News

On Monday, The Globe and Mail revealed its new face to the world.

In his Saturday column, Editor-in-Chief Edward Greenspon explained that the road to the new-look Globe "began in 2005 with a company-wide process called reimagination."

"Two great questions hung in the air: What was a newspaper about in a digital world and what would the Internet be when it grew up?

"We needed to think through the onrushing future and how best to serve the 3.5 million to four million Canadians who read our paper and magazines or visit our websites . . .

"The answer to our initial question about the future role of the Web and paper is that our Internet sites provide a better environment for breaking the news of the day, for digging deeply into areas of interest and for interacting directly between journalist and reader and among readers themselves.

"The newspaper provides one-stop shopping of the goings on of the past 24 hours and puts the world around us into perspective. It is a package, often beautifully wrapped, that emphasizes a hierarchy of importance and allows for the serendipity of discovery. It brings together the news and its meaning.

"And they are not competitors. The Web flows into the paper, and the paper into the Web."

There is lots to talk about, from the new Globe Life section to the just-launched reportonbusiness.com website.

What do you like? What could be better? What would you like to see in The Globe and Mail in the coming weeks?

Mr. Greenspon was online earlier today to take your questions. Your questions and Mr. Greenspon's answers appear at the bottom of this page.

Mr. Greenspon has been editor-in-chief of The Globe and Mail since July, 2002.

He has an honours degree in journalism and political science from Carleton University and was a Commonwealth Scholar at the London School of Economics, earning a masters degree in politics and government with distinction in 1985.

Mr. Greenspon began his journalism career at The Lloydminster Times and also worked for The Regina Leader-Post and The Financial Post before joining The Globe in 1986 as a business reporter specializing in media industries. He has held various positions over the years, among them, European Correspondent, Managing Editor Report on Business, Executive News Editor, Founding Editor of globeandmail.com, and Ottawa Bureau Chief.

Since 2000, Mr. Greenspon has been closely involved in challenges facing all newspapers in an increasingly electronic world.

He is also co-author of Double Vision, The Inside Story of the Liberals in Power, for which he shared the 1996 Douglas Purvis Award for the best public policy book, and Searching for Certainty: Inside the New Canadian Mindset. He has also won the Hyman Solomon Award for Excellence in Public Policy Journalism.

Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.

Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: Good morning, Edward. Thanks for joining us today to answer questions from the readers of The Globe and globeandmail.com We've got a large volume of questions from our readers today, so let's dive right in.

Dan Tencer, Toronto: First, my congratulations to you on this week's coverage of the Afghan detainees issue — a shining example of why newspapers will continue to be relevant in the 21st Century. No one in the other media is doing this kind of work here in Canada, so keep it up.

The Globe's new look seems to borrow heavily from the redesigned Guardian in the U.K. But the similarities appear, to me, to be more than skin-deep: More colourful, magazine-style headlines; the "adoption" of a particular issue as one's own (e.g. the Afghan detainees), and so on. Is this an attempt by The Globe to borrow from the British newspaper model?

Will the Globe morph into a "viewspaper" that represents specific positions on specific issues, and associates itself with particular political movements?

Edward Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief, The Globe and Mail: Thank you for your feedback and question.

Our designers studied hundreds of newspapers, including digging more deeply into our own paper on its better days, in coming up with the design. At that, it was an evolving process. I think you will see echoes of several newspapers in the "new look" Globe, including most particularly the old look Globe.

But one thing we do not want to emulate is the "viewspaper" model. The Globe is an independent-minded newspaper rooted in strong reporting.

Our Afghanistan coverage this week has no relationship to our "views" on the military intervention there. That is not the business of our reporters and, in fact, our editorial board is largely in favour of assisting the Afghan government.

But there is an important issue here both about the treatment of detainees and about the, shall we say, inconsistent positions of our government.

So we are driving the news agenda through strong reporting of an issue of public interest. That's what we do on our best days — but from a position of independence not of alignment with any cause or group.

Athar M, Toronto: Hi. Overall, the changes seem nice (although I feel that the type size has gotten smaller, but I've been told that is just my imagination).

However, at the end of the day, a great paper is about content.

Something I've always found lacking in The Globe is comprehensive world news/analysis coverage. I know you've hired more journalists and I hope there will be a few more foreign postings. I am wondering if we can expect more actual world news coverage (with a Canadian perspective, as opposed to using the wire-services)? If there was one thing I'd like to see in print Globe, this would be it!

