WAN-IFRA: What were some of the pillars of your new content strategy with the relaunch in October?
STACKHOUSE: We maintained a focus on our traditional strengths of national news, international news, and business, and significantly expanded our coverage of life and style issues. This was in recognition of our readers' growing interests in lifestyle issues (health, fitness, money, travel) and our desire to attract new types of sophisticated readers to a paper that has long been identified as a political and business journal of record. Within our tractional pillars, we also expanded our beats to focus on emerging areas of interest such as demographics, ethics and global food issues. We will continue to try to diversify the paper's interests, recognizing that much of the institutional news we have long relied on is now best delivered through faster digital channels.
WAN-IFRA: Was there a real rethink on the print/digital presentation and workflow, and how did that play out?
STACKHOUSE: We are trying to use the print product more for both visual and explanatory journalism, knowing that breaking news is best served through digital platforms. On the visual side, while digital products like the iPad offer an excellent experience, the quality printed page is still a masterful frame for still photography and graphics. The newspaper also remains an essential "freeze frame" for history – an economic and visually arresting means of capturing our world as it passes. We consider it the pond to the rushing river of digital, each dependent on the other. Digital enables us to be live to the news, to reach our readers in the most convenient and innovative ways possible, and critically, to interact with them. Print enables us to frame the day with analysis, perspective and impact (authority).
WAN-IFRA: How did you engage your audience with some of the new brands, like the "Our time to lead" series?
STACKHOUSE: We continue to invite our readers in to the redesign, and to Globe journalism generally. Time to Lead was a great innovation that encouraged selected readers (close to 1000 in total) to pitch ideas, participate in our research and story discussions, and interact with each other. We came across all sorts of revelations, as a result, and got turned on to subjects such as gender issues in schools that we might have otherwise missed. Some of our readers then joined us for high-profile public forums on issues such as women's access to executive roles, Canadian foreign policy after Afghanistan and international food safety. Another benefit: our selected readers were encouraged to moderate our comment forums, and led to a measurable improvement in quality of comments. We now have a waiting list of about 6000 readers to become discussion leaders.