2 April—Lest the few Monitor readers who haven’t yet dumped the Hearst Republican-American think that Hearst doesn’t have a sense of humor and didn’t celebrate April Fool’s Day yesterday, here’s the HRA’s April Fool’s joke, straight from the bottom of the 1 April front page:

NOTE TO READERS:
Today’s Republican-American introduces some design updates for our readers. They include a more readable typeface, as well as some updates to the design. The changes have been made as we integrate the Rep-Am with Hearst’s systems as part of the recent acquisition of the newspaper. Along with this, sports coverage, which is high in demand by readers, is being expanded. What is not changing is our commitment to local news, the wide range of topic-based and national content, comics and puzzles and more that readers have come to enjoy. We continue to welcome feedback via our customer services team at ctinsider@hearstmediact.com

Very funny.

Integrating the Rep-Am with Hearst’s systems is what it’s all about. For better or—in this case—for worse: The bit about a more readable typeface is a matter of perception and opinion, to be sure. There’s not that much in it other than “curly” (a.k.a. “six and nine”) apostrophes and quotation marks that finally finally finally replace the “dumb” (a.k.a. “typewriter”) straight ones that Republican-American readers endured for decades, doubtless because of ancient typesetting software. (Remember your first word processor?)

Updates to the design include variable type size—often smaller—and variable leading (spacing between lines)—sometimes wider. While the bridge column and daily crossword puzzle now take up almost half a page between them, the Jumble and sudoku panels are squeezed in. (With the sudoku answer right under the puzzle to boot!) You need a magnifying glass to read the new TV listings and sports scores. All in all, interior page design is more cramped and generally far less legible than before.

Hearst saves some scratch with less CMYK (cyan-magenta-yellow-black color) printing, which requires four passes rather than the single one for monochrome printing. (Frankly, there’s no reason the whole newspaper shouldn’t be printed in just plain black. Colors are an unnecessary distraction—rather than attraction.)

Hearst’s boasted commitment to local news is far and away the biggest April fool. Because it just doesn’t exist. But Hearst’s commitment to the wide range of topic-based and national content . . . and more that readers have come to enjoy also are victims of the Republican-American’s integration with or annexation by Hearst. And the absence of stock and commodity listings is no joke.

Hearst has made editorial judgement subservient to bean counting efficacy. Entirely understandable in the circumstance but none the less deplorable—and unacceptable to readers . . .