Ever been frustrated trying to locate the local news stories on the Examiner web site? OK, maybe that’s just us, since it’s our job to read them. But if you had ever tried it, you would have discovered that you have to first go to the “News” section, and then make sure to select “Local News” in the drop down menu, as opposed to the tauntingly named “District of Columbia” section, which contained national politics stories. So we were sure glad to get the word from the Examiner newsroom this morning that they’ve launched a brand new site, dcexaminer.com, which puts the local Examiner news stories right on the home page. The top menu bar has been simplified and made larger, and so far we’ve found the whole thing considerably easier to navigate.

The design isn’t much to get excited about — presumably they’ll fill that empty gray and white space with ads at some point soon, and the red headlines look a little funny. It also might have been nice if Philip Anschutz had allowed the other Examiner web sites to look at least slightly different from their sister papers. Still, they’ve removed a ton of clutter (like those silly Google Maps that pointed out where exactly Washington, DC is on a map of the United States) and made an attempt to make the D.C. version of the Examiner look like it’s focused on D.C.