I also had a comment about the website. Has The Globe given any thought to limiting/eliminating its pay-wall? I mean, does it actually help to keep columnists and editorials behind it as opposed to encouraging wider readership? The New York Times, for example, still has a pay-wall, but more and more is outside of it (the editorials always are, as I would imagine that is something a paper would WANT to be widely read) and as of a few weeks ago, all students/academics (even those in Canada) have free access to everything behind their pay-wall and to up to 100 articles per month from their archive (all the way back to 1851). The Globe has good content and a great archive, but at about $5 per article, I would just cite/research events somewhere else, which is, I think, very bad for Canada's newspaper of record.

Mark Gillies, Burlington, Ont.: I would really like to congratulate The Globe & Mail on its new redesign, since I am a dedicated reader.

But I am unable to do so based on the following observations.

(1) I think you have completely mis-diagnosed your core readers who are probably much like me, older and wearing glasses. For some reason, the new font you have selected is almost impossible for me to read now. It is far too thin for my eyes. When I started to read your paper this week, it gave me a huge headache. I had to stop reading it.

(2) Have you ever tried to read your re-designed newspaper with those long, long columns with about 4-5 words on each line? My eyes were so sore and tired after trying to go back and forth on all of the lines, that I just finally gave up. Talk about adding frustration to my morning read. You really did a number on me today. I settled on scanning the headlines and gave up on the stories completely.

(3) For some reason, The National Post is now delivered to my house for free for one month, courtesy of Jiffy Lube. It just started last week. I'm not a real National Post fan. But I have to tell you -- it was a far easier read for me, over the mishmash you have just created.

I don't know who decided on that font, but they made a huge mistake in my opinion . . . I'm very, very, sorry, but this design does not work for me. If you don't make it better to see, then I'll have to move over to The National Post. I have no other choice.

I can't stand your paper the way it is now. Why in the world would you try and fix something when it wasn't broken?

Edward Greenspon: Hello to you both, Athar and Mark.

Let me deal with one of your main points together. Our new typeface, which was custom-designed for The Globe and Mail, is the same size as that in the previous design (nine point). We have also adopted a universal ragged-right format so we can reduce the need for hyphenated words at the end of each line.

We tested the readability of the paper with groups of readers while it was in the design stage and received positive feedback.

So far, since launch, the jury is split, with many of you saying it is harder to read and many finding it just as easy.

What we are recommending is that you give it a couple of weeks and see if this is merely a transitional issue to a different look. Then please get back to us again. Feedback is always good.

As to your comment, Athar, about our foreign coverage, we are very proud of our correspondents in the field. As you are seeing this week with Graeme Smith's coverage from Afghanistan, we employ an amazing group of journalists in many locations around the globe.

It is never as many as we would like, but we think that international coverage is one of our great strengths. Indeed, we have dominated this category in the recent National Newspaper Awards. Other news organizations have been cutting back in this area — a strange thing to do at a time when the the world is such a small and interdependent place.

Gillian White: I read Jane Armstrong's article on the conjoined twins yesterday and was thoroughly impressed with her thoughtful writing. While there were several judgments she could have led the reader to conclude, I found that she wrote simply and compassionately about the lives that these two girls and her mother are living. She left the conclusions up to her readers and I thank Ms. Armstrong for her respect of both her subjects and her readers.

Edward Greenspon: Sometimes in this business, we speak of a term often used in swimming instruction — show and tell. The best pieces of feature writing tend to "show" readers what is happening rather than "telling" them. The reader then becomes immersed along with the writer in the subjects of the story and can, as you suggest, draw their own conclusions.

I agree that Jane has done a superb job in drawing a lush picture for the reader without falling into the trap of making her conclusions more important than yours.

Angela DiPierro: LOVE the new redesigns. My paper is much easier to read while standing in a morning/afternoon commute. Also appreciate the cleaner website. Great job!

Edward Greenspon: Thank you very much, Angela, for your kind words.

One thing we knew for sure was that the slightly slimmer Globe would be well-accepted. Other papers that have trimmed their margins have universally found a positive response either from commuters like yourselves or people with crowded kitchen tables.

The trick for us was to ensure that our redesign would allow us to maintain a relatively consistent amount of content on a given page and free up money to invest back into our journalistic content.

Louise Sorensen, Surrey, B.C.: The new format with smaller pages is more convenient, but what happened to the daily complete stock list? If that item continues to be missing that will be a major loss. It's one of the first considerations for subscribing to the G&M. Please reconsider.

