I’m a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal. I started taking the Journal after one of my dear mentors, Don Lamberti, told me to read the opinion page of the Journal every day.
Reading the Journal is a cherished morning ritual. I start coffee, fetch the paper, and snuggle into my couch to read and caffeinate.
If you picked up your Journal this morning, you probably noticed that it’s shrunk. Even the fonts seem different. I was appalled. The Journal is a bastion of tradition and a cornerstone in my life: no matter what city I’m in, I can get a copy of it. It makes me feel safe.
So this morning I dove into the paper, intent to understand how this shrinky-dink paper came to be. As I skimmed a few stories, I appreciated the small grey call-out boxes that summarized the story, its meaning, and its implications. When I made it to the opinion page, I read L. Gordon Crovitz’s full explanation of the Journal’s new look and feel. He writes, “There are new features and new ways to find and consume the news. These innovations are meant to establish the journal as the first newspaper rethought for how readers increasingly now get their news, often in real time, from from many sources, all day long.”
Wow! A newspaper that understands it must change to meet its market at their needs! And they’re doing it without compromising their stock-in-trade: good journalism. My love-o-meter for the journal just notched up.
I’m pulling a couple lessons from this.
- Most people react to change with some level of anxiety. I consider myself a change-lovin’ woman, but my first reaction to this morning’s Journal was panic. I wondered if the Journal was selling out, going cheap, what?
- Only after I experienced the paper - after I read articles, found my favorite columnists, noticed the enhancements that I liked and read Crovitz’s rationale - was I comforted to know that only the format had changed.
- To ease people’s reaction to change, you have two choices: include them in the change-making process, or be fully prepared to explain the changes with patience, clarity and repetition. Crovitz’s letter does an excellent job of the latter.
- If you’re in the process of change, discern between your what and your how. For most of us, WHAT we deliver should remain pretty consistent over time. But HOW we deliver those products and services may need to be tweaked. In the case of the Journal, their ‘what’ is solid, smart reporting. That has not changed. But ‘how’ they deliver it is transforming to reach their market in more contemporary ways.
