S ome things never change.

And if anyone can tell me what those things are, I’d appreciate it.

I’ve written those words and this sort of column before. I’ve used some of the same phrases and argued with the same logic.

I was reminded of those earlier writings last week when we launched our new weekly entertainment magazine, 7, replacing the old, reliable Weekend tabloid. Issue No. 2 is in today’s newspaper.

The new magazine represents significant change for our readers, and too much change for some.

But if there is a constant in our world, it is change: big changes, such as the election of a president, or an evolving war or the collapse of a once-dominant industry; little changes, such as the demise of a favorite car model or the makeover of your favorite restaurant’s menu.

The pace of change in our society is nearing warp speed, and we can feel the acceleration. All of us react to change in the same ways – unease, frustration, anger and fear.

Then we adapt.

Newspapers are not exempt from change. How could any newspaper argue that it presents an honest day-after-day reflection of life in a community if it’s not keeping up with the changes readers experience?

In recent years, Spokesman-Review readers have had to contend with many changes in their daily newspaper. We’ve updated content, adding some features, dropping others. Doonesbury and Mallard Fillmore moved to the Classifieds. We added columnists and launched a new edition in the Valley. Old friends have retired or accepted jobs elsewhere, taking beloved features with them.

Most of the time, few readers notice our changes. Occasionally, however, we do something unsettling enough to attract your attention.

That’s the case with the debut of 7.

The new weekly magazine grows out of our newspaper’s continuing efforts to serve a mass market audience, particularly younger readers in that audience – readers between the ages of 18 and 34 or so.

Research confirms those are the readers who spend the most money and time on entertainment, and they were the readers least served by the old Weekend.

That’s not to say 7 is aimed only at younger readers. All of the information the mass audience, particularly young families, has come to expect from Weekend can be found in 7. It may not look the same; it may not be on the same page; it may not even be written by the same person. But it’s all there. Longtime readers will be served as before, while we change the section to provide news and information younger readers also can appreciate.

The section will have more room for news and information, will be livelier and maybe a touch sexier. And with a regular political column, a column about local gay and lesbian issues and a relationships advice column that might appeal to Dear Abby’s great-granddaughter, we know the magazine will be more controversial.

But this is The Spokesman-Review, not the Village Voice. Nancy Malone, 7’s 23-year-old editor, is a mild-mannered, conservative Southerner from Louisiana State University. She’ll keep our mass audience in mind.

The debut of 7 prompted a flurry of phone calls and e-mails, roughly split 50-50 for and against the new magazine, as well as a handful of letters to the editor, all against. There were a handful of subscription drops, all from readers who felt the cover illustration of a bare midriff was too racy.

Readers do have an impact. Believe me, a flood of calls and e-mails will make an impression. And the many thoughtful and well-considered suggestions will help us improve the magazine in coming weeks.

Still, in our business, as in most any other, there is sometimes no choice but to change.

Name a business in our community that hasn’t had to revise its business plan, alter its product line, raise its prices or eliminate services — sometimes all of those things — in the past 20 years. For any business, including the newspaper business, it’s change or die.

So we change.

I know many of you wish 7 could be the end of it. But more changes are coming, some of them relatively substantial.

Many readers will react with unease, frustration, fear and anger. A far larger number will accept the changes for what they are or even embrace them.

In the end, we’ll all adapt.

There is pleasure, I think, in discovering later that a change we feared has really introduced us to something we can enjoy and appreciate. I sincerely hope that is what will happen with 7.

It won’t be the same, of course. But what is?