May 16, 2004 3 min read

People love to complain, especially about their local newspaper. I’ve heard all different types of complaints during my 30-year newspaper career. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s one of the main ways we gauge if readers like what we’re doing or not. Of course, we hear far more about the mistakes we make rather than the good things we do.

I’m sure that’s pretty much of a universal feeling. Everyone probably feels like that at one time or another.

All that makes the reaction to our new Saturday paper remarkable. So far, readers have given it a unanimous thumbs up. People have stopped me on the street to tell me how much they like it. That’s pretty rare. Usually people are stopping me with complaints not praises.

So, thank you for all your kind comments. It’s nice to know that we’ve struck a chord with our readers. We heard your call for a Saturday paper loud and clear, and we’re thrilled that we were able to bring it back.

I did want to take just a bit of space to talk about all the changes that have taken place in the past couple of weeks. We had announced many of the changes in advance such as moving the columns of Glenn Tunney and Jes Hutson from Sunday to Saturday. But there have been other changes that took place without any warning.

First, we decided to put our popular daily Televison page in our Saturday edition. In doing so, we also decided to add the Television page to our Friday paper. Previously, we listed the TV schedules for Friday and Saturday in our Weekend Scene magazine. So, now with the television schedules in our Friday and Saturday papers, it has freed up more room for local features in Weekend Scene.

Second, we found out that we could only run our daily crossword puzzle and bridge column six days a week. We decided to put them in our Saturday paper so as to keep our Entertainment page intact. That left a hole in our Sunday Puzzles/Advice page.

Well, we had heard complaints about the small type for the Premier Crossword Puzzle, especially its answers, since we changed the width of our paper last winter. So, we decided to increase the size of the puzzle and its answers along with the Crytoquip feature.

We’ve also added two other columnists to our Saturday paper. We’re very fortunate that Jim Kriek, a retired, award-winning, Herald-Standard sportswriter, has decided to write a local sports history column every Saturday.

We also found out that Mary Hunt’s column only runs five days a week so we replaced her with nutritionist Dr. Ed Blonz on Saturday’s Society/Advice page.

Alas, the only change that hasn’t worked out has been the teen forum for the editorial page on Saturday. We had hoped that teens would write us weekly with their opinions of thing going on. However, we didn’t get the reaction we had hoped for so we’ve had to shelve it. But we’ll try and bring it back in the fall when students are returning to classes.

So, that’s it for now. But more changes could be in the offing, especially if you let us know what you like or dislike. But don’t wait til you see me to offer your opinion, good or bad. Remember you can give me a buzz at 724-439-7569, e-mail me at mo’keefe@heraldstandard.com or drop me a line in care of the Herald-Standard, 8-18 Church St., Uniontown, Pa., 15401.

In the meantime, keep those compliments coming.