Edward Greenspon: I'm sure as you know, Louise, that newspapers have been cutting back on financial listings for several years now. We reduced our mutual funds listings several years ago.

The question confronting us was how can we use expensive and limited paper to add the greatest value to our readers and how can we use our family of websites also to add the greatest value.

Although there will always be some readers who are not computer-friendly or who are attuned to traditional ways of doing things, we have found that more and more of our readers find stock listings are better delivered online. And given the fact that The Globe and Mail operates services such as globeinvestor.com and globeinvestorgold.com, we feel that we could serve you better through the Web and then use the space in the paper to help investors in other ways.

Indeed, we created a new web site, reportonbusiness.com, to house all of our business news and financial tools. And we added all kinds of new functions to it. You can get the full listings of any market around the world and look at it alphabetically or by sector or create your own stocklist. And you can look at your stocks, with their current prices, at any point during the day.

Meanwhile, the paper has added what we internally called "Smart Agate." We have maintained two pages of listings, including a new RoB 100, accounting for 84 per cent of the S&P/TSX composite index and added all kinds of anaytical data that will help investors not just know what stocks closed at yesterday but what the dynamics will be of the market today.

On Saturday, the package expands to seven pages, with both more listings and more analytical information.

I appreciate your concern, but I hope you will accept that these changes were made to keep up with the times by providing a lot more overall.

Robin Wortman, Calgary: The Globe and Mail is by far my favourite newspaper. I particularly enjoy the reporting on politics and national affairs, lifestyle, the arts and books.

I also like to read my horoscope every day for fun. Now, I can't find it in the new redesign. Why did you cancel the horoscope?

Edward Greenspon: Hello, Robin, and thank you for your support.

We are very proud of our political, national, life and arts coverage — and I'm pleased that it works for you.

As for the horoscopes, one of the irritations in any redesign is the move of popular features from one place to another. We don't like to do it very often, but with the introduction of the new Globe Life section, we wanted to take the opportunity of putting things in the place we felt they made the most sense. So the horoscope wasn't dropped, just moved. You can find it in Globe Life on Mondays to Fridays and in Globe Style on Saturdays. This has also allowed us to introduce a new poker column along with the Comics, Bridge and Crossword in the Globe Review section.

Trust me, we wouldn't dare cancel the horoscope!

Michael Sharp, Island Paradise: Now if you could only do something about your Toronto-centric bias, I might seriously consider The Globe a "national" newspaper, not just a Toronto newspaper saying it's national.

Remember: I have cable, I get the CBC, I know when a Toronto organization is trying to pass itself as a 'national" franchise.

Wacky guys. You're OK but "you are not Canada."

Edward Greenspon: Thank you, Michael. As someone who has lived and worked in several provinces, I like to think I know this country pretty well. But I have to confess I don't know Island Paradise. I know Paradise in Newfoundland, which is an island. Is Island Paradise really in Canada?

Anyhow, let me address the nub of your question. Obviously, the newspaper is headquartered in Toronto. But our staff here is drawn from all over the country (and some of them from other countries). And we maintain bureaus in eight other locations in Canada. Just one example: the editorial page editor hails from Alberta.

Moreover, we often customize our paper to reflect the major news stories in different parts of the country and we publish a special daily section in British Columbia, our second largest market after Ontario.

But most of all, we are interested in issues that bind Canadians.

I guess I beg to differ with you: I think we're as pan-Canadian as any organization can be — given the incredible diversity of this country.

Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: Thanks, Edward. I'm sure our readers appreciated your insights and explanations. That's all the time we have today. Any last thoughts?

Edward Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief, The Globe and Mail: Thank you for the opportunity, Jim.

It has been a big week for us. We've redesigned the paper, launched reportonbusiness.com, launched Globe Life, moved around some of our journalists to place a greater emphaisis on such areas as foreign affairs, education and new media and re-engineered our newsroom to emphasize more teamwork and more integration between words and visuals and between web and print.

All this has taken months of hard work for a lot of people, all the while continuing to put out a newspaper six days a week and a constant stream of news and conversation on globeandmail.com.

I want to take a moment to thank everyone for their efforts but particularly to thank those readers who have participated today for the strong connection they obviously feel to The Globe and Mail.

Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: To our readers: Thanks again for the large volume of questions for Mr. Greenspon. We're sorry we couldn't get to all of them in the alloted hour.