We’re tearing through the lim

its of news presentation!

Changes to the look of the

print edition of the Brain-

erd Dispatch started small

— so small that most readers

probably didn’t know what had changed.

But what began a few months ago with getting

rid of rules — those lines that separated stories

and other elements on the pages — evolved into a

complete new look for the paper, from how stories

and photos are packaged to the uses of color.

“I think the Dispatch was a lot like 99.99 percent

of the newspapers in the country. They’re tired, their

format is old and stodgy,” said Keith Hansen, Dispatch

vice president of audience development. “I wanted a

three-dimensional look, a digital-age look to our newspa-

per. It was just a matter of � nding the right people in the right

places.”

The changes began in earnest with the hiring of page designer Jan

Finger, who took Hansen’s ideas for the redesign and ran with them.

“When Tim (Bogenschutz, Dispatch publisher) and Keith hired

me a little over a month ago my assignment on the redesign included

these directions: ‘Make it pop, make it three-dimensional, think outside

the box (and) we want to break the newspaper mold,’” Finger said. “I

asked how long is my leash and Keith said, ‘There is no leash.’ This assign-

ment is a designer’s dream. I’m having so much fun.”

The Dispatch will soon change the body copy to make it more reader

friendly and add more dimensional design treatments to section fronts, inside

pages, and special publications. Typically when people think of newspapers they

think � at black and white with an occasional color photo. The Dispatch’s goal is for

people to think “Wow! Is this our local newspaper?”

Hansen said the goal is to look unlike any other newspa-

per in the country. That future could also change the way ads

are placed in the newspaper.

“Newspapers are not dead. Imaginations have been dying

because everybody else is saying they don’t want to go up against the digital age,” Hansen said.

“I want our paper to be as aggressive and progressive looking as our digital stuff. Look at the (Dis-

patch’s) iPad edition. It’s phenomenal. It pops.”

The paper’s redesign hasn’t gone unnoticed. Along with numerous compliments from readers, Wash-

ington, D.C.-based Newseum.org selected the May 4 edition as one of its “Today’s Top Ten Front Pages,” a

� rst-time honor for the Dispatch.

MATT ERICKSON may be reached at matt.erickson@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5857.

NewA

Look

By MATT ERICKSONmatt.erickson@

brainerddispatch.com

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Changes to BrainerdDispatch.com seemed to many of our readers to come as an overnight surprise, but for those of us working on the transition it was a long time — and a lot of preparation — coming.

The new BrainerdDispatch.com made it’s debut on Dec. 8, 2010. The biggest change was the transition from an HTML-based site with a separate content management system to a Drupal-based platform content management system.

In layman’s terms, our new site is prettier and a lot easier to use. Denton Newman, manager of multi-media for the Brainerd Dispatch, has overseen the evolution of Brainerd-Dispatch.com since its inception in 1996, when the paper was owned by Stauffer Communications.

Newman said the launch of the original BrainerdDis-patch.com was a month-long process that involved a crash course in learning about websites and the codes that made them work.

“One of the visionaries was corporate Techni-cal Adviser Mike Foreman of then owner Stauffer

The evolution of BrainerdDispatch.com CCCChanges to BrainerdDispatch.com seemed to many of

our readers to come as an overnight surprise, but for our readers to come as an overnight surprise, but for our readers to come as an overnight surprise, but for our readers to come as an overnight surprise, but for those of us working on the transition it was a long time — and a lot of preparation — coming.

The new BrainerdDispatch.com made it’s debut on Dec. 8, 2010. The biggest change was the transition from an HTML-based site with a separate content management system to a Drupal-based platform content management system.

In layman’s terms, our new site is prettier and a lot easier to use. Denton Newman, manager of multi-media for the Brainerd Dispatch, has overseen the evolution of Brainerd-Dispatch.com since its inception in 1996, when the paper was owned by Stauffer Communications.

Newman said the launch of the original BrainerdDis-patch.com was a month-long process that involved a crash course in learning about websites and the codes that made them work.

