A handful of readers have written to say that they were taken by surprise — unhappily so — when they recently turned to the weather page and encountered a pared-down version of a favorite feature.
"The weather section in the Middle East edition has recently changed for the worse," Army Capt. Sean Holland wrote from Baghdad. "It’s much smaller and contains a lot less info. The map of the Middle East is way smaller and there’s no descriptive info, just a map with highs and lows. The worst part is the daily highs and lows for the US are no longer listed. I had enjoyed looking up my home town every day and seeing how much cooler it was than Baghdad.
"I liked the old format," he concluded. "It took up pretty much an entire page, but was fun to read. The new version is lifeless and so devoid of info that you might as well devote the space to something else."
Format changes always jar readers, and one way to take the sting out is to let them know what’s coming and why. Managing Editor Robb Grindstaff told me by e-mail that the omission of an explanatory note was a lapse. But he defended the change, which affects all editions, as measured and warranted.
It may come as a surprise to some, but even though Stars and Stripes is owned and subsidized by the government, its operating budget depends heavily on the revenue it generates through advertising, circulation and sales. As such, it is not exempt from the financial pressures devastating the newspaper business in general.
And when revenue falls, expect costs to get cut. That’s what happened here.
"Stripes, like every newspaper and every business today, is tightening its belt," Grindstaff writes back to readers who complain. "We previously paid for an outside vendor who provided us full-page weather maps and information. However, we had to make the tough decision to cancel this very expensive service.
"Our research shows fewer and fewer readers rely on the printed newspaper for weather forecast information. The content we can provide is 24 hours old at best, and often out of date by the time the newspaper is delivered. We provide up-to-the-minute weather information on our Web site.
"It’s never an easy decision to reduce or eliminate content," Grindstaff continues, "but it is an unfortunate fact of life sometimes. We hope that the news coverage we provide about and for our military communities worldwide more than offsets the reduction in our weather forecast page."
Format changes are increasingly common for newspapers caught in the vise of economic pressure and technological advance — witness the demise of stocks pages and the truncation of TV listings. Instead, newspapers direct readers to their Web sites for coverage that is often far more expansive than ever appeared in print.
That, however, is not quite the case with Stripes’ online weather site. For one, the welcoming page defaults to Baghdad. To find conditions elsewhere, a Stripes.com user must enter a ZIP code or city name, which may produce a list of cities with identical names to choose from. Up to 20 locations can be saved for quick access, but that isn’t user-friendly for people on shared computers or who delete their cookie files. Grindstaff said the paper would continue to tinker with both online and print versions.
As it stands now, neither is an acceptable substitute for Capt. Holland in Baghdad and his penchant for perusing a neat compilation of weather near and far.
The recent changes do, however, reflect the conventional wisdom that people want quick access to specific, timely information, not leisurely troll fields of assembled, outdated data. But timely, practical information is not necessarily why Stripes readers go to the paper’s weather page.
Stripes’ far-flung audience is unique to American newspapers in terms of its dispersion and often limited online access. I doubt that a trooper just in from patrol downrange would use what precious time he or she had on a shared computer to surf the weather. But that trooper might well enjoy kicking back with the paper on break and lose himself for a few minutes of diversion with the weather beyond the horizon, especially back home.
In my time with Stars and Stripes, I have found its editors to be uncommonly devoted to the interests and welfare of their readers and mindful of the paper’s special role as a lifeline home for hundreds of thousands of Americans serving their country overseas
So I am sure that when difficult decisions about what to keep and what to lose are being made, the editors try to take all repercussions into account.
I also hope that when more prosperous times return, Stars and Stripes will consider returning to a printed weather format that is as entertaining as it is informative. And I trust that the editors will give us a heads up.
