Well, I'm back. The rest of the staff will trickle into the office as the weekend progresses.

Truth is, I've been here a few days now, and I could not be more excited for the rest of the borough's population to return. This place can be a real ghost town without the students.

The quiet does have one benefit: I've been able to work on my resolutions for 2009. Sure, making resolutions a week late might not be a good start, but better this than "I'll get that gym membership tomorrow / this weekend / when I have free time."

One of those resolutions, I mentioned before, is to update this blog more frequently way more frequently than in 2008. Keep an eye out for updates regarding our coverage, the state of newspapers nationally (hint: not good), and interesting reads.

We're not printing yet, but the new semester officially begins for the Collegian tomorrow afternoon with training for new editors. Check back tomorrow for a post about what it takes to become a Collegian editor.

Tonight: Flyers host Minnesota. Oh, and something about a football game too.

The terms hammer, gutter, jump and wrap probably aren't anything all that special in your vocabulary. But for the nine staff members currently in the Collegian classroom, those words are getting totally new definitions.

It's part of our Design and Editing Workshop we put together every semester for new and returning editors at The Collegian. The rookies, who have so selflessly returned to State College early, are learning the basics today. They'll meet with the veterans tomorrow.

They're learning that a hammer refers to a giant, two- or three-word headline, a gutter is a space between stories that run the whole length of a page, a jump is where the rest of a front-page story ends up, and a wrap is used to fit a photo within an article.

Do they know it already? Perhaps. The least experienced among them have been here for at least a year. But part of The Collegian's mission is to make sure that our staff members get a quality education about working for a newspaper. And, at least at this paper, that means learning to be versatile.

By Sunday morning, these students will have a working knowledge about copy editing, page design, management and (best of all) stress management. By Sunday afternoon, they'll be putting their new skills to work.

This is the next generation of leaders at The Collegian. Next year, they'll be the veterans showing the rookies the ropes. Some of them will be looking for jobs.

Until then, though, it's on-the-job training.

The Chicago Tribune -- one of the newest models of struggle in the newspaper industry -- recently announced it is producing a tabloid version of the paper Monday-Friday.

The drastic change is needed, the paper said, to stay afloat financially and to continue to compete with the Chicago Sun-Times, another tabloid. Subscribers will still receive the broadsheet paper, but newsstands will begin to carry the new tabloid edition.

What... what?

That's right. The Tribune is going to produce two different versions of its paper. They will have the same content, but the size and look will be different.

This sounds a little familiar...

In 2005, the Patriot-News tried a similar move. Needless to say, it didn't last.

As the editor of a broadsheet-style newspaper, I should condemn the move, but Chicago has a lot of something that State College does not: commuters. Before coming to State College, I took a lot of public transit, and there's something to what Tribune editors are saying. Commuters love tabloids, especially during the morning rush. Try opening up the Philadelphia Inquirer (broadsheet) on a busy subway line, and see how many friends you can make before getting to your stop (Hint: 0).

Nevertheless, the move is questionable when it comes to the Tribune's financial status. I asked some of my editors how they would feel about putting together two papers at 2 a.m., and the responses were not positive suitable for publication here. I'm not sure if the Tribune is planning on hiring more copy editors for the move, but "they will if they want to avoid a riot," according to one editor.

In short, we at the Collegian hope to see the Tribune pull through this tough financial time. It's a tough time for major newspapers, and we want to see them all succeed jobs.