Looking back at the front page I designed, there are a number of mistakes that immediately jump out. The first thing I noticed was that the masthead is a rather dull. It's good that I tried to put some teasers up there, but some of the letters disappear into the images. The masthead could have been bigger and I would have liked to see some color on the top of the page. I noticed after looking through the rest of the classes' front pages that a lot of people used the left side of the page for refers to articles on the inside. Although a generally like the layout of the page, some refers would have been practical and given the paper a more modern look.
Also, the left side of the page looks a little gray. I could main story about bicycling could have used a pull quote and that would have helped solve the problem. I was rather disappointed by the fonts I chose. I would have rather used something a little more bold, or just larger. I think the masthead and headline fonts could be the main reason that the page looks bland.



Editors can't give all negative feedback. So, I would like to give myself some credit. The centered image is well-placed and serves as a good focal point. It's easy to tell that the picture is part of the story directly below it. The grouping of the two stories related to mental health was fairly well done, despite the headline “Stories raise awareness” seems irrelevant to the story. As I mentioned earlier, I do like the overall layout of the page. I was able to fit five stories without it looking too cluttered. Maybe one more picture and a couple pull quotes so that the page doesn't look so gray, and the page would be really well balanced.



It's clear from my inside page that my skills with InDesign improved over the last couple of labs. The page looks significantly better visually than my front page (though this could be a result of the editors choosing the fonts). Structurally it is somewhat boring, with one story sitting on top of the other. But, I like that the top story uses four wide columns while the second uses only three narrow columns. That design kept a page with only two articles perceptually more interesting. The pull quote I used does a fair job of summarizing the article in one phrase, and it keeps the page from looking gray like the front page. I initially had the image of Mark Fox on the left side and remembered it makes more sense to have him looking towards the article. The ad I placed on the bottom of the page is sort of large and tacky, but I filled the ad space with what I could find. Besides, that is a different department anyway. Overall I was more impressed with the inside page even though it only had two stories. I think it is pretty evident that I became more and more familiar with the software as time went on and if I had to make another page, it would look considerably better.

A Very Grady Finale

In formulating my front page, I considered several elements before attempting to create an original work. My first step was to consult the Newseum Web site to look at all of the possible options for my front page’s style. I also picked up several issues of the Red and Black and carefully considered their editorial decision making in lieu of taking the design for granted and flipping to the crossword.
I opted for a clean, crisp font for the masthead and let the creative title of our publication speak for itself. Drawing upon our lectures concerning the importance of pictures, I chose stories that had a strong, eye-catching pictures accompanying them so that I could attract the attention of my readers. As Professor Parks discussed in lecture, “design can draw readers in.” A captivating story may not grab reader interest if there is not an alluring picture to go along with it. Therefore, I chose two pictures that fit the bill for what Joe called the “cute” factor in his lecture. My main photo is of an adorable little girl, looking up as if to engage the reader. Another one of my photographs is of a dog. Following Amber’s advice in lab, I switched the placement of my photo and story concerning pet adoption so that the dog was facing inward. As we learned in lecture, it is preferable that all of the elements face inward to draw reader attention to the page itself.
The content of my stories constitutes a completely local angle, which is necessary for a small publication. It goes without saying that a smaller paper cannot outdo a large paper for covering national stories, so covering what interests Athens residents is the best way to go. With this in mind, I selected stories that covered a varied range of topics, from the economy to arts and culture. I also included the article about Zingo because it was of interest to my primary audience, the students in my class.

Through a million techical difficulties

I'm the type of person who hates hearing excuses but once I began my front page for our class, I was the biggest flake of all.

To be perfectly honest, these were real technical difficulties and Amber, thank you so much for being patient with me.

After our class editors presented each of their lab's front pages, I was a little bit annoyed that most of us in the Wednesday lab were uninformed about the creative leeway we were supposedly given. So, I re-vamped my front page to look a little less newspaper-y.

The masthead was left simple because I didn't want to overcrowd it and after trying to convince myself that I was an artsy person, I failed miserably. Thus, I used the Trajan font because it looked very authoritative and I put the date in red because I hear that is our school color.

I really liked how Brockton's paper had their dominant element in the center of the paper. It wasn't exactly a U-format but I liked the idea of the main stories being in the center of the front page with little to no text. Due to the limited resources I had to compose this paper, the only story that I had access to, with photos was Matt's piece on Cine. So as I'd like to say that the right column story was intentional, I won't lie, it's all I had.

