Only decades after daily newspapers around the United States began using color in their pages as a way of enticing readers bored with black and white and red, The New York Times is about to begin splashing wild hues across its celebrated gray expanses.
On Monday, the Times will begin publishing color photos, graphics, and ads on inside pages throughout its metro editions. During the fall, color will be introduced on all section fronts, including page one. Monday also marks the dawn of the sports-section era for the Times as the paper for the first time publishes a stand-alone segment devoted to matters athletic. Until now, sports have been run at the end of one of the paper's other sections. Times spokeswoman Heidi Pokorny said the changes make the paper more "accessible" and "friendly."
"If you want to walk out of your house with your sports section in the morning, it's no longer just in the B section," Pokorny says. "It's gives it all to you in small package."
The Gray Lady's introduction of daily color is about more than simple user-friendliness. With color publishing a firmly established standard, and with the likes of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and scores of other papers offering full color to advertisers, the Times, which already uses color in its Sunday feature sections, is hoping to reverse drops in both ad sales and circulation.
From the Wired News New York Bureau at FEED magazine.
