Chapel Hill News wants our advice

On Remake of your Local Newspaper.

Front Page -- too Busy; Too Distracting

I stopped at Chapel Hill on my way to Georgia; lovely place.
Another time went there to visit a friend of mine who
was a neighbor. We lived NY/NJ areas.
I am therefore not a member of that community -- but I happened to come across your article and this is my spin on the newspaper. I suppose it is for anyone interested??

Second and third page -- very good. I liked them both.
Notice latter two pages; not too busy, does not have
the look of a tabloid type newspaper. Fox Hill is too
refined of a town for that type newspaper.
Bianca Brown - Moon Twp., Pa

I like what the paper has done to the front page. More local flavor, but still newsy (I would not want to get lost in only community interest stuff on the front page, but the current balance is nice). Good color photos with the stories works for me as well. I would like to see more diversity of style and opinion in the op-ed columns; way too predictable.

What has been done so far is refreshing, including lowering the level of "sensationalism" of local issues with better basic coverage of the issues. Also, reaching out to other parts of Orange Co. and Chatham is good.

Fundamentally, as I've said on this site before...if the main paper (Herald) cannot get its readership up, then the local paper in Orange Co./C.H. will suffer. The message? Subscribe to one of the papers which are local (i.e. the Herald or N&O).

The CHNews pages that we are asked to evaluate appear one at a time and I can't compare them without printing them out.
Consumer Reports and others who ask for this sort of opinion show the different versions on the same computer screen page.
When I asked the CHNews if they could do that, they suggested I compare each one with the print version.
The cumbersome-ness of doing that may explain the paucity of response on this thread.

In today's online version of the Herald (Orange County section) there are at least three rapidly blinking advertisements. I've called the CH Herald's office and informed them of the risk they put anyone with seizure disorders at by running these ads (there were two on a single page!). If anyone else is concerned that online advertising should be designed using basic accessibility principles, the Herald's advertising manager's name and contact info is:

Elaine Morgan (919) 419-6704
emorgan@heraldsun.com

I haven't noticed flickering ads in the Chapel Hill Newspaper or News and Observers, but if I've just missed them, I hope they see this and quit running them.

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CORE-TECHS/#flicker
"A flickering or flashing screen may cause seizures in users with photosensitive epilepsy and content developers should thus avoid causing the screen to flicker. Seizures can be triggered by flickering or flashing in the 4 to 59 flashes per second (Hertz) range with a peak sensitivity at 20 flashes per second as well as quick changes from dark to light (like strobe lights)."

Have you noticed how many Chapel Hill-related articles in the N&O appear a few days later in the Chapel Hill News? It almost seems the only news articles not cribbed from the N&O are cribbed from this website.

Harsh, I know...

Ed,

Could that be because the CHN is only published on Wednesday and Sunday and is owned by the N&O?

Remember the old saw: you get what you pay for!

I've been told that the blinking popups Terry complained of have been removed from our site's rotation, and that we "will endeavor to keep that type off the site in the future."

The editorial side of the operation received word of these decisions at 5:16 p.m., a bit less than three hours after Terry posted her complaint.

Thank you Ray! I called around 10:00 am this morning. Please share my appreciation with your advertising manager and anyone else who was involved in making this happen so quickly.

kudos to Terry. I've gotten massive headaches from things like the blinking white strobe type lights on top of TV transmittingtowers, video games that have strobe like effects, etc,

That's the connection, Fred, of course. In that sense, it's not really cribbing. It just seems like there is a lot more of it lately.

Now if they could only get rid of the brain-deadening, sophomoric cartoons & editorials that are the majority of the Herald-Sun's editorial page content, that wouild reduce my risk of seizures...

The flashing ads are still there this morning.

They're gone now.

Yep, they are back. So far I've seen, Free Gas for a Year and Do You Believe Michael Jackson. I hope others will consider contacting the advertising manager:

Elaine Morgan (919) 419-6704
emorgan@heraldsun.com

This is a serious misuse of web technology and could have devastating impact on individual health.

More rapidly flickering ads on the Herald-Sun: Whose Icy Grill Is this? (win a free Play Station). This one puts me at risk of puking as well as having a seizure.

I don't get why they can't just enforce the policy.

Terri-

Get Firefox, and then download/install the

Adblock extension.

Re-start your browser. Go to heraldsun.com. Right click on any ad and you should see "Adblock Image" in the pop-up menu.

Insert http://ads.heraldsun.com/* as the address to be blocked and you shouldn't see them again.

I've also noticed a big increase in popups the last week or two at the H-S, sometimes I'll get 7 or 8 after clicking through a few stories.