MasonBuzz.com

Our new Enquirer begins in just eight days!

We are proud to bring a new Enquirer to Cincinnati. And we appreciate the thousands of you who helped us create it. Tens of thousands of you have seen prototypes along the way. Thousands of you have contributed through surveys, focus groups, emails to me and conversations with us in meetings around the community. Along the way, we made changes based on your feedback.

Let me walk you though what you’ll see starting Monday, March 11.

• See the prototype edition

The most obvious change, besides the difference in size, will be the visual impact. We know from our research that people are overwhelmed with information. Everything starts to run together. The most important information, the most moving storytelling, the most exclusive work we do, can get lost in the shuffle.

We also know that information and storytelling come in many forms. Strong, well-played photography inspires people to action. Informational graphics that tell a story by themselves are a terrific way to communicate context and trends and evidence, and readers respond well to them. Our new design will play up storytelling and information through photography, graphics and other design.

The content will flow better. The front page of each section will showcase one or two “cover stories.” Instead of starting three to five stories on each section front (and continuing them all to different inside pages), we will have the cover story and a couple of other headlines that lead you to full stories inside. We will still have the same number of stories in the paper; fewer will start on the section covers.

Most of those stories inside will contain to either a page or facing pages so you can start the story on the left and finish it on the right. Readers who tested this have told us they really like that arrangement because it’s more convenient to start stories without jumping around inside the sections so much.

We will package news “In Brief” for this region, the nation and world, business and sports in these sections. The goal is a place for a good volume of information in a quick summary.

On Sundays, we will dedicate specific pages to showcase Nation and World In Depth stories, in addition to the national and international stories we publish today.

In the last year, we introduced four new series of stories that we will continue in the new Enquirer.

Readers have responded well to our Passion for Place stories about places that have shaped our community and places that need in-depth attention so they are vital for next generations. People tell me they like this focus on communities and neighborhoods, and regularly send us ideas.

We will continue our Inspired Locals stories about people who are creating things – artists, foodies, entrepreneurs and social activists, for example. John Faherty leads that effort. Josh Pichler writes full-time about entrepreneurs and leaders in our region – their innovations separately and increasingly their efforts together. You’ll find both of them in print every week and you can follow their work on our Inspired Cincinnati page online.

Readers told us they were hungry for leadership – hungry for ideas but also hungry for action, not just talk and plans. We have found a lot of leaders in this region; they just don’t necessarily have big titles. Ideas in Action in Sunday Forum is the place these leaders tell their stories, about the personal actions they have taken in the spirit of big ideas. We hope you will connect with them if you have something to share or a way to help.

Sunday Forum will be the place for ideas – ours and yours – and conversation. We recently added another opinion writer to our team. Julie Zimmerman will join Dave Holthaus and Krista Ramsey in shaping our editorials to bring new ideas to the table and challenge to the community. We will pack this section with their smart reporting and ideas, national columnists, experts in our community who can bring perspective to many of the biggest issues of our times, and important perspectives of your neighbors who are experiencing these issues firsthand. Send us your opinions and ideas in a letter to the editor.

We’ll add a Good News section in the Sunday newspaper, to recognize all of your accomplishments and good work.

We’re changing the weekly TV book back to the more convenient shape readers preferred a few years ago.

Our comics will remain the size they are today so we don’t have to eliminate any or shrink them to fit the new newspaper size. Even better, they will be full color every day. Puzzles and games will move from their current sections to the back of the comics, so comics, puzzles and games are always together.

On the very first day, March 11, we will deliver this historic new Enquirer to all subscribers, including our weekend and Sunday-only subscribers. This first paper will include a special section that guides you through the new paper and introduces your team of 150 journalists – what each person does and how to contact them.

Of course, remember that when you subscribe to get The Enquirer, you also get full access to all of the content on our websites and e-Newspapers. Check them out if you haven’t and activate to take full advantage of the subscription you’re paying for. If you’re not a subscriber, I hope you will sign up to try out the new Enquirer. It’s going to be a different experience, more convenient for your life, a better fit on your kitchen counter, your big purse, your backpack. That comes from readers who have checked it out.

I’m looking forward to your feedback and your ideas for how we can serve you better.