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John Stackhouse, Editor-in-Chief of The Globe and Mail.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

"Welcome to the most significant redesign in The Globe's history," Editor-in-chief John Stackhouse wrote Friday in a note to readers explaining the new look of The Globe and Mail newspaper and of globeandmail.com.

"Why change? Over the past year, our weekday print circulation grew 5 per cent last year, and 6 per cent on weekends - when our competitors were all in retreat. Our online traffic is up 20 per cent. Our mobile traffic is up 500 per cent. And our journalism keeps winning international recognition - this week with our second consecutive Emmy Award for our work in Afghanistan. This year's Emmy went to Behind the Veil, a video series about the lives of women in the land where Canadian troops are fighting and dying. Editor and Publisher has named our website the best newspaper-affiliated site in the world."

On Monday, Mr. Stackhouse was online to take reader questions about the redesign - here's the transcript from that Q&A:

Jennifer MacMillan: Hello, and thanks for joining us today. I'm The Globe's communities editor, and I'll be moderating our upcoming chat with editor-in-chief John Stackhouse about The Globe's new look.

Comment From Lea V. Adinn: Why the re-design?

John Stackhouse: We think we're in a strong position both in print and online and felt that rather than waiting for others to challenge us, we should take the lead and develop both a newspaper and digital platform that would support significant growth for the decade ahead.

On the print side, we now have access to new, state-of-the-art presses that allow us to use colour in every section on every page and create graphics and photographs that would rival many magazines. Online, we're trying to evolve our site to be friendlier for users and improve the navigation to the broad range and depth of content that we think differentiates The Globe from many other digital media in the country.

Comment From Adam Edgerley: The new Globe is very distinctive and I think it looks great. Could you share what other newspapers you looked to for comparison, influence or ideas when planning this redesign?

John Stackhouse: Rather than study the U.S. market which is fairly depressed in terms of newpaper innovation, we looked to quality papers in southern Europe, Latin America and parts of Asia and found a great array of ideas that encouraged us to pursue a bold and confident look as well as a design that would continue to support great, in-depth journalism.

Comment From Stet: Why didn't Rick Salutin fit in with the hip new redesign? What an insult to your loyal readers. Just who are you trying to attract with this stunt?

John Stackhouse: With all due respect, it's not a stunt. Rick had a great run with us. In fact, 19 years is almost unheard of for a columnist. We're constantly evaluating our array of columnists and felt it was time to look for some fresh voices. I realize there's some concern that we have lost interest in so-called progressive voices. I'd suggest you watch our evolution over the next few months in terms of voices that we'll be adding to speak to 21st century Canada and then decide.

Comment From Boethius: Hello. I very much welcome the changes to the print edition of the paper. I like the slightly smaller size of broadsheet, improved layout and more dynamic graphics. One question though - why are the front pages of the front section and the Life section on glossy paper rather than newsprint? I prefer the texture and look of the newsprint. Otherwise, I think the redesign is excellent. Thanks,

John Stackhouse: Great question - glossy paper is new to Canadian newspaper readers and will require some adjustment. It's used more commonly in other parts of the world and has the great advantage of enhancing photography and colour graphics as well as highlight the overall quality of a publication. One of the principal goals of the redesign is to raise the quality of The Globe at a time when we feel many other media are reducing their quality.

Comment From Web reader: I'm not a fan of the "break" you have in your web articles now. I like reading the first few paragraphs without a visual interuption... instead you throw in some links to old stories right near the top.

John Stackhouse: I understand the concern - in the early days of our redesign some of the breaks have appeared higher than I would personally like. We're trying to balance giving readers a strong sense of the story as soon as possible with the choice to go to other related Globe stories.

Comment From DKM: Hi John. The redesign look great and I'm looking forward to watching the development of the discussion series. I wonder, however, whether any consideration was given to improving the book section--particularly the review of non-fiction. In light of recent opinions about the decline of book reviews in Canada (e.g., the piece by Andre Alexis in The Walrus) and the Globe's re-vamp, I thought this might be something the G&M would consider. (I knew a stand-alone book review section, which disappeared some years ago, woudl be too much to hope for, but an oportunity seems to have been missed). Any chance that might come up for discussion in the near future?

John Stackhouse: Thanks for the insight. Books remain an important part of our weekend print content and throughout the week online. With the redesign we tried to accentuate our Books content by moving it into the Review section, which has been renamed Arts. We think that has a more natural vibe with other arts content and allows us to highlight it off the front of that section.

To your particular point about non-fiction reviews, we devote a fair bit of space to our reviews, both fiction and non-fiction. We try to assure that with the thousands of books that are released every month that we address a good range of areas of interest and authors. We're trying to add to that depth of review on our website by publishing an extra review daily. Could we do more? Yes. If you feel there are either titles or genres that we're not doing justice to, please let me know.

Comment From Franco: Your web design is not so easy to use. I find it too busy and difficult to find simple. What did you do with the pictures of the day?

John Stackhouse: I appreciate that it may take a while for users to get accustomed to the site and navigation. Much of what we've done is designed to improve navigation and help you find what you're looking for, which may not seem obvious when the page you are accustomed to is gone. It's a bit like redesigned your home, it's usually for the better but for the first few days you wonder where the coffeemaker is. Photos of the Day can be found on the bottom navigation under photos and for anything else you're looking for there's a comprehensive site map. But for anything else you're looking for, please feel free to e-mail us.

Comment From Ned: I have an iPad and currently read Wired magazine on the iPad... the content is rich and I was wondering if the Globe will publish in this rich format.

John Stackhouse: Excellent point. We have an iPad app which I use daily and hope you can download, if you haven't. It's challenging for all of us to keep us with the Wireds of the world in terms of iPad development. We're working aggressively to improve ours. We'll be making improvements in the next iterations. It's more than a technological challenge - the mobile revolution is demanding that we all think about our approach to journalism. Our core values don't change - not for a moment - but how we tell stories can change in many wonderful ways through new platforms. If there's something specifically you would like to see from our Globe app, please let us know.

Comment From ET: Does this change constitute a conscience effort by the Globe to avoid the continuous threat of sensationalism (to journalism) and to renew its purpose for providing insightful and thought provoking journalism?

John Stackhouse: In a word, yes. Our newspaper design is meant to be lively and bold. Our site design is meant to be user-friendly and engaging but neither trumps our core mission which is to produce outstanding Canadian journalism. We want to be the place in print and online that Canadians can rely on for the most credible reporting and thoughtful commentary. I hope you noticed in the first few days that we're very much about serious journalism, whether it's the hunt for missing teens from Winnipeg or an in-depth examination of Bombardier's massive C-series project or our eight-week long look at the issues we think matter most to Canadians.

Jennifer MacMillan: We've noticed some common themes in the comments on the editor's note - proximity of news to the top of the page and a more "cluttered" appearance. We're nearing the end of our time, but to wrap up we can discuss those concerns.

John Stackhouse: News remains at the top of our site and continues to dominate our homepage. That said, we want to help our readers find the great range and depth of our content, whether it be health and fitness stories or multimedia or business.

Jennifer MacMillan: That's it for today, but thanks to everyone for the feedback and the questions. Have a great day.

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