I have been noting the newly reformatted Freeman without comment as it slowly gains its wobbly sea legs.
At first, why bother commenting, as there seemed to be no letters column. When letters reappeared, there were none critical of the newspaper, so I assumed not printing critical letters was a new policy, like the tiny space allotted to letters now.
I have noticed time and again older folks buying the paper selectively off the stand. Why? For the coupons, they say. Some don’t read it at all, some can’t and some have gone on line. All lifetime subscribers, they agree the paper is now “cheesy”.
I have opened the topic at parties among people interested in journalism. They have all closely followed the Freeman’s metamorphosis, wondering about motive ... saving money? Dumbing down for a younger audience? Corporate whim? My dentist and one newsstand customer suspect the purposeful inferior quality to drive readers to the online paper.
Why chop items up and scatter them willy-nilly in order of importance all around your layout? The silly waste of a photo feature on page 2 has already been noted. A photo of local interest is more appropriate than the Bulgarian spaghetti harvest. Space is wasted all over the paper, yet money is “saved” by cutting expensive syndicated columns like Dear Abby, and Dr. Donohue’s successor (Obamacare?), and yet larding the paper with small irrelevant Associated Press items. If you want free content, expand your letters column.
The quality of the actual paper is so thin it doesn’t fold right, and you can see through it. Photos have been printed lightly…to save ink? Things have been mindlessly reduced to save space. Space equals money. Then the space is wasted. Appropriately, even the masthead has been reduced and made hard to find. You have lots to be modest about. Only the massive number of typos has been retained from the old Freeman.