'Sunday Hoosier Times' a new morning staple

There's a new kid on the newspaper block.\nThe Sunday Hoosier Times made its debut Jan. 7, and so far the reaction has been mixed.\nDesigned to replace the Sunday Herald-Times and provide a Sunday newspaper for Martinsville, Bloomington, Bedford and their surrounding communities -- what is commonly referred to as the Ind. 37/67 "corridor" -- this new 10-section publication is the brainchild of publisher/owner Scott Schurz, executive editor Bob Zaltsberg, managing editor Bob Hammel and general manager Mike Hefron.\n"Local, local, local" is the mantra of the new Sunday paper, Hammel said. That philosophy has guided the staff of the Hoosier Times ever since the idea for the publication was conceived more than two years ago. The result is a newspaper that serves three very distinct communities.\nNEED FOR A NEW NEWSPAPER\n"There was a pretty clear rationale for doing this," Zaltsberg said. When Schurz Communications, which also owns the Bedford Times-Mail, bought the Martinsville Reporter-Times and its associated publications three years ago, the idea of a consolidated, regional Sunday newspaper seemed feasible. A Sunday paper served neither the Times-Mail nor the Reporter-Times at the time, but Bedford readers received the Sunday Herald-Times -- a Bloomington-oriented publication. \n"The plan for the Hoosier Times was to take the Sunday Herald-Times and add a third 'branch,'" Zaltsberg said, "which would include the Reporter Times area in Martinsville and Mooresville." \nThe result is the new 10-section, three-edition Sunday paper that is trying to overcome its initial dichotomous love/hate response.\nBusiness concerns were, of course, a significant factor in the establishment of the Hoosier Times. \n"Circulation was down," Jennifer Piurek, a Hoosier Times copy editor, said, "and a bold move was needed to revive the paper."\nA fairly significant increase in circulation has occurred, up from 41,000 for the Sunday Herald-Times to about 48,000 or 49,000 for the new Hoosier Times, or "Hoot" as Piurek referred to it.\n"We're also selling a lot more single copy papers up in the Martinsville area," Zaltsberg said. "We feel it's been accepted there. What I've heard is that they really like it; they think it's their paper. And they don't have any problems with it being produced in Bloomington. I'm not sure they even know it is."\nA LEGEND SIGNS ON\nSomeone instrumental to the initial success of the new paper is Hammel, the renowned sports editor, author and Bob Knight ally who described himself as the "booster rocket" of the Sunday Hoosier Times. On the verge of retirement after more than 30 years with The Herald-Times, Hammel decided to stay on as executive editor of the Sunday Hoosier Times. \nWith numerous journalism awards to his credit and three books under his belt, why would Hammel step back into the hectic world of the newspaper? \n"Because they asked me to," he said. "This company's been very good to me."\nBut when Knight was fired as IU men's basketball coach in September 2000, Hammel knew what he had to do: help the coaching legend write and publish his memoirs. Thus, Zaltsberg took over as executive editor of the new publication and Hammel settled into the position of managing editor, a job that would allow him to work on Knight's book project and help with the creative development of the Sunday Hoosier Times.\nHammel came up with the idea for "Voices from the Corridor," a weekly feature that allows notable authors and writers living in the 37/67 corridor a chance to submit essays on a topic of their choice. \nHe lined up a corps of 13 contributors to "Voices," each of whom will produce four essays. One essay will serve as the centerpiece of the Sunday Hoosier Times local section each week. James Alexander Thom, a renowned Owen County writer, was the first voice of the corridor to be heard.\n"'Voices from the Corridor' is a good idea," said Paul Voakes, a professor of journalism at Indiana University. "I like it whenever a newspaper 'turns up the volume' of citizen voices." \nHammel expressed similar satisfaction with what he had created. \n"I'm really happy with where that's going," he said. "I told them, 'You're on your own to write whatever you want, and I'm not going to give you a topic.' One of the people I had recruited for 'Voices' said, 'That's really daunting.'"\nHammel isn't sure how long he'll be around with the Sunday Hoosier Times. In keeping with his booster rocket metaphor, he'll probably continue to provide an influx of creativity to the newspaper, and then step out of the spotlight when the time is right. \n"The whole point is that we're trying something new," he said. "At my age, that's exciting."\nQUESTIONABLE INTENTIONS\nEstablishing the Hoosier Times in the northernmost region of the corridor was a "challenge" to the influence of the Indianapolis Star, Zaltsberg said. \n"What we chose to do is go head to head with the Star in that area," he added. "We don't shy from the competition, but we do realize that the Star is a huge newspaper with a lot more resources than we have." \nZaltsberg and his colleagues felt that the Star wasn't covering local news in that area very well, so the chances for the success of the Hoosier Times -- which features three sections of specifically localized coverage -- were good.