Tag Archives: Redesigns
Orange County Register confirms it’s bringing back biz section
by Chris Roush
The Orange County Register in California confirmed that it’s bringing back its standalone business section.
Talking Biz News reported the details earlier this month.
The Register writes, “The Orange County Register is introducing a new standalone, 4-8 page Business section beginning Oct. 1 that will include daily themes and in-depth reporting on the success stories, lessons learned, tips, trends, growth industries, influential business leaders and rising-star entrepreneurs who define Orange County’s business community.
“The themed sections, which publish Mondays through Saturdays, will contain a mix of must-read local business news and features that influence our professional and personal lives, investments and decision-making. The standalone section replaces the current Business section, which is included within the Register’s News section.
“‘The revamped Business section will connect Orange County industries and trends with the greater business world, and explain with greater depth and context how the news applies or can be applied to our working lives,’ said Ken Brusic, editor of the Register. ‘The quality of the section will be significantly enhanced with richer storytelling, graphics, data, columns and contributions from authoritative voices in the community.’”
Read more here.
Fox Business Network gets redesign
by Chris Roush
Carl Marcucci of RBR-TRVBR writes about the graphics overhaul that has occurred at Fox Business Network.
Marcucci writes, “FBN will now, for the first time ever, have a specific vehicle in place to utilize social media. The ticker will now include a dedicated space for any text information, meaning headlines, tweets, Facebook comments and more. Previously, if they wanted to incorporate Twitter, it would have to be in the lower third, meaning it could only stay on air for a short time, and then would have to disappear once the camera switches to a guest that needs to be identified (since this is the space where chyrons–graphics that occupy the lower area of the screen–appear).
“Ray Lambiase, Senior VP of Graphics at FBN, tells RBR-TVBR: ‘By dedicating an area of our new data ticker exclusively to text headlines, we will have the opportunity to – at any time and as often and for as long as we like – display social media comments, without ever interrupting the flow of financial data that our business viewers expect to see.’
“Given the key role that social media will play in the 2012 election, the redesign comes at a perfect time. As FBN has been committed to covering the election from a business perspective, when the network hosts its debate coverage, it can for the first time display a continuous social media feed of tweets featuring comments about that night’s event. So, be on the lookout for FBN’s first on-air social media incorporation to begin around 10/3.”
Read more here.
FT unveils new How to Spend It website
by Chris Roush
The Financial Times’ luxury lifestyle magazine How To Spend It unveiled Tuesday a new look to its website, howtospendit.com, with enhanced speed and design.
In addition to the searchable content of nearly 100 issues of the magazine, the revamped site will have more daily postings, including news, blogs, columns and interviews, curated by the magazine’s expert editors and specialist writers.
A global marketing campaign to support the launch is being rolled out across titles such as Vanity Fair, Newsweek, GQ, Tatler, Monocle, CNN and Harper’s Bazaar, featuring creatives that showcase the breadth and depth of How To Spend It’s lifestyle content and some of its most captivating photography.
Gillian de Bono, editor of How To Spend It, said: “At How To Spend It we work hard to meet our discerning readers’ high expectations, and we are very excited that the website’s improved design and user experience has already got great feedback in reader research. Together with the How To Spend It iPad app, which has had more than 140,000 downloads, our digital offering combines the glamour and sophistication of the magazine with equally high-quality daily content and a constant sense of discovery and serendipity.”
Ben Hughes, FT global commercial director and deputy CEO, added: “The stylish and elegant howtospendit.com is the destination for an exclusive and affluent audience, and we are thrilled to welcome a range of new advertisers to the site, including luxury brands Patek Philippe, Piaget, Tod’s, Bottega Veneta, Bell & Ross and Hackett.”
Read more here.
Orange County Register bringing back daily business section
by Chris Roush
The Orange County Register, acquired earlier this year by new owners with a more traditional approach to newspapers, plans to launch a standalone business section by late September at the latest, according to a source at the paper’s business news desk.
The new business section is part of the paper’s plans to beef up its coverage, which will include hiring approximately five new staffers for the business news desk. The Register is currently looking to hire a business editor.
The Register cut its standalone section in 2008. In 2009, it brought back a standalone section called Marketplace that ran on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. In 2010, it launched a Sunday section focused on real estate coverage while also publishing content from The Wall Street Journal on that day.
While the Register’s business news coverage has been consumer oriented in the past two decades, the new section will be a lot more about local companies and strategy.
The new business section will be heavily themed, Talking Biz News is told, but not beat oriented. The themes will be on topics such as “leadership” and “lessons learned” and “growth,” which can encompass everything from real estate to a company’s growth plans.
The broad themes are being planned to allow multiple reporters to contribute instead of having just one reporter responsible for the “themed” story each week.
In addition, the new business section will bring back a local stock agate package.
Arkansas papers to combine Sunday biz sections
by Chris Roush
Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC will combine Sunday business sections, the company announced Friday. Staff changes are also in progress.