In the end, I think it worked out great and I also wanted to create a table of contents column on the left hand side to make the front page seem even less newspaper-y. I also wanted to copy the layout of Bozeman Daily Chronicle's because it was easy on the eyes. To modify it, I wanted to make it much more visually appealing and less gray (less text) and that's why I decided to overload it with pictures.




My favorite front page that I pulled from was the one pictured on the left. I liked the whole trashy read feel and as a reader, I don't feel overwhelmed by this page. The colors are also enticing as well.

Blog post in chief: Front page design

There it is: my front page. It also happens to be the page the class chose as the front page for our paper. I appreciated the design being chosen, although there are a few things I would change if I had the chance. Still, I guess I'm supposed to talk about how I designed it. So okay.

My background in design is exclusively in newspapers. I was the editor in chief for my high school newspaper, so I did a lot of page layout there. For that reason, when I conceptualized the front page, the style I came up with was very newsy - modular, designed with clean, segmented blocks and lines, and focused on the stories themselves. I also wanted to include a refer sidebar, an index, teasers above the masthead, and a weather/sports section.

Claire and I decided what stories we would run, as well as where they would go. The budget story - as it affects so many students - would be the lead news story. The streaking story - an interesting, fun feature - would be the dominant element.

In order to lay out the stories, I looked over Newseum's front page gallery, specifically the AJC (before their weird new redesign) and the Virginian-Pilot (what up, Perry?). My masthead was designed through experimentation; I wanted something classical but striking, so I looked for a font I liked and then layed the words out in what I thought was an interesting way.

I think my teasers turned out really well. I don't have a lot to say about them other than that it was the result of me playing with visual ideas that I've always liked, and I think I pulled off what I was going for.

If I could change anything about my design (other than the unfinished refers and the fact that this image doesn't include jump-lines on most of the stories), I would do something to make the middle of the page less gray. Because the art on the streaking story is all black-and-white, the whole middle section of the page is a little bland and samey. I would either do something interesting with the art or include a pull-quote or something like that. I also wish there were more air between the stories, headlines, etc., because I think the page is a little on the cramped and busy side.

The Grady Requirement, blog edition

When sitting down to start designing my front page, the first thing I tried to do was outline how I wanted the page to look. With the help of browsing some front pages from Newseum, I decided where I thought graphics and stories should go. Then I looked at the Red and Black and the Athens Banner Herald front pages to get more of an idea what local newspapers feature.

The first thing I did on InDesign was design my masthead. I wanted it to look professional, so I took a more traditional approach. Looking back and seeing everyone else’s mastheads, I wish I had been a little more creative. One thing Dr. Parks pointed out in lecture is that we were afraid of “big.” I think that was my problem with my masthead; I was afraid to make it too overbearing and settled for a weaker one. I added the unique lines around it so it would give it some kind of memorable trademark.

Next I sorted through the budget line to see which articles I thought would be best for the front page. I considered what content would get the most attention, graphics, and what I thought really represented the whole paper. I wanted the streaking story to be my biggest feature on the front page, but one of my main concerns was that the graphics were in black-and-white. That is why I ended up adding the blue color to my masthead and it ended up becoming a color scheme throughout the page. This issue also led me to choose the Eco-reach story because it had a really nice, bright photo.

Overall, I like my front page. Looking back, I would have liked to eliminate some of the text and make photos larger, but it is easy to read and I think I chose good stories for the front page. Through working on this project, I became much more comfortable with InDesign. Additionally, it was a good experience because I am less intimidated now to design a front page or any newspaper pages because I have done it before.

Design: fun but cumbersome

My experience using InDesign over the course of our labs was rewarding to me. I've been writing for The Red & Black since I was a freshman, but I had never seen how the paper was designed, let alone tried my own hand at it. I found newspaper page design to be a lot like a puzzle: it's unquestionably fun and rewarding once you get the ball rolling and get a firm grasp on how InDesign works, but it was tedious and frustrating at first. We were also given minimal instructions on exactly how to work the program to make our design look professional, so I pretty much had to learn on the fly.

In the end, I was pleased with how my design turned out. Although most people weren't in favor of the "Christmas" colors in the logo, green is my favorite color (also a color I rarely see in newspaper design), and I had chosen the green typeset prior to adding in the image of the red-bordered Grady logo.

