Tabloid, Compact Custom Newspapers

In "Tabloid or compact: who cares?" John Harrison (Online Opinion, 11 March 2013) looks at the change in the size of the printed Fairfax newspapers. As he points out the more significant change is the move to online news. However, the other part of the change is in the production process, with the gradual move to one virtual newsroom producing all the papers for one publisher. With this approach, Fairfax will produce essentially one newspaper, then be customized slightly inserting some local stories for Sydney and Melbourne readers to produce the Herald and Age.

New Tabloid Age Fails Web Tests

In conjunction with its move to a tabloid size print format, The Age newspaper also made changes to its website. Unfortunately, routine tests reveal some problems with the web format of the newspaper:

1. W3C Markup Validation Service: 238 Errors. None of these errors is serious and are easily fixed.
2. W3C mobileOK Checker: Score of 0 out of 100 for mobile friendliness (lowest possible score), with 4 critical, 3 severe, 2 medium and 7 low failures. This will make the site more expensive and harder to use on mobile devices.
3. AChecker Accessibility Review (Guidelines: WCAG 2.0 Level AA): 28 Known Problems. This could make the site harder to use for people with a disability and does not follow the Australian Human Rights Commission's World Wide Web Access: Disability Discrimination Act Advisory Notes.

These are consistent with results of tests run on the new Sydney Morning Herald.