As you open up today’s Monroe Times, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll notice a major change. We have switched from what is known in the industry as a broadsheet publication to a tab format. That means the pages are shorter (top to bottom), but just as wide.

This isn’t new in the newspaper world. In yesteryears, tab publications had a negative stereotype, given the prominence of certain “tabloids”, like the eccentric and fantastical News of the Weird or The Onion. And while The Onion, self-proclaimed as “America’s Finest News Source”, is a satirical masterpiece, the other tabloids didn’t fair quite as well.

Now in the 2020s, Times have changed (pun intended). Many long-established European newspapers use a tab format, as well as American daily newspapers like the New York Post and, more locally, the Dubuque Telegraph Herald.

Here at Morris Media of Wisconsin, we have a mix of broadsheet and tab newspapers. We all use the same printing press, and those press workers have to change out the plates to go back and forth — let alone changing out the inks for black and white pages, and color pages and the waste involved in aligning the plates and inks. 

Simply put, this is a business decision for us based on efficiency and time saved. The Monroe Times is the only paper in our group to be printed twice a week — and one of those two days it is the only broadsheet to be printed alongside other tabs. This move helps our press room and it helps our expenditures.

Will anything else change in this format? There will be a few small things that you may notice, like more color pages. We will be able to print eight pages in color, compared to just the four pages we had been printing on for almost two years now. We aren’t changing font types, font sizes, color schemes or anything like that. A few pages will be reordered to utilize space, like the Record and Obituaries page will move from page 2 to page 4, Views will move from page 4 to page 6, and Sports will have more color content. We also will be routinely printing 16 pages of copy instead of 12.

And that’s pretty much it. I’m hopeful we get some positive reviews. Maybe the paper will fold easier to put into your chair pocket, or holding it up and flipping pages won’t be so cumbersome. 

Give us a few editions to try and win you over, and then send me your feedback: Do you like the new presentation? Are there some other aesthetic changes or a different order of pages you think would work better? Let me know what you think.

— Adam Krebs is the editor of the Monroe Times and can be reached at editor@themonroetimes.com.