The evolution

“One of the visionaries was corporate Techni-“One of the visionaries was corporate Techni-“One of the visionaries was corporate Techni-“One of the visionaries was corporate Techni-“One of the visionaries was corporate Techni-cal Adviser Mike Foreman of then owner Stauffer cal Adviser Mike Foreman of then owner Stauffer

—Digital Delivery—Now, more

than ever before in the history of the

Brainerd Dispatch, ave-nues to access news about the community are just a � n-ger touch away.

And more options are com-ing. All with a goal of providing more news — from community events to hot-conversation top-ics to smart shopping — in as many ways as possible.

Smartphones, iPads, laptops and desktop computers are all in the mix as en-hancements to the traditional morning paper.

Going digital for the newspaper means more options for people to get the news and additional original content — from blogs to video to photo galleries.

Since its launch in mid-April, about 350 readers have downloaded the Dispatch iPad app. The iPad version displays the newspaper in a digital format with immediate links to vid-eo and additional photos all within the exact replica of the printed paper.

“It’s a different way to consume the news,” said Dispatch Circulation Director John Gagli-ano. “I think the iPad app is the best example of what this can be. The iPad version is taking that to a whole new level. It’s interactive.”

With a touch of the � nger, readers can go from the iPad app to link to the Dispatch web-site and view comments on stories from other readers or add their own. Readers also have access to download and keep past editions. It looks and reads like a newspaper.

“I think it’s a bridge,” Gagliano said. “We are going to be able to reach new audiences with this. To me that’s really going to be the future of things.”

Readers don’t have to own an iPad to get a digital version of the paper. For subscrib-ers, the e-edition, or electronic version of the newspaper, is available from the Dispatch website. The e-edition may be reached by clicking on “connect” at the top menu bar on the Dispatch home page. With a search-able archive of newspapers back 60 days, the e-edition provides access to stories long after the print version is recycled.

With all the additional digital ways to ac-cess local news, Gagliano said the print prod-uct continues to grow.

“Our circulation on Sunday is going up,” Gagliano said. “I don’t think a lot of peo-ple realize that.”

The digital versions are enhance-ments to the printed paper, Gagliano said. “They are not taking the place of it and I don’t think they are going to for a long time.”

But the digital versions do offer to reach people who are accustomed to getting their news on the go. The Dis-patch mobile website — available by typ-ing in m.brainerddispatch.com via a web browser — is available on smartphones whether iPhone or Android or Windows versions. With digital access, readers are able to customize alerts to their mobile devices for updates on weather or news content. And op-tions continue to grow. Gagliano said in the next few months the Dispatch will be adding

the Associated Press’ iCircular, which puts the store advertising inserts people are familiar get-ting inside their newspapers on the Dispatch ’s app and mobile site. The Dispatch is working with eight area stores for the weekly ads. Ga-gliano said as a bonus iCircular provides a searchable option so shoppers can look for deals on orange juice, for exam-ple, either before they hit the stores or as they walk down the aisles.

Tim Bogenschutz, Dis-patch publisher, said he � nds himself reading the newspaper on the iPad while sitting on a deck in the morning as he checks e m a i l s at the same

time. “What I really like is being able to have,

on the iPad, all the previous editions,” Bogen-schutz said. And for those who don’t have iP-ads, he said the e-edition offers a similar ex-perience of searchable back issues of the news online available to any subscriber with a computer.

Gagliano said it’s just one ex-ample of more options and more access than ever before. “We are evolving.”

RENEE RICHARDSON, senior reporter, may be reached at 855-5852 or renee.richardson@brainerd-dispatch.com. Fol-

low on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Dispatch-bizbuzz.

equals more

reader options

By RENEE RICHARDSONrenee.richardson@

brainerddispatch.com

Immediacy has taken on a whole new mean-ing now that Facebook and tweets are part of a reporter’s communications arsenal. Gone are the days when a reporter could amble

back to the of� ce and start writing up a meeting for the next day’s print version.

It’s a 24-hour news cycle and now means now, when it comes to breaking news.

Keith Hansen, vice president of audi-ence development for the Brainerd Dis-

patch, initiated the newspaper web-site’s “On the Fly” section in which

the tweets of reporters in the � eld are immediately posted on the

paper’s website. As the section name implies these are news

items that are offered to Dis-patch readers as reporters

are still in the process of gathering information.

