We’ve made it easier to find what you want to read

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/04/2018 (2978 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

They don’t teach it in journalism school. It’s not part of any internship for a cub reporter.

But spend any time at a newspaper, and you soon learn there’s always a risk when you start making changes to the daily habits of your readers.

We aren’t about to throw caution to the wind, but we are hoping the changes to Saturday’s print edition that debut this weekend will come out on the right side of the risk-reward spectrum.

The biggest change is the creation of a section called Passages, which will be the home for our weekend obituaries. The Free Press has long had one of the strongest obit sections of any newspaper in Canada, and many readers make it their first stop when they open Saturday’s edition. We carefully plan much of that paper’s content well in advance, but the number of obituaries we receive is something that changes every week.

That unpredictability has sometimes resulted in an ad hoc layout of the section that had news stories — frequently tragedies — jammed up against touching tributes to loved ones. In the worst cases, we’ve had to split the pages notices appear on, forcing readers to jump from one section of the paper to another, hunting for a particular name.

By creating a separate, stand-alone, 12-page section, we will always have enough room for the obits, along with a cover story our newsroom will produce that tells the life story of a Manitoban who deserves the kind of tribute in death that unfortunately, has become another newspaper tradition all but dead and buried.

Kevin Rollason kicks off the first Passages cover story with an attempt to right the wrongs of the past by ensuring we showcase the lives of some notable women who were overlooked.

The second big change is another new section that brings together several strong features under the heading Weekend Review, led off each week by book reviews under the guidance of Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson. As one of the few newspapers left in the country that produces its own literary review pages, we are proud to have a feature so popular with our readers be front and centre again.

Weekend Review will be about much more than books, as we cast about for a variety of takes on plays, movies and culture. And since the section will be part of the live press run — as opposed to a preprint — the deadlines will enable us to get in theatre and concert reviews from as late as Friday night, instead of having to squeeze them into the news pages in a way that was less than ideal for readers. We’ll round out the section with TV listings, the Jumble contest and weather map.

I also want to draw your attention to a new feature on our digital platforms that brings all our breaking news into one easy-to-find box. No longer do you have to endlessly scroll through our website to find up-to-the-minute information during the day, as all the developing stories in news, sports and entertainment are waiting for you in our new widget, This Just In, which allows you to quickly and easily scan headlines and the accompanying summaries.

Finally, a reminder for all of our print subscribers: you have free access to our website (winnipegfreepress.com), our e-edition and our mobile apps. All you need to do is link your subscription, and you will be able to point and click or tap and swipe your way to a world of information 24-7.

paul.samyn@freepress.mb.ca