Monday, August 17, 2009

Two newspaper notes ...

First, I don't know if it was a snafu or if they wanted to bang the point home, but the Concord Monitor ran the same Weare sexual assault story on the front page of the Friday and Saturday editions of the newspaper. I would bet that it was a mistake ... Oops.
Second, about that Saturday rail ... some readers may remember that I had a note a bit ago about how big that new rail on the Saturday newspaper was, and how it just seemed too big. Well, on Saturday, I took a good look at the newspaper at a store because the front page was different than the one I received at home [I recently re-subscribed, so the difference jumped right out at me ...]. Simply put, the Monitor seems to have a Saturday "newsstand" edition that is slightly more content than the regular edition. In the case of this week, the newsstand edition had that huge rail and then, a story about the Woodstock anniversary. Both were not in the home delivered editions.
So, I want to retract my original comments about the rail being too big. It's clear, after seeing both editions, that the rail is big to entice people to buy the Saturday edition at newsstands - not because they don't have enough stories on the front page. One would wonder whether this shold be done everyday ... maybe it is, I wouldn't know since I'm rarely in a local store on weekdays. A very good idea, indeed, and I hope it is boosting sales for them.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

To those not versed in the newspaper industry - what exactly is a rail?

Tony said...

Good question Anon12:34: A rail is a strip of information placed on the front page of a newspaper [usually on the left hand side] that teases content that can be found on the inside. It can also have short bursts of information, like one or two sentences, acknowledging an award or something.