The Editors' Weblog

Hooray for Readers' influence ... .

Now, where have the county cricket reports gone?

Can I ask a question about the version of the Gruan that makes it to Dublin? We seem to be getting a 32 page G2, unstapled. Others are getting a 36 page G2. What's with the 4 pages we're losing? One of them contains the TV review, which is trailed on the back page as being on page 32. Except page 32 is the back page.

Within the main paper, we're still mostly getting a b&w paper. Pictures that are in colour in your digital edition are in b&w in the Irish edition. Is this just a short term thing or are we getting a different Guardian?

Where's the Editor gone? Or has that been axed never to return again?

Where is the daily science page we were promised in last weeks Life?

Science is on page 14 of G1 today.

Our G2 is printed crooked on the pages and not stapled. Bit like an undergraduate effort. And shorter than the real Guardian.

...and where has Pass Notes gone? Why is the paper the dimension of a box of cornflakes? Why is there so much empty space? What's with the really big picture in the middle of G1? What's with the crude drawing plastered in unsourced statistics?

Please sort it out.

Yeah, again today a fairly dodgy G2 made it to Ireland - no stitch/staples, badly cut, and no radio listings, and pages all messed up (although we did get Irish TV listings, which is a good thing, I suppose!).

I sent an email about the colour/B&W issue after mentioning it elsewhere on this blog, and was told that the printer in Northern Ireland could only handle 24 pages of colour and that it would be staying that way. Very disappointed - all the publicity referred to the full-colour paper on the three new printing presses, but apparently we don't get to avail of that. The Guardian is widely read, particularly in Dublin (the students' union that I used to work for sold more Guardians than most other papers, Irish or British) and the disparity is very obvious, given the publicity given in the paper and elsewhere to the benefits of the colour-on-every-page edition.

Please sort this! The digital edition is fantastic, and I've hardly a cross word to say about it, so let's get the Irish print edition up to the same standard...

Well you lucky Irish get at least 24 pages in colour. Europeans like me who reads theguardian in Germany get exactly 2 (two) pages (Front and Backpage) for € 2.80. Not to mention that G2 is black and white so that If... is not really funny for us.

There is a story on Doonesbury on the German internet-paper Netzeitung. http://www.netzeitung.de/internet/357534.html

Good to hear that reader power won the day with the cartoons... but what about the genius that was Pass Notes? Has that been axed too?

I would like to see more coverage of lower-division football in the newly expanded sports section. At the moment the football reports seem to be nearly all Premiership matches.

I've already e-mailed the sport department with this comment but thought i would record it on the blog for posterity.

Just another thought on sport, i like your reasoning on the cover story, but couldn't we have had a big double-page spread of England receiving the Ashes trophy?

Will The Guardian Weekly be heading towards the same format? I suspect not as it's probably printed on different presses, but it would be nice to see a similar design improvement for us foreign types.

I already asked this question in the thread attached to the picture of the front page......but as there has been no further information, I'll ask again - what has happened to the health section? Has this been abandoned in the white heat of progress? Not happy. Not happy at all.

I thought that it was right to lead on the Sure Start story (no dumbing down there!). The picture was OK, although perhaps not as good as it could have been (it's difficult to say without seeing the ones that were rejected).
Whilst I'm writing, I also like the ethical living section in today's G2.
Overall, thanks- I think the redesign and new content is good!

All those extra pages for sport and you still can't even manage a column on the American football once a week.

Never mind Doonesbury. How many e-mails would it take to get the broadsheet back in place of this horrible tabloid thing?

Mostly the same thing as Peter Poimer above, but in France.
First, i couldn't get hold of the monday edition -sent to the printer in Paris on sunday evening, according to this blog- before, well, this morning (tuesday).
And this has nothing to do with the fact that i'm living in Britanny : every single french newspapers, aslo printed during the night, are on sale just hours later. So why print abroad (with that B&W; peculiarity) if it's for readers to get outdated news ?

Oh, and I loved Tim Dowling's "Hidden benefits of a half-size Berliner"

If G2 is a half-Berliner, which half are we getting in Ireland? We must be the Ossies over here, with this ersatz thing.

Oh God, it's so depressing. It's like reading the Independent. I hate all this page turning. It's like sitting in the barbers trying to find something to read in the Mirror, but the pages are so small there's nothing to find. And that masthead... I just hated having to pick it up in the shop this morning. Tomorrow it'll be too painful to even go in the shop.

To echo Damian's comments on coverage of lower-league football, this would be very welcome if at all possible please.

I follow Cambridge City in Nationwide South, and so perhaps you might have space in the future to print our full league table, as well as that of Nationwide North?

The Sports section, as indeed is the rest of the paper, is a breath of fresh air, and congratulations to you all. I'm looking forward to reading David Conn's column tomorrow; his recent book is superb.

With best wishes for the continued development and success of the paper.

Agreeing heavily with the non-league football fans.

I'm a Cambridge United fan, and until recently, lower league football hasn't been a priority of mine.

But now it is. Bugger.

My relegation-depression would be eased somewhat if The Guardian covered the non-leagues.

We here in Ireland are not getting anywhere near the benefit of the much-vaunted Man Roland presses. This is not the full colour newspaper that would have eased the transition from the much-loved broadsheet. Dare I say the quality of the black and white images has actually declined since the switch.

Also, the range of colours in the text for column headings etc does not translate well to the b&w copy we receive.

G2 quality is poor, and as stated above, we are not getting the full edition. Pages trailed are not even in the section as issued.

Good to see Doonesbury and Martin Kelner back.

Ditto full column for Marina Hyde.

Could do with more Lucy Mangan and Laura Barton as well.

Working hard to like the switch as much as I had hoped...but best of luck, and congrats for taking the plunge.

Three days in and the dumbing down seems to have started. Have you fired all the editors and sub-editors and replaced them with the cleaning staff from the San Franscisco Chronicle? (Dumb, US-style, headlines and subheads "deeply irritating", says Guardian reader). The headlines/subheads are just so terrible they almost hide the fact that the writing seems to have been tailored to the available space.... there seems to be a new vapidity in the writing. I really don't care about the shape or the typeface or the bloody awful colour (why do the "pick of the day" TV listings have to be pink?) - but the writing ...... this really does look like the death spiral. Oh - and no sighting of the blessed Nancy Banks-Smith?

Overall, I like it. However, we were talking about the new design at work and there was general agreement that there is not enough contrast between the headlines and the stories. The contrast needs to be stronger to help the reader decide if the article is worth reading. Also, please put the TV on the back page of the G2 bit. As for Doonesbury - come on - no-one really reads it!

zenegra

Shame on whoever wanted to make the Ashes the lead story, rather than SureStart.

Apropos Doonesbury; can you please sack Posy Simmonds - she's rubbish.
Complete toss. At least Doonesbury is small enough to be ignored if needed. that bloody Post Simmonds cartoon takes up the best part of a page - what a waste of paper.

Who cares about Doonesbury? Well, some people, obviously. But a far greater crime has been committed in the Saturday magazine, where they've axed the marvellous and inimitable Stephen Appleby. I'd cancel my subscription, if I had one.