TO OUR READERS

Just a few weeks ago The Times received an honor that had special meaning for the reporters, editors and photographers of the paper’s Ventura County Edition.

In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting this year, the paper was selected as a finalist in five other Pulitzer categories. And one of those was for spot news coverage of last year’s Alaska Airlines crash off the Ventura County coast.

Although dozens of Times staffers from many departments helped cover the tragic crash of Flight 261, the Ventura County Edition staff had the responsibility of leading the way on actual crash scene coverage.

It was a difficult story to cover. Night was close and the seas were rough. Within minutes of the crash, we were busily trying to round up boats and helicopters to get to the scene, still thinking there could be survivors.

On that first day of coverage, we ended up with reporter-photographer teams on three rented squid boats and two helicopters. Virtually everybody worked around the clock that night and throughout the days and nights that followed.

I mention this now because this is a period of considerable change at The Times, including many upcoming changes in format and content for the Ventura County Edition. But there are a lot of things that aren’t going to be changing, and one of those is our commitment to giving you the strongest, most thorough coverage of the stories that matter most in this county.

We launched the Ventura County Edition in 1990, and over the years we have tweaked and tinkered with local coverage approaches much like every other paper in the country. The aim has always been to give you our very best.

For months now, we have been working on a significant overhaul of the paper that has been met with extremely favorable response from the reader groups that have seen it. What you are seeing today is a paper that is better organized and one that places a higher priority on the kind of significant news stories we think you like best.

Part of this change involves the B Section, where you will still find most Ventura County news. But we are now focusing more than ever on the most important stories in the county--last year’s county government crisis is an example--and less on what we call the block-to-block coverage that we simply can’t do.

We also have added state news to the B Section. That allows us to give you two more pages daily of world and national news in the A Section--something you aren’t likely to see other papers doing during a period of economic uncertainty. And it gives a B Section that provides a full range of Ventura County, Southern California and statewide news.

The new California Section is definitely a new look. In addition to the added regional and state news coverage, we now have columns by Peter H. King and Steve Lopez.

As we added state news and a stronger regional report to this section, however, we needed to eliminate some features. Last Sunday was the last day, for example, of our separate Ventura County editorial and opinion pages. But we will continue to speak out on the most important Ventura County issues on our main editorial pages. And we will continue to publish your letters to the editor about county issues every week in our Sunday B Section, just as they appear today.

By the same token, we have eliminated our Out and About entertainment features this week. But, again, our Calendar section will continue to cover the most important arts and entertainment events here.

The readers who previewed the upcoming changes in recent months told us they like the new look. You are now receiving a newspaper with more news and less trivia, but with continuing strong emphasis on giving you the very best coverage of Ventura County’s most important stories.

That may range from another crisis in county government to the next disaster that comes our way. Our goal, as always, will be to provide you with the highest quality journalism possible.

Bill Overend is editor of the Ventura County Edition of The Times.