Readership Institute: Excellence in Small Newspapers: Galleries: Daily Camera

Daily Camera (Boulder, CO)

Images 1, 2: Among the strengths of the newspaper is the mix of stories, topics and writing approaches on the section fronts. On this day, the front page carried four main stories: faculty and staff cuts, along with tuition increases at the local University of Colorado campus; fans-eye views of the retirement of Colorado Avalanche goalie Patrick Roy (a story the newspaper broke the previous day); a news service health piece on the link between hormone replacement therapy and dementia in older women; and a story about a local radio station inundated with calls because it has the same telephone numbers God used to page Jim Carrey's character in the film Bruce Almighty.

A Sunday front page featured five stories: the discovery of remains of a missing child; growing questions about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein before the American invasion; how people and the land have recovered almost a year after nine days of wild fires; a health story about the rapid increase in diabetes; and a story about better parenting for young fathers. In both front-page cases, the newspaper used narrative or a feature-style approach to telling a story, as well as straight-up news reporting. Note the same-day and upcoming content promotions on both front pages.

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Image 3: In addition to sky boxes and other promos to content in the paper, there are frequent refers in all sections to additional related stories, expanded listings and other information on the newspaper's Web site. In this example, the front of the Nation & World section carries a left-hand rail of briefs, including refers to stories that only appear in www.dailycamera.com.

Images 4, 5: The back of the sports section, dubbed "Get Out!", is about things for the slightly active to the very active to do outdoors. A Heads Up! Box stripped across bottom left lists things to do for the next couple of days. The weather forecast occupies the rest of the page - helpful for those planning on getting out and about.

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Image 6: On Sunday, the back of the Living & Arts section, called "Memories", is devoted to wedding and engagement announcements with color photos; births and a feature called "Good News" which notes accomplishments of local people.

Image 7: 2A, called Snapshots, is devoted to people and places in the news. Editors select entertainment, offbeat and people-focused stories and briefs. Note the forward promotion, lower right, in Monday's paper for content the following Friday and Sunday.