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Some readers told me they considered the change a public-be-damned maneuver to bolster the bottom line. Moving the puzzles to a section that had a little fudge space - Classified - made the difference, getting Datebook to its goal, or close enough. But how does shifting puzzles from here to there make a difference? It worked like this: The paper managed to tuck, trim and otherwise squeeze the section enough to reduce more than 1 1/2 pages a day, but couldn't get beyond that without draconian steps. The challenge was to cut space while minimizing the impact on readers. We're not talking chump change here: At a paper this size, it represents savings in the very high six figures. That reality hit home with Datebook when Wiegand and team were told they needed to reduce their use of newsprint by an average of two pages on weekdays. Around the country papers are cutting features, cutting pages and cutting staffs as they wrestle with the other side of the business equation - income. And it left unexplained how moving puzzles from one part of the paper to another could cut costs.Īs Executive Datebook Editor David Wiegand said in a note to readers on the third day, these are economically challenging times for newspapers. In the first few days, the paper didn't say why it was making such a move, so sure to be abrasive. So puzzle players deserve a lot of deference from The Chronicle. They acted individually, and for the most part thoughtfully, with no other motive than to make it easier to find and work their puzzles. Unlike many who proclaim their unhappiness with The Chronicle, those who expressed dismay over the puzzle move weren't driven by ideology, weren't trying to spin coverage, weren't responding to some Internet-based entreaty to badger the paper to report this or support that. Like the restaurant that implores people to "Come for the food, stay for the pie," papers want people to come for the puzzles, stay for the coverage. They may start with a puzzle, but that's just the beginning. Often they take up the crossword as a mental workout, part of a broader interest that leads them to many parts of the paper. The other point is that puzzle fans aren't necessarily single-interest readers. It's good business, and on some level it's good journalism. Newspapers try to foster those connections: Certain things are always in the same place, similar subjects are organized together many features are anchored and predictable - as if to cushion the impact of ever-changing and often-discouraging news they read elsewhere in the paper. " "My paper hasn't done a very good job on that issue." Good, bad or indifferent, it's my paper. "I saw a pretty good story in my paper this morning about. The very language we use testifies to the importance of habit.
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Part of it has to do with the relationships that readers form with their newspaper. But that misunderstands the purpose of puzzles and the nature of readers. Why such a fuss over puzzles? In a world of war and poverty, political conflict and social discord, they're merely games, diversions. And because the remaining crossword in Datebook was now spread two-thirds of the way across the back page, making it impossible to quarter-fold the page to do the puzzle, they knew the whole thing had been engineered by someone who was clueless about crosswords. They thought the paper had come up with a ploy to force them to read the classifieds.
#SF CHRONICLE CROSSWORDS FULL#
They hated that they had to go to Datebook and Classified to see a full array of puzzles.
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Some wrote plaintively, sounding like James Stewart's George Bailey in the film "It's a Wonderful Life." Just as he meandered vainly through a place familiar yet changed in search of a friendly face, they wandered from page to page to find the features they craved. Others searched, but couldn't find what they were looking for. Those who missed an announcement on the Datebook cover thought their favorite features had been dumped. (five-letter word for incompetent) the editors were. (six- letter word for intellectually challenged) or