A story on the Arkansas Democrat Gazette’s website states, “The Northwest Arkansas Times, the Springdale Morning News, the Rogers Morning News and the Benton County Daily Record will stop publishing a Sunday business section starting Sept. 9, said Rusty Turner, editor and publisher of the company. Business stories and briefs packages written and compiled by the local dailies’ staff will appear either in the news sections of those dailies or in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Northwest edition’s business section.
“‘Our goal is to make our operations more efficient without reducing local news content provided to our readers,’ Turner said. ‘In fact, we hope to increase it. By combining some operations with our partners at the Democrat-Gazette Northwest edition and making some internal changes, we’re confident we can accomplish that goal.’
“The company will also combine its design desk with that of the Northwest edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. This department lays out the stories on pages for printing.”
Read more here.
Arizona paper focuses Sunday biz coverage in economy
by Chris Roush
Randy Lovely, the editor and vice president at the Arizona Republic, writes Sunday about changes to the paper, including some shifts in how the Phoenix paper covers business and economics news.
Lovely writes, “From the real-estate recovery to jobs creation, coverage of the state’s economy is of prime importance to you. And the Sunday Business section will be revamped and renamed AZ Economy to focus on real estate, jobs and the economic diversification that is essential for the state’s growth.
“You also want to know that we’re on your side when it comes to consumer protection. Our business team will expand the popular Call 12 for Action television consumer reporting to print, digital and social platforms.”
Read more here.
Newsday launches new Sunday business section
by Chris Roush
Newsday introduced on Sunday a new standalone business section with more color.
In a note in the paper last Thursday, publisher Fred Groser wrote, “This Sunday, we launch a stand-alone LI Business section, making this indispensable report easier to find. LI Business will include the redesigned help-wanted classifieds and wrap Sunday’s Optimum Autos pullout section.”
Talking Biz News sent emails to the paper’s business editor and managing editor asking for more details. We were referred to the spokeswoman for the paper, Lauren Andrich.
Andrich sent the following statement, “As part of broader production changes, which are resulting in a dramatic increase in color throughout the paper, we have reformatted our existing Sunday business content in an easier-to-find, stand-alone section.”
We asked if the business news content was in another section and whether the content changed at all.
Andrich responded, “Business content had previously appeared as a run of pages within the main section. There are no changes to business content.”
Examining Bloomberg Businessweek’s overhaul
by Chris Roush
Hal Morris, writing on his GrumpyEditor.com blog, examines the efforts to remake Businessweek magazine since it was acquired by Bloomberg in late 2009.
Morris writes, “Most noteworthy was getting the fatherly 80-year-old business weekly to appeal to a much younger readership via content and layouts.
“In the July 16-22 issue, for example, Bloomberg Businessweek splashed an inordinate 47 snapshots of Andrew Mason into a six-page spread on the Groupon CEO.
“Actually, with another image on the contents page, make that 48 shots of the ‘merry prankster,’ as the magazine labeled its subject. One page alone featured 14 Mason photos of assorted sizes.
“Also interesting in the current issue was the sole art plunked in a two-page Olympics story: a dog with an inverted bucket reading ‘The Olympics’ placed over its head.”
Read more here.
New York state biz journal ends 26-year print run
by Chris Roush
James Walsh of the Times Herald-Record reports that the weekly Hudson Valley Business Journal has ceased its print edition after 26 years as it moves toward a digital format.
Walsh writes, “Debbie Kwiatoski, formerly managing editor and now publisher, owns digital rights to the publication as of Monday. She said in a statement that she plans to redesign and upgrade the website over the next few weeks.
“Kwiatoski cited the cost-effectiveness of digital delivery systems, and said she expected that a daily posting of news stories, blogs and videos would attract a sufficient audience to sustain the venture.”
Read more here. In addition to Kwiatoski, the paper’s website shows three other editorial stafers. However, the story on its home page is outdated — it focuses on what would happen if the Supreme Court outlawed the health care laws.
Forbes.com launches new home page
by Chris Roush
Forbes.com unveiled its new home page on Thursday.
Lewis Dvorkin, chief product officer, writes, “It’s based on a core belief that there are three vital voices in the media business, each with a distinct agenda: journalists and other knowledgeable content creators; the audience, which includes news enthusiasts with specific needs and expertise; and marketers, many who are fast becoming publishers, too. These groups want — in fact, deserve — to be heard. They want to be participants and decision makers in a credible news environment. Our new home page sits atop a platform designed to make that possible, always with complete transparency and clear labeling.
“On our new home page, each constituency — and the larger social view — is represented in one of four equal modules, or as we call them, stacks:
“1. The journalistic agenda: FORBES is a brand that has meaning. We’re about free enterprise, entrepreneurial capitalism, smart investing and the rewards that come with hard work. We’re about aspiration and success. That’s the prism through which our staff reporters and expert contributors now publish 500 posts a day. Our experienced editorial team uses that same filter to pick the most timely, most relevant and most important items (in their view) for home page promotion. We’ve developed three different treatments for the editorial stack: a more traditional presentation with a lead photo promotion and 6 additional story links, a bold single photo-enhanced story, and two photo-enhanced stories. Using the best tools in the news business, an editor can program each stack in 60 seconds or less.”
Read more here.