As far as laying out the actual front page, the only actual goal I kept in mind was that, out of the four articles I needed to include on the front page, I wanted to vary the setup of each. I browsed around the front page gallery on Newseum and discovered a variety of interesting layout design choices. I eventually chose to model mine after a smaller-scale newspaper based in California (the name of which escapes me at the moment), running a vertical one-column article down one side, then stacking the remaining three in an unobtrusive, smooth fashion. I thought the large center photo of the biking students, coupled with a smaller photo near the bottom, helped the overall aesthetic design of the page.

Using rules and photo borders was a small tweak, but it did wonders: these simple lines transformed my page from clutter into a professional(ish) and coherent end result. The headlines and cutlines were surprisingly easy to write. One thing that has always bothered me with The Red & Black, for example, is that sometimes the headlines don't even appear to reflect the actual content of the story -- I often question if the people writing the headlines at the paper even bother reading the stories at all. As such, I made sure I carefully read each article and understood the central point of what it was trying to say before writing any of the headlines or cutlines.

A few things I wish I had been able to incorporate are some of the less obvious journalistic design elements: teasers in the masthead, a reefer of one of the stories, and a table of contents of sorts to scroll along the bottom.

I thought my inside page wound up looking fairly atrocious. Perhaps this was because I had more time to spend on my front page, but I found the inside page to be more difficult to put together. Compared to my front page, where I found myself carefully allocating what little space I had, my inside page suffered from the dilemma of too much white space. For me, this was mainly due to only pulling from two articles. There was far more space than the articles demanded, even when including pictures, and forced me to think of what else to fill the space with (ads, pull quotes, etc.). However, in the interest of finishing on time, I wound up going with an entirely horizontal, text-heavy (and frankly quite unremarkable) layout.

Long Live The Grady Requirement!

When brainstorming what I wanted my group's front page to look like, three words came to my mind: newsy, clean and navigable.

Inspired by the AJC’s front page, I set out to pack mine with as much information as possible, which led to the refers above the masthead as well as down the left column. When I look at a front page, I want to be able to skim the important stories and know where to look if I want more information. Newspapers are, after all, papers full of news.

After I gave my page the proper amount of newsiness (yes, I invented that word for this blog), I then set out to make it as clean as possible. So many newspapers, magazines and Websites are too cluttered. When the average reader only spends 20 or so minutes on a newspaper, you want them to spend less of that time deciphering and more of it actually reading. To ensure my front page was clean, I inserted lines to visually separate the main stories, as well as separate the masthead from the rest of the paper.

Lastly, along the same lines as making a clean page, I wanted to also make a navigable page. One online news source that I think does an excellent job of making its site navigable is the Daily Beast. Their use of color and consistency of bold fonts allow the reader’s eye to flow from one story to the next. I tried to similarly make my page navigable by using bold fonts.

As far as news judgment goes, my newsy newspaper had to (of course) cover the university’s budget crisis in its top story. Then, like the Red & Black often does, I thought it would be appropriate to engage my student reader with a feature story about the anniversary of the on-campus streaking incident.

Overall, I really enjoyed putting this front page together. I learned a lot about designing for the reader as well as choosing content for a specific audience.

Design is a humbling experience

My front page for the Grady Requirement is not as well-developed as I would have liked it to be, but I learned a great amount about page design along the way. Since I'm terribly slow at working with InDesign, my goal was to finish the page in the allotted time -- which I barely did.

I will start with a few things I disliked about my page:
The masthead is simple and clean, but fails to stand out as much as some of my classmates' (who, by the way, possess some sort of magical page designing powers). A colorful background would liven up my masthead, in my opinion. Also, I didn't have the time to outline or draw boxes around any of the stories or graphics. This makes the page appear to have too much white space and not enough structure. The Red & Black uses small, dotted lines that are good for boxing stories and graphics. I also caught a bad break with the word "willing" in my pull-quote. My "Athens Today" refer was a bit rushed. I wish I could have made it more visually appealing.



On the other hand, I was happy with how the Tate 2 package turned out. I followed the typical "L" shaped modular layout outlined in Tim Harrower's book, and it fit nicely as a leading story. As a magazines major, I've always been a huge fan of pull-quotes, so I think the quote "boiled down the essence" of how students feel about the environmental features of the Tate expansion project. Also, as you can see, I incorporated a green background to show off my stellar InDesign skills. Overall, I think the module placements are OK, but need to stand out more. The teaser on the masthead works for me, yet I agree with previous blog posts that warned to not overuse teasers. I tried to not overwhelm the front page with too many visuals like this.

