The Chronicle was quick to trumpet its new glossy paper stock, which has indeed garnered significant attention. It makes the Chronicle the country's first newspaper to use glossy print as part of its daily run.

Then again, reported Editor & Publisher yesterday, it might not be so glossy, after all.

Turns out the Chron's new look won't be on magazine-grade paper, but on groundwood-grade paper that, while smoother than standard newsprint pages, is "only somewhat glossier." It's the stuff, says E&P, of some Sunday supplements and mass-market (read: not high-end) catalogs.

At least the heatset process the printer will use on the pages should make them glossier than they would otherwise be.

This is all glossing over the bigger picture, however: Why do this at all?

E&P points out that the Chronicle has an iconoclastic history of oddball printing practices, most notably its use of green paper for the sports pages (hence its label, the "Sporting Green.") Of course, newsprint costs for special paper virtually did away with that practice many years ago, until it was recently resurrected, not with green paper but with green ink.

The better guess would be that the move is related to advertising. When the New York Times announced its Bay Area edition, it was angling to draw some of the higher-end advertisers of products for the affluent, who had abandoned (or never signed on with) the Chronicle. This is at least partially behind the Wall Street Journal's recent grab for local territory, as well.

Providing full color on at least somewhat glossy paper should help the Chron get some of that market back. (Indeed, the Associated Press confirmed that the newspaper had already lined up at least "some" advertising commitments, though the Chron failed to say from whom.)

Which, if new revenue outstrips new costs, all makes at least a modicum of sense.