Some readers are convinced the redesign effort was a sham to make more money. Many don't count the space in the other sections but think in terms of the A section only, which does get crowded. The Bee, they report, is one of the very few papers in the country to have both the back page and the third page of the main news section completely free of ads to make room for news. The business folks at The Bee will unhappily acknowledge that advertising lineage, particularly in classified sections, has decreased compared to last year due to the current economic decline. As Bob Casey, the editor in charge of the redesign effort told a reader last week, the goal is to make the paper better, not worse.
Readers get to decide if that turns out to be true.
About B.C. Readers had a lot to say this past week, in letters to the editor and calls, about the comic strip B.C. that appeared on Easter Sunday. Johnny Hart, the creator of B.C., sometimes injects a religious theme into his caveman comics, and that inevitably provokes reactions from a few people. The Bee ran a news story before the strip appeared about the controversy. Keep it in the Saturday religion section where it belongs. Other readers said they saw nothing wrong with it.