My method for choosing stories to appear on the front is similar to many of my classmates. Stories with art and a local perspective worked the best. I chose the Tate article because it's a $58 million project that students pay for and will use in the future. Instead of taking a PR approach, Jason did a nice job of focusing on the eco-friendly aspects, which many students are concerned about. With graduation around the corner, Claire's piece worked great as a centerpiece. Though it reflects an event that occurred Feb. 11, the article addresses students' anxieties in an unpromising job market. Renee's wildlife package caught my attention because not only was the photography excellent, the story highlighted a little-known volunteer group that many students may not know about.

I enjoyed this project, but know I have a lot more to learn about print design before I would ever seriously pursue it in my career.

Front Page Design

When choosing stories for my front page, I strictly went off of whatever stories had images to go with them. I knew I wanted at least 3 images to balance out the gray of writing, and then had to think about a variety of images. No matter how good or bad the stories are, the first thing anyone holding the paper is going to look at are the images, so I felt that it was important to have catchy ones.

I also knew I wanted to try to have some cutouts at the top, so I thought I could do it for the biking story, but I ran out of time. I still managed to get one on there, but I would have liked at least one more.

I didn't really have one paper that I used for inspiration. I feel that I have a pretty good idea of what makes a balanced image, so I browsed through the front pages on the Newseum site, and found that I was drawn to front pages that have large images and bold headlines. However, there were several that had so much information on them that they were messy and overwhelming. I have consistently liked Oakland's front page. They have a tendency to use REALLY large images and very little text. I guess I'm a photo junkie.

I have to say that I had much more fun designing the front page than the inside page. I liked knowing that I could cut stories off whenever I wanted to make them fit the spot I had created. I had no idea how tough it was going to be to edit down someone else's story to make it fit. I felt like a jerk cutting into stories and taking parts out. Needless to say, my inside page was NOT very exciting, because I took out as little as I could from the three long stories I was required to squeeze in.

...and I'm having severe issues uploading my image.

The Blog Requirement

Before we get into my blog post, let me tell you a story. Somehow my final page design was not saved anywhere as a completed design, so below is a scanned copy of the print-out I turned in. I've also included a small section of the impartial design, so you can get a feel for the color.

• • •

For my general design layout, I looked at the Newseum Web site, specifically at the Times Daily from Florence, AL. I'm sure you'll notice the similarities.

I, like some others, spent a good deal of time on my masthead. I happen to be one of those nerds who is captivated by and very picky about fonts. (As it happens, I'm still not completely satisfied with this particular font, but I suppose we have to work with what we have.)

When it came to news judgment for my front page, I picked my top story almost solely based on the quality of the photos available. I am finishing up my photojournalism emphasis, so it can't be helped. However, I did avoid that one photo of the little girl because I noticed everyone was using it.

I eased up on my photo judgment for the streaking story. That's one of those stories that just screams "Front page!" The photos weren't wonderful in quality, but it just had to be there. I also knew I was aiming for four stories on the front page, so I used as little space as possible by cropping down one of the photos from the story and using a pull quote as my only text. But since the package was looking a bit mundane at that point, I threw in some artsy quotation marks in an attempt to create a more interesting space.

For the bottom section of the page, I was aware that we had two pretty similar stories about post-graduation opportunities, so I thought I'd try my hand at a two-story package. It was helpful that I could jump inside as much as I wanted.

The refer box down the left side of the page was an element I got from the Times Daily design, but I left the content until the very end of the design process. Unfortunately, it shows. I had lofty ambitions for this portion of my page, but as the class ended, I let myself get sloppy. Most of the photos were just taken from Google Images. I did try to redeem myself somewhat with the clever "Required Reading" heading. Did it make you chuckle? If so, then I'll consider my mission complete.