\nZaltsberg admits that the establishment of the new Sunday paper was "an economic move," but it was also an attempt to position the Schurz newspapers, "particularly on Sunday, to go into the next century."\nVoakes thinks there might be more to the Hoosier Times creators' long-term plans. Drawing on his own 15 years of experience as a newspaperman, he sees parallels between the fate that befell his former paper, the Palo Alto Times (in Palo Alto, Calif.) and the Sunday Hoosier Times.\n"It's unbelievably traumatic to see a paper disappear like that," Voakes said, referring to the 1979 decision by the Chicago Tribune Co. to consolidate the Palo Alto Times and its sister newspaper, the Redwood City (Calif.) Tribune. Those papers were merged into one daily regional newspaper -- the Peninsula Times-Tribune, which was intended to serve the Silicon Valley area of California. \n"I had a conversation with Bob Hammel about a year and a half ago and he was basically laying out the plan to launch the Hoosier Times as a regional paper for the 'corridor,'" Voakes added, "and I can't tell you the strong wave of déjà vu that I felt. It was not a good feeling."\nVoakes thinks the Hoosier Times might eventually become a seven-day a week paper that will replace the daily Herald-Times, Times-Mail and Reporter-Times. \n"Actually, you know, I like the Herald-Times and I want them to succeed … but you just can't underestimate the attachment that people feel to their community newspaper," he said. "And what we did in California was basically take it away. Saturday night you got your Palo Alto Times and then on Sunday there was no more Palo Alto Times and there was no more Redwood City Tribune. They didn't exist any more."\nGranted, nothing like what Voakes described has happened here yet, but the potential is there, given the recent trends in newspaper consolidation and looser regulations on media ownership in the wake of Telecommunications Act of 1996. Just last year the Tribune Co. and the Times Mirror Co. announced plans to merge, the result of which would create the third-largest newspaper company in the United States. \n"This is just the beginning of massive consolidation in newspapers," said William D. Singleton, president and CEO of MediaNews Group Inc., in an interview with Editor & Publisher. "You will see a lot fewer newspaper companies in five years."\nThe Herald-Times ownership might not be on the same level as the Tribune-Times Mirror Co., as it's now known, but its status as a mid-size, family-owned newspaper company makes it an ideal candidate for a lucrative merger deal with a larger newspaper chain, such as Knight-Ridder or Gannett. \n"This may make families think about unlocking the value of their company or looking for a merger partner," said Edward J. Atorino, an investment banker specializing in media securities, in an Editor & Publisher article. "Every once in a while, one of these third- (or) fourth-generation family members says, 'I want my money.'"\nBRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER\nThe Bloomington, Bedford and Martinsville communities are all very distinct, each with its own personality and culture. One would think that trying to lump them all into one demographic -- the corridor -- could be a potential failure. Not so, Zaltsberg said.\n"Corridor" is "kind of a marketing term," he said. "The fact is we're all southern Indiana Hoosiers, although there are vast differences… That's why it was so important to create a newspaper that has three strongly unique editions. It's a 10-section paper, three sections are remade between editions and those three sections are remade pretty dramatically."\nDuring the exploratory phases of the Hoosier Times development, professional and scientific research was conducted to determine what readers "wanted and what they didn't want," Zaltsberg said. "Then, after we decided to launch the project, we did some unscientific polling, and we came up with roughly 3,000 interviews of people throughout the region. It gave us some ideas. And then we did a series of focus groups."\nConcerned with how the new publication would go over in its various markets, Schurz, Zaltsberg, Hammel and Hefron proceeded cautiously. Wary that their new Sunday readers would feel that they were being invaded by Bloomington, they made an effort to cultivate "expectations" and "trust," Zaltsberg said. \nThis involved allowing the staffs of the Reporter-Times and the Times-Mail to take the lead in introducing the concept of the Sunday Hoosier Times to their readers. \n"We couldn't just say, 'OK, we're going to give you the Bloomington paper on Sunday now, and you're going to like it,'" he added. "That just wouldn't have worked."