I've been muttering under my breath about the design of the ChiTownDailyNews for some time now. Over the weekend I discovered there would be a significant redesign of the site. Reporters Notebooks, really blogs, would take a more central stage in the redesign. That's about all I learned.

Now, finally at 7:30 AM on Monday, I've gotten my first peak.

Finally, some photojournalism dominating the first page. Nice big pictures connected to a story that is appearing inside. The evergreen pictures of dogs, bicycles and sailboats, mostly taken from Flickr, is relegated to the bottom. Hurray! I for one can find evergreen pictures myself. I don't need the Daily News to see beauty in the city.

And, the design is highlighting a story. One story. Today it is about Kennedy-King College. One of the issues with the previous design and the current design too, is that there isn't a sense of cross platform stories. A story could fit into both a neighborhood and a housing story and maybe even an environmental story, right? But, under our model, we pigeon hole a story, often based on the writer. I think broader categories?

Speaking inside baseball here, the new web idea is to flatten hierarchy. By allowing the reader to interact more with the publication, we increase our utility to the reader. The design is allowing that through the use of the Reporters Notebook. From there you can get a better understanding of the forces behind the coverage. And you can comment back.

Saturday Alex Parker wrote a personal entry in his notebook on the death of a friend in a porch collapse. Looking at the entry on the front page, Alex's entry about the death of his friend appears to be a news story about how the city is dealing with porch maintenance. It isn't. It is a personal look at a tragedy. It is worth a look.

The redesign gives me hope about all the blogs. For a long time blogs, there were only about four that were active, were relegated to a ghetto, the blog farm. This morning, I have no idea what the URL for this blog will be. The new look has locked out the blogs at this hour. Parker's piece is evidence they should be given a more prominent place in the Daily News. Maybe Reporters Notebook will free Daily News Blogs from being relegated to a blog ghetto.

Or, maybe in the next design.

Just thinking a bit more, the Daily News resembles a tabloid more than a broad sheet.

Over at the ChicagoTribune.com this morning, as I open it, there are three stories that seem related: a nine year old shot; a pizza delivery man shot; and the death of a foreign student. The lead-in picture pulls you into a story about a private rail car on Metra with other stories on the Indiana Toll Road reopening lanes and the CTA ending the use of cattle cars.

The Tribune allows for a more holistic view of society. Anyway, I prefer it to the screaming tabloid headlines. (But who can resist reading those tabloids? Yowza!) Give me something friendly and easy to read. I don't want to search through multiple hyper links. Making me use multiple hyper links is like making me turn the page.

And, give me great graphics that pull me into the story. And, let's do something about the speed of the server or the software. As a reader and as a writer, I'm hanging here, a lot.

The Daily News is making a move here, but there is still a way to go.