The front page of The Columbian's Monday e-edition.
Did you get a chance to look at our two new digital products this week? I thought the news fairies looked favorably on both our new Monday e-edition and our Afternoon Briefing newsletter, but the technology goblins were mischievous. Let me explain:
For our first Monday e-edition, we hoped to have a relatively tame Sunday news cycle, without any last-minute surprises, but with enough news to make the edition worth logging in to read. (If you haven’t set up your digital account, please do so. It’s free to Columbian print subscribers. Visit www.columbian.com/digital to get started.) We wanted a day when our Sunday staff, Micah Rice and Joey Trull, could get used to their new duties without having to scramble their plans on deadline.
It worked out well. Assistant Metro Editor Jessica Prokop had written an interesting story with photos about two local judges that we could use as the front-page centerpiece. She filed it on Friday, so it was able to go through our regular editing routine and get placed on the page early. We also had a good regional story from our news partners at Crosscut, who had commissioned a public opinion poll about Washingtonians’ attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccinations. It’s our goal to offer more in-depth regional content in this new Monday e-edition. To fill out the cover, Joey was able to find a newsy story looking ahead to Wednesday’s impeachment vote.
Joey also found room for 16 more stories and briefs on the inside pages of the front section. We didn’t have any local “spot news” about crimes or fires, but we were ready to report about it. Finally, Opinion Editor Greg Jayne and Amelia Fisher, who processes our letters to the editor, put together a full editorial page.
In the second section, our later e-edition deadline allowed Micah to pull together full coverage of the weekend’s NFL playoff games, including a follow-up story analyzing the Seahawks’ disappointing Saturday loss. We also offered our regular weather page and all of the Monday comics and puzzles.
That’s where the technology goblins let us down. You’re supposed to be able to tap or click on an element, such as a puzzle, to enlarge or print it. For some reason, that functionality was broken Monday. Without an easy way to print, it was very difficult to do the crossword puzzle. I apologize for this problem, which we traced to a glitch at our software vendor. I’m told the issue was resolved Tuesday, so I am hopeful you’ll be able to work the puzzles next Monday without having to resort to extreme measures.
Read us in the afternoon
Although we were hoping for a slower news day on Sunday, the opposite was true on Monday, when we published our first Afternoon Briefing newsletter. Web Editor Amy Libby wanted a lot of fresh news that would tempt our initial batch of subscribers to open an unfamiliar email, read the newsletter, and tell others to subscribe.
She led with the news that the Eatery at the Grant House had closed permanently and also was able to offer three other local stories that broke since Morning Briefing, including the news obituary of Vancouver businessman Arch Miller, a former First Citizen honoree. From the region, we had the latest about tension at the state capital as the 2021 Legislature opened. In all the first newsletter contained eight fresh stories, which I thought made for a robust read.
Afternoon Briefing and our other newsletters are free to anyone who wishes to receive them. Visit columbian.com/newsletters to subscribe. Each item in the newsletter has a link to the full story on our website; you have to be a subscriber to read all of the stories in their entirety.
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