The Washington Post introduced a new format for the Outlook section yesterday, marking one more change in what has been a series of reforms and re-formats for the newspaper in a time of declining readership and revenue. Though the Outlook section looks and feels roughly the same, it dramatically did away with the unsigned editorials and signed op-eds (they’ve moved to the back pages of the A section, where they appear every other day of the week), pushed the last-page “Close to Home” local issue op-eds to the Metro section (across from the “Obituaries,” no less) and awkwardly merged in shortened book reviews from the now defunct Book World section. The City Paper’s Erik Wemple has an internal memo detailing the new Outlook format.

While the many hundreds of thousands of Sunday Post readers may have varying opinions on the change, I feel like the newspaper has broken up what was in the past a section with a logical flow to it. Outlook was always a place for exploring new ideas and controversial opinions, so why move the paper’s editorials and op-eds to the main section? And though “Close to Home” may have been as provincial a page as you could get, the Post is still a local paper that deals with local issues. Pushing opinions about things going on directly around us to the end of the Metro section seems to imply that the local just isn’t up to snuff for the more widely read Outlook pages. As for the book reviews, well, it’s something of a strange blend, though that’s not to say that it can’t work.

Also of note from Sunday’s A section: new ombudsman Andrew Alexander, formerly Cox Newspaper’s Washington bureau chief, introduced himself to readers. Alexander replaces the sometimes controversial Deborah Howell.

Did you notice the Outlook changes? Did you care? Thumbs up or thumbs down? Leave some thoughts in the comments.