Today is the first Sunday following Coptic Christmas, and Watani meets its readers in a new, fresh look intended to herald in a few changes this new year. We preferred to introduce these changes after Christmas which dictates a special character to the paper, both in terms of editorial content and advertisements. We fully realise that modernising the paper is prerequisite to maintain reader attention and combat monotony, no matter how much our readers may be happy with the paper as it is.
As always, Watani has been eager to introduce novelty in form and content, including new page design and new departments, while taking care not to throw our readers into disarray. We hope the changes will carry our readers towards wider horizons.
Chief among the changes is the front page design. The editorial has moved to the lower half of the page, leaving the upper portion to news coverage and analyses. In general, the space allotted for news has been expanded to keep up with the current acceleration in events on the domestic, regional and international fronts.
Page two, which hosts articles of a religious character, is also getting a face lift which allows better versatility. And with vitality and diversity in mind, most other pages have also undergone changes that would allow for better use of space and images.
The most significant innovation, however, is the new department Surfing Wataninet, which aims at forging strong links between our online paper and the readers of the print version of the weekly Watani. It offers a glimpse of the most significant material which, due to constraints in time and space, Watani can only offer online. Given that electronic journalism is growing in significance by the day, and that it has become the preferred venue for young people the world over to read and interact, the link between the print weekly paper and the round-the-clock-update online version is a must.
It is today a non-disputable fact that print journalism is worldwide losing ground to online journalism. Older generations, to which I belong, staunchly defend print journalism and offer tenable arguments—mostly emotional—to justify their passion for paper and print. Younger generations, for their part, prefer the liberating experience of browsing online for instant updates and views, not only through texts but rather through all forms of audio and visual media, where wide horizons of knowledge and interaction hail.
Online journalism has instated itself as the venue for the future. Whether or not we like it, we may one day have to bid farewell to print journalism. For the moment though, both print and online journalism share a strong link, one that we at Watani are eager to familiarise our readers with. Hence our new Surfing Wataninet.
Finally, dear readers, I hope our new look is a resounding success. Naturally, some will welcome the changes while others will feel nostalgic for the previous form. But I believe that Watani should never stop upgrading, introducing changes and renewing its blood in order to maintain a healthy vitality and enhance its ability to serve its mission.