When the change happened at the start of August 2026, we knew it would come as a surprise to readers. Our owner and editor John McLoone even put the explanation on the very top of the front page stating “Honey, they shrunk the Hastings Journal.” We have heard from a few more readers about the Hastings Journal’s new size, so we wanted to revisit the change and clear up a couple of misconceptions because Honey, we didn’t shrink the Hastings Journal that much.
First, we did not make the type smaller.
The first misconception we need to clear up is the body font in the Hastings Journal is the same size we were using before the switch. It is still Times New Roman 10.5 point font. The paper itself is smaller in your hands, and that can create the impression or optical illusion that everything on the page has shrunk with it, but the font size has not changed.
Second, the change was not made to save money.
In fact, our new format costs us more to print than the previous one. The change became necessary after our previous printing partner closed July 31. Our new printer strongly encouraged us to move from the traditional broadsheet format to the tabloid format used by many of the publications it prints.
Yes, each individual page is smaller. But there are a lot more of them. Here are the numbers.
Our old broadsheet pages were 21 inches tall by 11 inches wide, or 231 square inches per page.
Our new tabloid pages are 16 inches tall by 10.5 inches wide, or 168 square inches per page.
That means each new page is 63 square inches smaller than an old page.
To put that into perspective, a typical summer edition of the old Hastings Journal was around 12 pages. Twelve broadsheet pages provided 2,772 square inches of total page area. A 20-page edition in our new format provides 3,360 square inches. That is 588 additional square inches, about 21 percent more total page area than a 12-page edition of the old paper.
Put another way, a 20-page Hastings Journal today contains about as much total page area as 14.5 pages of the old broadsheet.
Even when the new-format paper is only 16 pages, the difference is surprisingly small. Sixteen tabloid pages provide 2,688 square inches of total page area, compared with 2,772 square inches in a 12-page broadsheet. That is a difference of just 84 square inches, or about 3 percent. That is about the same as cutting off the bottom of the front page where the banner ad and address space were, once.
In other words, even a 16-page edition in the new format contains almost as much total page area as a typical 12-page edition of the old Hastings Journal, minus that front banner ad and mailing label.
When we publish 24 pages in the new format, that is 4,032 square inches, roughly the equivalent of 17.5 pages in the old format.
So yes, the Hastings Journal is physically smaller when you hold it. The positive feedback has been it is easier to handle, easier to fold and easier to read at the kitchen table or in your lounge chair. But smaller pages do not mean less newspaper. We have not reduced the font size. We have not made the change as a cost-cutting measure. In a normal 20-page edition, readers are actually getting significantly more total page area than they did in a typical 12-page broadsheet. Even at 16 pages, the total amount of page space is nearly identical.
We know changes to something that arrives in your mailbox every week can take some getting used to. We also appreciate that people care enough about their local newspaper to notice, ask questions and tell us what they think.
Keep the feedback coming. We are listening, and we are continuing to make adjustments as we settle into the new format.