Latest reinvention of your paper: Daily feature pages

The newspaper is the rarest of all manufacturing systems. Each day the product must be designed and developed from scratch.

We know we have paper. We know we’ll use ink. Everything else varies from deadline to deadline.

No two editions are the same. We are in a constant state of inventing and reinventing our product. Modifications, revisions and improvements are part of our everyday life cycle.

For example, The News-Enterprise doubled the size of engagement and wedding photographs in July and began running the pictures in full color. In our view, it sent the clear message that milestone events in our readers’ lives are being treated in a more profound — and more appropriate — manner.

It wasn’t something we trumpeted or promoted. It was something that we just did.

Sitting in the editor’s chair, I realize that every change is noticed. I receive calls, emails or visits from folks who are delighted and a few who are disappointed. I enjoy both because in order for the newspaper to be its most effective it must engage its audience.

We want you to see The News-Enterprise as “your paper.” That sense of ownership expressed by loyal readers is the clearest sign that the paper is cherished.

This week, you’ll find a few changes in “your paper.”

The News-Enterprise is repackaging its feature presentations by adding new daily pages beginning Monday.

Locally produced content previously presented in the Wednesday’s Woman and Pulse magazines will appear on special interest A-section pages. While the tabloid inserts will cease, the local stories and photos are being pulled into the A section.

A new feature package also has been developed for our Monday edition.

In essence, we are relocating some popular items to provide more reasons to enjoy the paper every day.

Readers truly connect with the centerpiece spotlight profile story presented in Wednesday’s Woman. The feedback is enormous.

The detailed article on a local resident’s life and achievements will continue on Wednesdays. It will anchor that day’s feature page. The profile will be accompanied by reader favorites such as Jaime Thomas’ Motherhood & More column and inspiring thoughts from Speakers with Spark.

We’ve had countless requests for a Monday’s Man feature. That’s being addressed in this reinvention.

In addition to mimicking the profile centerpiece, the Monday page will offer familiar features such as The Art of Performance and Click and Clack’s Car Talk and introduce new columnists in coming weeks.

Other new daily pages will carry elements previously a part of Pulse magazine.

Food columns from local writers Mary Alice Holt and Nora Sweat will shift to the new Taste page offered each Tuesday. It also will carry Food Network recipe features.

Arts and entertainment components of our coverage will require two pages, which will appear each Thursday and Friday and continue to be know as Pulse. That includes coverage of local performances, festivals and entertainment venues, including the extensive local calendar of things to do and rotating personal columns from Robert Villanueva and Becca Owsley.

Striving to provide a comprehensive look at the varied aspects of life locally, the newspaper staff feels a deep commitment to community service. The newspaper has a business component as well. Frequent readers of the two magazines recognize that the sections attracted limited advertising support.

While responding to that economic reality, we are no less committed to satisfying your interests. That’s why we’re shuffling the deck and adding these local features to the comprehensive daily local news and sports reports.

The new pages are additions to a wealth of other recurring pages: Money three times a week, Senior Life and Schools on Mondays, Homes and Worship on Fridays plus Neighbors, Opinion and comics in each daily edition. Faces & Places, the Sunday feature page displaying a local photo story, also will continue.

Habitual readers will miss some aspects of the magazines. We expect the weekly TV listings to be the most obvious.

Because television viewers enjoy on-screen program schedules for literally hundreds of stations offered by their cable or satellite providers, the value of a local TV listings book has diminished. Prime-time TV listings will continue in the daily paper and we solicit your input on stations to add to the grids. Now that we are no longer confined by the depth of the tabloid magazine, we can explore a few new options.

Also a link has been added on our website, www.thenewsenterprise.com . Under the Features tab, you’ll see TV listings. This new service will provide electronic access to a customizable TV listings service.

You can link to a list of stations in the same order as your cable or satellite provider. It allows you to omit stations that you never watch. The personalized grids also allow access to plan your viewing for the next 14 days.

As we reinvent your paper this week, please note the effort to remain locally focused, respond to your input and provide alternative in print and online.

As always, your feedback and ideas are welcomed. Thanks for reading.

Ben Sheroan is editor of The News-Enterprise. He can be reached at (270) 505-1764 or bsheroan@thenewsenterprise.com.