“It’s not the � n-ished product,”

Hansen said.Because the

tweets go di-rectly to the

w e b s i t e t h e r e

is no edit-

ing process, but Hansen noted editors have the ability to correct or make ad-justments to the tweet when it’s neces-sary. An added bene� t of the prominent display of “On the Fly” on the website, Hansen said, is that it will increase the number of followers on reporter’s Twitter accounts.

Senior Reporter Renee Richardson, with more than 100 followers, leads the newsroom in that category. She often tweets business news regarding the Brainerd area or live updates from governmental meetings as they are in progress.

She said she likes the immediacy, the informality and the ability to draw more people to an upcoming story.

When she strays from her normal beat reporting Rich-ardson’s tweets can range from her � rst sighting of a

robin in spring to the welcome news that a missing 4-year-old in the Breezy Point area was found.

“Good news!” she tweeted after listening to scanner reports. “The 4-year-old was found

just before they were going to put thermal imaging equipment in place to try to lo-

cate the child.”Outdoors Editor Brian Peterson

visited about a dozen lakes during the last � shing opener, providing

live Twitter reports on the bite. He said his followers are seri-

ous about � shing and hunt-ing and the outdoors so

he sticks to the facts in his reports. While he

believes many of his readers might be

electronically/digitally chal-

lenged, he thinks that’s

s l o w l y chang -

ing.

Jessi Pierce, staff writer, said tweets are a way to share information and pic-tures well before the presses roll at 506 James St. She said she also likes that

tweets can give readers insight into a reporter’s interests and personality.

Staff Writer Jennifer Stockinger said she tries to re-member to tweet information before she rushes to the scene of a � re or accident. While reporting on a recent Nisswa structure � re she started tweeting scanner reports and then relayed photos and information from the scene — including the fact that two bodies were found.

Sports Editor Mike Bialka tweets items from sporting events but is often limited because he has to compile statistics at the competitions.

The temptation to stray from one’s normal beat is one that sometimes can’t be resisted. One Dispatch reporter felt the need to chime in as a music critic after listening to music from the Crow Wing County Historic Courthouse.

“Most unusual and challenging song I’ve yet to hear on Brainerd’s carillon bells: Jimmy Webb’s “Up, Up and Away.” Nice effort!”

The Brainerd Dispatch sends stories, photos and news updates to its Facebook fans but has maxed out at the Facebook limit of 5,000 friends. New Media Director Denton Newman Jr. said between 15 and 20 friend re-quests are still received each week and those people are added as other friends drop off. The options for readers who want to receive Dispatch updates, he said, are to subscribe to Dispatch updates on Facebook or to like the Dispatch fan page. Those options would allow them to receive most of the updates Facebook friends receive, Newman said.

Reporters routinely use the Dispatch Facebook page to � nd sources for news stories. In one of the more far-� ung examples, former Dispatch Staff Writer Jodie Tweed asked on Facebook for anyone who was affected by the Japanese earthquake to contact the newspaper. That re-sulted in the wife of a Brainerd area traveling business-man linking the newspaper to her husband while he was still overseas.

In this age of new communication models, writing tweets has proven to be a challenge, forcing the journal-ists to make their point with only 140 characters. Older, tech-challenged reporters may forget that if their mes-sage is too long it may be cut off befo

MIKE O’ROURKE, associate editor, may be reached at 855-5860 or mike.orourke@brainerddispatch.com. He

may be followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MikeO-Rourkenews.

The evolution of BrainerdDispatch.com Communications Inc., Newman said. “He introduced us to the web, the possibilities and showed me some simple HTML.”

Newman spent weeks building the site and experiment-ing with its features before unleashing it on the World Wide Web.

“I remember how excit-ed we were to see the logs that showed 10 or so people had visited and looked at the page,” he said. “That was back before DSL and broadband offerings. Our connection to the Internet was through a 28K Global Village Telemodem and the zinging sounds of the modem as it connected to that electronic mystery place are still some of my favorite memories.”

