Revamped Duluth paper debuts: Yesterday, the Forum Communications-owned Duluth News Tribune launched its redesigned paper, with a narrower page, bigger headlines and “bolder” page designs. About an inch narrower, the slimmer page is a cost-cutting measure other papers like the Pioneer Press and Star Tribune have already implemented. “We’re trying to sell newspapers,” wrote executive editor Rob Karwath. “As for the headlines, it’s this simple: We want people to notice the paper. The News Tribune you see now is more visible from a distance, whether you’re looking at it in an honor box or in a grocery store stand.” The paper’s website recently went through some tweaks too, most noticeably a black background that’s unlike the standard long held by Forum’s sites.

Vote on top media figures: “I Want Media” is soliciting votes for Media Person of the Year. While Arianna Huffington (who just secured $25 million in capital to fund investigative journalism and found local sites) and “The Laid-Off Journalist” are in the running, my money is on the “Twitter trio,” the founders of the microblogging tool used in disasters — and hotly debated for it — like the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

“Accidentally Awesome” Strib Black Friday front page: Fresh.mn reblogs the Dec. 28 Star Tribune cover which, thanks to a Mall of America half-page wrap ad, equates the mall with “terror.” And via Defenestrator, Gizmodo’s Black Friday ad photoshop contest results. Also, here’s a telling news photo from the Long Island, New York, Wal-Mart where a worker was trampled to death by bargain-hunters last Friday: a sign on the store’s exterior wall that reads, “Blitz line starts here.”

Laugh du jour: JihadWatch founder Robert Spencer, interviewed at David Horowitz’s rightwing FrontPage magazine, calls Strib columnist Katherine Kersten an “investigative journalist.”

Behold: Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere report is out. (Let me know if it says anything interesting.)