NOTICE anything different this week about this, the editorial page, and the one opposite, which journalists call the op-ed page? No, I'm not fishing for compliments about my fashionable new pose, although Star-Bulletin photographer Craig Kojima certainly deserves praise and thanks for my updated photo. Welcome to
our new lookI'm referring to the long-awaited redesign of this newspaper's opinion section, which hasn't been radically altered for more than a decade. This shattering of the status quo can be credited to -- or blamed on -- two people: our editor and publisher, John Flanagan, and assistant managing editor, Mike Rovner.
Flanagan is a stickler for making the Star-Bulletin as reader-friendly as possible. He wanted to restyle the editorial pages even before I came on board six years ago. Flanagan feels very strongly that the opinion section should exude a lighter, less intimidating look, while giving deserved prominence to local issues.
Master designer Rovner heard and complied. The previously dense, horizontally structured editorial page is now vertically oriented and better labeled. We trust it will be both more attractive and easier to read.
Instead of one massive block of type, each editorial has been broken up into two narrower columns, easier to scan and more appealing to the eye. Bulleted subheads succinctly sum up each editorial's issue and our take on the topic.
Star-Bulletin columnists will occupy the coveted right-hand side of this page. That means yours truly on Monday and Friday, contributing editor A.A. Smyser on Tuesday and Thursday, political writer Richard Borreca on Wednesday and managing editor Dave Shapiro on Saturday.
Sandwiched between the editorials on the left and locally written columns on the right will be the award-winning editorial cartoons of Corky Trinidad (he's getting yet another excellence in journalism plaque this Sunday), the popular Quotables column and the true heart and soul of this section: the letters to the editor.
We get so many impassioned, well-expressed observations from our readers -- via snail mail, e-mail and fax -- that we're allocating more space to this lively forum for community discussion. A letters guide will run daily instead of on a space-available basis.
FINDING a permanent new home on op-ed are our nationally syndicated columnists, commentary heavyweights including Maureen Dowd, William Safire, Molly Ivins, Cal Thomas, Cynthia Tucker, Thomas Sowell and Geneva Overholser.
Continuing to star on the opposite page will be Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury strip, View Point guest columns such as the one appearing today by Laura Crites, and nationally syndicated cartoons.
The redesign of the opinion section is just one part of a gradual, evolutionary makeover that has been progressing slowly and methodically in 1999. It's part of an upgrading and streamlining of our computer and production systems.
Also already showing changes are the Star-Bulletin's feature and sports sections. The business pages and main news section will follow shortly.
John B. Oakes, a former editorial page editor of the New York Times, once said, "If a newspaper is a living thing, its news content may be its lifeblood, the front page may be its face but its editorials are its soul."
Welcome to the rejuvenated soul of the Star-Bulletin.
Diane Yukihiro Chang's column runs Monday and Friday.
She can be reached by phone at 525-8607, via e-mail at
DianeChang@aol.com, or by fax at 523-7863.