The website has undergone a number of make overs during the last 16 years, including a transition from hand-coded pages to a coding assistant called Sitestitcher to a

database built website that extracted text directly from our

QuarkXpress newspaper pages.Our fourth-generation, and current, website is by far the

most advanced upgrade to BrainerdDispatch.com. With its Drupal-based platform and new content management system, ContentWatch, an additional component added

in November 2011, we now have the freedom to make dig-ital content our � rst priority.

The transition to the newest BrainerdDispatch.com didn’t

come without its share of setbacks. The new site proved to be challenging for users who had grown comfortable with the layout of the old site. Page views were down for an en-tire year following the relaunch. “That was mainly because we lost the forums we had,” Newman said. “We had a lot of users accessing the forums.”

Even with its growing pains, BrainerdDispatch.com has proven itself in terms of faster, more accessible news up-dates and community involvement.

For the � rst time, Dispatchers are able to share blogs, videos and most recently streaming tweets. In addition to our the changes on our traditional website, the Brainerd Dispatch launched a mobile version of the website in 2011 — an addition that typically contributes nearly 10-percent of our site’s total traf� c.

As for our user base, 122,000 unique registered users were transferred over from our former site, and while our new site no longer requires registration, approximately 200,000 unique users access our site every month.

By the � rst year anniversary of the updated Brainerd-Dispatch.com page views had largely recovered from the previous year.

“We are now back to where we were before — beating last year’s numbers and growing,” Newman said.

SARAH NELSON KATZENBERGER, Staff Writer and Online Content Editor, may be reached at sarah.nelsonkatzenberger@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5879.

Tweets and Facebook:

New reporter toolsNew reporter toolsNew reporter toolsNew reporter toolsNew reporter toolsNew reporter toolsBy MIKE O’ROURKE

mike.orourke@brainerddispatch.com

By SARAH NELSON KATZENBERGERsarah.nelsonkatzenberger@

brainerddispatch.com

The response was huge. More than 750 people took the survey and the results were very interesting. We took to heart these com-ments and have made policy changes as well as design changes because of them.

Let’s start with the demographics:

Gender: Male – 40.6% Female – 59.4%Age: 17 or younger - .1% 18-20 - .4% 21-29 – 3.5% 30-39 – 10.3% 40-49 – 15.8% 50-59 – 26.3% 60 or older – 43.6% (Keep in mind

this survey was done completely online – so we can’t say online news and advertising doesn’t reach an older demographic.)

• 93% of survey takers own their own home.

• 96.5% are not students.

• 62.7% have a job.

• 33.2% have at least one dependent in some sort of education.

• 83.8% are full-time residents of the Brainerd lakes (or surrounding) area.

• 49% are current subscribers to the Brainerd Dispatch and of the non-subscribers, 69.7% read it online.

• 42.6% of our subscribers read the print edition 6-7 days each week.

• 12.4% read it at least 1 day a week.

• Online readers were pretty even across the board whether they read online 1 day, 2-3, 4-5 or 6-7 days a week. Read-ing the news on a mobile phone or iPad platform is still small, but we continue to see growth in that daily.

• 74.2% said that reading the Brainerd Dispatch is part of their daily rou-tine and the majority read the paper at home or at work.

• 85.7% felt that the Brainerd Dispatch addresses issues or topics that they are concerned about.

• 82.8% said that the Brainerd Dis-patch is the best way to stay in touch with their community.

• 69.1% responded that they see in-formation in the Brainerd Dispatch or on brainerddispatch.com � rst. Other news sources people turn to were television news stations (78.1%), radio (53.2%), and other newspapers (38%).

• 70.7% felt that the Brainerd Dis-patch offers a variety of perspec-tives. Some said it is slanted to the right and some said left.

• 55.4% said it was extremely im-portant to have a strong local news source.

• 75.7% trust the Brainerd Dispatch to be accurate.

We asked what our readers felt the per-sonality of the Brainerd Dispatch was and the top three results were “Neighborly, friendly and helpful.”

The Main Section, or A section, was the overall winner when asked what is the � rst thing our readers turn to.

We also asked what our readers � nd most useful when reading the Brainerd Dispatch and there were a variety of re-sponses including: local news, obituaries, details on community activities, sports schedules, business topics, coupons, real estate and auto sections, outdoors and more.

