Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.

The Trinidad Guardian, whose broadsheet format used to be its distinguishing physical characteristic, published its first "G-Size" edition today, just slightly larger than its tabloid rival, the Trinidad Express.

"After much research and consumer feedback, we have decided to adapt the size and format of the paper to a more convenient one."

Maybe most Guardian readers do prefer a more "convenient" size, but I doubt the change will produce any great increase in readership; & abandoning the broadsheet format is surely an aesthetic mistake. There's something about a big, slightly unwieldy sheet that says, "newspaper". You settle back, prop up your elbows, open the paper with a satisfying snap — this is serious business, this is taking on one's responsibility to be an informed citizen, this is caring about the state of the world. The "G-Size" Guardian looks like a lightweight — I picked up today's edition & couldn't quite believe I was supposed to get solid reliable information from the thing. It's all in my head, I know — I don't have the same qualms about the Express — but I'm fairly sure all over T&T today Guardian readers were picking up their newspapers with steupses and mutterings. "They making joke or what?"