After all these years, white space won the war

If Foster's new website design is any portent of what we can expect from new owners Seacoast Media Group's overhaul of the print edition, all we can say is: Be prepared to be dazzled with less news and more white space.

Foster's Daily Democrat was never the prettiest paper to come off a press, but it wasn't vanilla, which it's becoming more and more after being bought by its new owners.

I'm sure people will be complaining about the website redesign, but not us. Anything that makes the "New Foster's" less relevant and readable is all good, as far as we're concerned.

When Seacoast Media unveiled Foster's new website design earlier this week, it announced that the print edition would be changing its look soon.

You can bet your bottom dollar the "new" Foster's print edition will look eerily similar to the Portsmouth Herald.

It seems like just a matter of time till Foster's will be nothing more than a "bulldog" for a Portsmouth Herald - perhaps with some other moniker - that covers the circulation area of both papers.

The "bulldog" was often the term for a paper's early edition delivered to the outskirts of the main circulation area. Its name derives from its many mistakes that editors discover and correct for the later, more important editions closer to the newspaper's hub, which may someday soon be Portsmouth.

Interestingly, when you click on Foster's "Contact Us" button, the fishwrap at the top of the heap now is the Portsmouth Herald, something that must have all the Fosters since old Joshua - who started the paper back in 1873 - rolling over in their graves.

Below the Portsmouth Herald, indeed!