• 60% said they would be more likely to read the paper if there was a big story going on.

• 81.7% like to follow ongoing sto-ries.

• 60.3% prefer short stories rather than long ones, all depending on what that story is.

It was pretty close to 50/50 when asked

if our readers would like to see more graphics/photos. Most felt there was al-ready a pretty good balance.

Surprisingly only 12.4% read or shared links from our Facebook page. Many did not know we had one so make sure to “like” it to get updates on feature ar-ticles.

• 58% have used brainerddispatch.com to search for archived articles.

And to end the survey, we asked which of the comic strips our readers viewed most. Ranking at the top were “Family Circle,” “For Better or Worse” and “Pea-nuts.”

As with any survey, we received our fair share of criticism and truly value your opinions. We are making changes daily based on your feedback and are taking stride in making your local news source a community icon and something our read-ers are proud of.

We want to invite you back to let us know what you think of the changes we’ve made so far. Go to brainerddispatch.com and click on the “How are we doing?” link. To subscribe click the subscribe icon or call 218-855-5897.

Brainerd Dispatch delivers

As a newspaper, words are our power. Storylines, facts and in-terviews are intertwined together to paint a picture for the readers

and tell a story as reporters witnessed it.Often times, however, words are not enough to express

the whole story the way we see it.That is why, beginning in 2009, the Brainerd Dispatch

uses video to complement its stories. “It’s a different demographic,” said Denton Newman Jr.,

Multi-media director at the Brainerd Dispatch, who said the Dispatch receives roughly 20,000 video views each month. “It applies to a whole other audience who wants information in a video format rather than to sit and read it.

“And we use it now to augment and enhance our printed news.”

Hosting 308 videos on the Brainerd Dispatch YouTube channel that range from Brainerd High School prom footage to video of � res and storm destruction, the channel has seen relative success with some videos seeing just under 3,000 views.

Now when out on assignment reporters and photogra-phers have on hand a notepad, pen, recorder and a video camera — via phone or Dispatch � ip cam.

And with a movement in to the digital age, including the latest release of the iPad app, the Dispatch is able to link videos with its online formats even easier.

“We have video actually embedded into the articles with our iPad app,” said Phil Seibel, digital manager at the Brain-erd Dispatch. “It’s similar to being posted on our website, but having the ability to actually embed the video into a story is just one more element that we have extended to.”

Even more than just a complementing feature to written articles, the Dispatch sports section has expanded to include “Sideline View,” a weekly video broadcast hosted by Dis-patch sports editor Mike Bialka, and Dispatch sports writ-er Jeremy Millsop, breaking down area sports on location across the area.

The results are in!

er Jeremy Millsop, breaking down area sports on location er Jeremy Millsop, breaking down area sports on location er Jeremy Millsop, breaking down area sports on location er Jeremy Millsop, breaking down area sports on location across the area.

The The Starting the end of March we sent out a survey through an email blast, posted a link on our site and solicited participants in the newspaper. We wanted

to refresh and update our knowledge of our reader demographics and � nd out what our readers’ perception was of the Brainerd Dispatch.

BD Videobrainerddispatch.com

“As long as we’re trying to attract as many readers as possible, I believe this is an informative and unique way to do that,” said Bialka. “I like the opportunity to in-ject some humor into the show...It’s our opinions about what we cover locally, opinions that probably wouldn’t be expressed in print and aren’t expressed by any other media outlet since we’re the leading newsgathering me-dium in town.”

Just another element, beyond just words, in the world of news at the Dispatch.

“Video is a whole new dimension for newspapers,” said Seibel. “When you read a well-written article, you have something going in your mind that displays the images from that story, but for us (Dispatch) we have the ability to have video to put all those visual things together.”

JESSI PIERCE may be reached at 855-5859 or jessi.pierce@brainerddispatch.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jessi_pierce (@jessi_pierce).

video

Steve Kohls • steve.kohls@brainerddispatch.com

more than just words

By JESSI PIERCEjessi.pierce@

brainerddispatch.com

By NIKKI LYTER • nikki.lyter@brainerddispatch.com