We’re a couple of hours away from debuting The Bakersfield Californian’s new weekday tab, and I can’t help but think of the song, “Don’t Stop,” by Fleetwood Mac.
It had been playing earlier in the day off my Pandora playlist. I was at home at the time, folding clothes when the song caught my attention.
“Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.
Don’t Stop. It’ll soon be here.”
Yup, Fleetwood’s Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham were right. Tomorrow will be here soon.
Tomorrow will be a new moment in the history books for The Californian, a family-owned newspaper that began when Alfred Harrell, the Kern County superintendent of schools, purchased it in 1897. Harrell is the great-grandfather of our publisher, Ginger Moorhouse.
Our transformation into a weekday tab also coincides with the paradigm shifts facing our industry.
Years before, newspapers enjoyed profit margins that department stores would envy. These days, changing media habits of the consumer and our advertisers tightening their advertising budgets in this depressing recession have prompted some newspapers to close their doors or jump to web only.
So where does that leave us? As George Lopez would say, "I'm still here, ain't I?"
The Californian’s weekday format change arrives with hopes that the economy could finally turn the corner. That would be good news to our advertisers who provide us with the bread and butter. When our advertisers thrive so do we.
For now, our thriving on the editorial side is taking another form: giving our paper a new look, inside and out.
It’s been pretty intense in the newsroom as we considered different designs and formats, what elements wowed us, which ones didn’t. We decided what kind of stories to put in, what to pull out. Classic of newsroom, there was plenty room for debate and questions.
For those unfamiliar to a newsroom, the thought of changing their newspaper in any way is like asking them to wear those popular acid-washed jeans of the 80s on a date.
But they came through. So now some details:
The first couple of pages will be dedicated to local news. Our top stories will lead off the first pages, followed by our columnist page (featuring the likes of firebrand Lois Henry, the analytical Richard Beene and the warm-hearted Herb Benham).
Then you’ll see a variety of news stories of the day to will follow, along with nuggets of information, brought to you by our team of news editors (Christine Bedell, Christine Peterson, Davin McHenry, and Jennifer Self). No longer holding down just the “typical” duty of an editor (that is, to manage reporters and edit stories), these editors are also studying the digital and print world of community content and digging for the right information to include in our paper.
They are reviewing, sometimes coaching, contributors who submit stories. And when it’s necessary they are throwing on their investigative hats and producing stories that need to be told.
Aside from the local stories, we have a new section called Bakosphere. It will highlight worth-reading stories from our family of publications as well as snippets of Bakersfield happenings from the digital world.
And yes, we’ll still have the Opinion section, Eye Street section (Thursdays although we hope for other days); Sports every day as usual. We also feature a health and weather pages daily.
These are just some of the elements that will fill our new tab.
Call me the optimist but I am feeling like that Fleetwood Mac song right now.
“Why not think about times to come,
And not about the things that you’ve done,
If your life was bad to you,
Just think what tomorrow will do.”
Maybe it’s because I know I am not alone. We have some fighters in the newsroom.
Plus, we have advertisers and readers who are behind us. They want us to succeed.
Yes, they will criticize, question and debate about any change we do, but that’s because they feel the paper is theirs just as much as it is ours.
At the end of the day, when all the noise is gone, they’ll be rooting for us.
So we can't stop thinking about tomorrow.
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