After Redesign, 'Morning Call' Runs Editorials Only 3 Days Per Week

By: Joe Strupp The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa., is now publishing editorials only three days per week as part of a redesign that cut its two opinion pages down to one each day.

Glenn Kranzley, editor of the opinion pages, said the paper had run a two-page opinion spread, except for Saturdays, until the redesign launched July 28. Due to that cutback, and the loss of an editorial writer from ongoing job cuts, he was forced to run editorials only on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday instead of daily.

"There are not enough people to do it," he said, noting he is now the only full-time editorial writer, working with a part-time assistant. "I have some freelance help, but I do the writing, do the letters, choose and edit Op-Eds, and plan coordinating artwork."

Kranzley said the paper also wanted to give more space to readers, with an increase in letters to the editor and a new "sounding board" feature that allows reader to sign up and be sought for comment, on the web and in print, on specific topics.

"I post questions and topics and shoot e-mails to those people, receive responses and will print the best of them with the rest online," he explained. "The second phase of that will be to give sounding board members a password to a page on our Web site where they can post opinions themselves. We will monitor it and people who abuse it will be removed."

Since announcing the sounding board option on Thursday, Kranzley said 75 people have signed up. He adds that the opinion page will now have a theme each day that connects the editorials, when they run, with columns and letters. He also plans to print more excerpts from blogs.

"We wanted to change up the real estate to give more voice to the readers," Kranzley said about the editorial reduction. "More comments of readers."

As for the rest of the redesign, which debuted earlier this week, the paper has offered little formal comment on it. Kranzley said some house ads have been published to direct readers to new features, but no letter to readers or news story.

A July 21 story that announced the closing of several bureaus and a job reduction of 35 to 40 newsroom staffers mentioned only that a "redesigned Morning Call will debut Monday. It will feature new columns as well as a new look."

The cuts and redesign come as many Tribune Co. papers are doing the same thing as the company seeks to cut costs.

Publisher Timothy Kennedy and Editor Ardith Hilliard have not responded to numerous requests for comment about the paper's changes, while a spokesperson has said only that they are not ready to discuss the new look at this time.