Tommy Thomason compared newspaper redesigns to actresses getting dressed for the red carpet. The actresses pick a designer dress, they try it on, they love it, their assistants love it, and then they walk the red carpet and end up on “Worst Dressed” lists the next day.

“A redesign is largely in the eyes of the beholder,” he said. “I don’t care for the colors that make it look like a USA Today knockoff.”

A faltering economy and a newspaper industry in transition have prompted papers nationwide to reduce the size and content of their product, and the Star-Telegram is no different. This makes the second time in the past few years they’ve shrunk the size.

“There is less content than there used to be because there is less advertising than there used to be,” Thomason said. “Some people will say this [redesign] is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”

“There are some legitimate positives there in terms of legibility,” he said. “But no one mentioned the elephant in the room – there is less content.”

I solicited feedback from various folks in the Fort Worth Weekly newsroom, and the negatives outweighed the positives.

“It looks like a shopper guide,” and “It looks like they’re trying to be USA Today , and nobody reads that but people in hotels,” were a couple of responses.

(And, just so you know, we don’t hate the Star-Telegram , nor do we root for them or any other newspaper to fail).

The nicest thing anybody said was that the new font makes the paper easier to read, and the narrower width makes it easier to hold when reading.

When gas prices soared a few years back and the economy faltered, companies that made candy bars, ice cream, cereal, and any number of products suddenly began decreasing the size of their packaging without telling consumers.  It was a sneaky way to cut costs and increase profits.

Maybe I’m naive, but I expect more honesty from a newspaper.