When you picked up the Daily Wildcat Monday morning, did you notice anything different?

One of the challenges of working here (and probably working at any newspaper) is that it’s easy to lose perspective on the relative importance of the various elements that go into each day’s paper. Some things are no-brainers – correct facts, balanced news, breaking stories – but sometimes things that seem the smallest make a huge difference.

Take Tuesday’s newspaper.

The lead story, “”Forced furloughs upset some faculty,”” focused on the idea that instead of unpaid leave, UA faculty and staff should instead loan a week or so worth of work to the state, a proposal made by UA professor and former state legislator Ted Downing. The article called this idea “”differed compensation.””

Now, of course, the word that was intended by Downing was “”deferred,”” confirmed in a very nice e-mail from him at 6:03 a.m., just as the day’s paper hit the stands. Before the error was corrected online mid-afternoon, several Internet readers commented on the mistake at DailyWildcat.com.

This is exactly what I mean about the small things. A story goes through the reporter, desk editor, copy editor, copy chief, and yet sometimes the wrong word goes in anyway.

Then there’s the fairly major redesign of the print version of the Daily Wildcat which launched Monday. The new look is the result of nearly two months of work, countless mockups and many discussions among editors, staffers, family and friends.

We viewed the redesign as the next step in the change to the larger broadsheet page size that happened last semester. Our aim was to use our larger page more effectively, while at the same time taking better advantage of full color pages, particularly the front page.

We adopted a more bold typeface for our name, so that it would stand out better against the expanded photographic teasers at the top of our front page. We added the “”rail”” on the left side of page 1, and used it to offer teasers to sections of the paper that often get overlooked because they don’t offer the kind of photo teasers that can run across the top of the page. We integrated “”3 things to know today,”” formerly at the bottom of the page, into the bottom of the rail, and we began using a more condensed version of our usual headline type.

And the result? Well, when I walked into the newsroom on Monday afternoon and asked one of our professional staff what they thought of the day’s paper, I was answered with “”Was there something I should notice?””

So now I put the question to you: Did you notice? Do the changes to your campus newspaper do anything to make you want to pick up the paper more, or enhance your experience once you’re already reading? I’d really appreciate your input – send me an e-mail, give me a call, send a letter to the editor, respond to today’s CatPoll or comment on our page on Facebook. The same goes for anything you like (or don’t like) about us; the Daily Wildcat really is your newspaper.

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This morning at 11:45 a.m., News Editor Cody Calamaio and I will be visiting with the members of the University Religious Council at their regular meeting at the Catholic Newman Center. We’ll be talking about what we do here at the newspaper and answering their questions about how best to let us know about newsworthy events, while we learn more about what they do here at the UA. If you’d like us to do the same for your campus group, organization or department, let me know and we can set something up.

Nickolas Seibel is the editor in chief of the Daily Wildcat, He can be reached at 520-621-7579 or at editor@wildcat.arizona.edu.