\nA NOT-SO-WARM WELCOME\nStill, the Sunday Hoosier Times has not been entirely met with open eyes, so to speak. \n"The paper has generally been received well, but with many mixed feelings," Piurek said. "People have complained that the new type is too hard to read, for one, and that they don't know where to find things. But some have complimented the increased content."\nThe localized news content could be a positive selling point for the Sunday Hoosier Times, but some readers are frustrated with its form and layout. \n"I hope we get to the point where it's fun to look at and easy to read," said Steve Snyder, the Hoosier Times art director. "I think a lot of the complaints are just because it's different. It's just something that's going to take some getting used to."\nVoakes agreed with Snyder's assessment. \n"The way of the public reaction to design is quite often a function of routine, and what they're used to - and they'll get used to this look," he said.\nThat "look" is what Snyder describes as "different from anything else in the area." He said that about a year and a half ago the art department was considering two possible design schemes for the Hoosier Times. \n"One was more of a 'hip' concept and one was more traditional," he said. "We had them both printed up and they were basically ripped to shreds! So we went back to square one." \nThe initial dissatisfaction with the two initial design concepts led Snyder and his colleagues to adopt what he calls a "neo-retro" look. "It kind of looks like a traditional newspaper where it has centered headlines, sub lead-ins to stories, and more of a vertical page layout," he added. "But we wanted to make it as open and light and airy as possible."\nThe paper might look good, but it's getting bad reviews on readability. Snyder said the Poynter Readability Series typefaces, "designed specifically for newspapers," were adopted by the Hoosier Times in an effort to make it look different from its sister publications and make it easier on the eyes. \nBut because so many readers have complained about the new typeface, both Snyder and Zaltsberg have given some thought to making a change, such as a slight increase in the size of the body copy font.\nThe new publication's leadership was prepared in the event of a not-so-stellar reception. \n"We knew the acceptance level of the paper would be a challenge," Zaltsberg said. "The first weekend that we launched the paper we got a lot of negative comments, and it really continued for a couple of weeks. And then the worm started to turn; most of the comments that I'm getting now are positive."\nThat's easy for an executive editor to say, right? Piurek concurs that the paper got off to a rocky start but is starting to shape up. \n"It seems that people are resistant to change, so initial criticism shouldn't be taken as seriously as long-term criticism," she said. "I think a lot of people are set in their ways and upset not about the actual change, but just the fact that there was one!"\nWhile Martinsville and Bedford readers might have accepted their new Sunday paper, resulting in the circulation boost cited above, Bloomington is proving to be a harder nut to crack. \n"People in Bloomington -- that's the group that had the most to lose," Zaltsberg said. "They were used to having their own paper on Sunday; it looked a particular way, and now, everything's changed. And change is difficult."\nZaltsberg likes the new paper's chances for success in Bloomington. \n"We're fighting an acceptance battle in Bloomington," he said. "I think we're going to win it, and I think we are winning it. We've lost a few subscribers, 50 or something, but it's not been a significant problem in terms of losing people."\nPROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE\nThe Sunday Hoosier Times is here. It's different. It's ambitious and grandiose in scope. No one, upon reading it for any length of time, would dispute that. But what does the future hold for this new publication? Voakes, for one, sees the Hoosier Times as the "foot in the door" for a new daily regional newspaper. \n"It's ambitious, journalistically," he said. "Obviously they've seen something in their market research. Convincing the business community of the economic unity of the corridor might make it very tempting to establish the Hoosier Times seven days a week." \nAlthough he questions the wisdom of such a possibility, Voakes admits that there are ways to accomplish it with long-term success.\n"If you sneak into somebody's house in the middle of the night and rearrange all the furniture in their living room, they're going to wake up in the morning and they will be absolutely furious," Voakes said. "But if you can somehow 'lock it all down,' the changes, a month later, will seem so natural and so familiar that they will not be able to remember what their furniture used to look like in its previous arrangement."\nIf that analogy seems a little outrageous or irrelevant, it shouldn't, Voakes said. He added that he and his colleagues at the Peninsula Times-Tribune were told by their ownership, as circulation decreased steadily in the late '80s and early '90s, "Don't worry, it's just living room furniture -they will learn to love you." \nThe Times-Tribune closed down in 1993.