Final Blog- my front page

Using InDesign to create my front page was difficult for me to understand at first, as I never had any experience with the software. After some trial and error, and a few teeth-grinding labs (and Amber's ingenious assistance of course :) I was able to greatly improve my InDesign skills. For my front page, I initially had a pretty simple layout, consisting of three stories in a block-style. It looked boring and lacked any creativity whatsoever. So at the last minute, I trashed my first draft and started from scratch. I used newseum to look at many of the front pages from newspapers across the country for some insight. This is where I got the idea to add a large, centered photo, because when looking at the website full of front pages, I noticed that ones with a large center photo usually caught my eye. These front pages I studied also led me to add a mugshot going along with the two teasers in my left column, I went to google and searched for a stock photo to go along with Jordan's basketball story. Finding photo's was surprisingly easy and I decided to do the same for the bumblebee teaser.
I then looked at the day's frontpage of the R&B, I liked the teasers with photos that they had surrounding the headline, which led me to include some on my front page as well. I also saw that it was OK to have these teaser photo's somewhat covering the papers name, which in some cases looked pretty creative.
I chose which stories to cover by reading through them and deciding which I thought would be most relevant and most likely to appear on the cover of a paper. I took into consideration the timeliness (for example, I really liked the holiday story but felt like since Valentines day and St. Patricks day are over, and there aren't any holidays coming up until July 4th, that it would look odd to put that kind of story on the cover). I also thought about the relevancy of each story, for instance the budget cuts story was obviously very relevant to anyone associated with UGA, which is why I chose that story to be on the cover.
My overall experience of creating this front page was frustrating at first, but once I became accustomed to the many tools and options of the program, it was easy to place text and photos. I enjoyed the leeway I had to be creative in deciding how I would design my front page. Once I started over and began designing for the second time, I felt much more ambitious and was satisfied with how it turned out, which was both relieving and gratifying. I would not have been able to complete this front page without the insightful help from both my classmates and Amber. Thanks guys!

A Very Grady Blog Post

In designing my front page for The Grady Requirement, I spent the majority of my time focusing on the masthead. An eye-catching masthead draws the reader in and makes them want to pick up the newspaper. I designed my masthead by perusing the section containing images of front pages from across the nation on Newseum.com.

I chose to take a local angle on the front page of the publication, modeling it, in a sense, after The Red & Black The stories about the donation meters, pet adoption, and the UGA health center all take a distinctly local direction. The article about job seekers would be important on a national basis. However, it also has a local impact in that all college students ultimately want one thing: a job.

Looking back over the front page, I should have definitely cropped the person's leg/foot out of the picture of the donation meter. Additionally, I could have cropped the entire background out of the picture of the donation meter and wrapped text around the meter itself. I chose to center the page around the donation meter story due to the fact that many Athens residents have wondered the whole story surrounding the meters.

The Grady Requirement Finale!

The past few weeks of lab I have been given the opportunity to in more detail use InDesign. If you had asked me 15 weeks ago if I would be able to create my own personal front-page of a newspaper, I would have laughed in your face. However because of the instruction of Amber and help from my fellow classmates I was able to complete this assignment, but more importantly I feel really good about my effort. 

To start off this front-page process, I picked up more copies of The Red&Black, than I normally do, analyzing their front-pages I was able to get an idea of how I wanted mine to look. However, once in the lab I found it more difficult to create the image that I had in my head. So with much trial and error, and with a dash of frustration, I was able to finish this project. 

I toyed with the idea of adding a section for teasers which would include a sneak peak of the fabulous horoscopes that I hoped to include in our classes publication (which may or may not happen due to time). The teaser section would also include a brief look at the days weather. For this idea I went immediately to google and typed in suns, in the search box. Unfortunately, for the suns, the rain clouds were much cooler. However, this whole idea as brilliant as it was, was also abandoned. 

It was abandoned because when actually designing my front page I felt that the stories and pictures that I chose needed more space than I had originally allowed.  After toying with my page for two labs, I gained much more respect for people who do this on a daily basis. Moreover, these people do not have as much personal freedom with their pages as I had with mine. They have to deal with placing the most important information, advertisements, deadlines, and everyone else in the publication who feels that their pieces should be on the front-page. 

Thus, as much as you plan out the front-page it is important to have wiggle room. The page needs to be able to morph as the day goes on and stories come in. Headlines need to be able to be lengthened or shortened, and writers need to have thick skin, because their stories may be cut altogether. 

The process is not all rainbows and smiles, it is hard. And through my front-page I was able to realize what it really takes. 

MURDER SUICIDE.. cluttered with names!

This article used too many names too closely together, making some parts difficult to follow. Each graph has a multitude of cluttered names; I had to re-read each sentence just to keep up with this soap opera of characters. The story tells of a retired New York officer who shot a cop he accused of having an affair with his wife. The suspect later shot and killed himself in his suburban driveway.
The fifth graph is only one sentence long but contains five names of four people. Two graphs below that is almost as bad, consisting of two sentences and four names. The author did everything possible to make this story unnecessarily confusing with a jumble of names. (note these are not names anyone has ever heard of or would be familiar with).
When refering to people in the story, the author would repeat the person's name each time he or she was referenced when he really only needed a simple "he" or "she" or "retired officer," "victim," "wife," etc.
In this lede graph of a separate article, five different entities are mentioned clearly and successfully without using a single name. This is the tragic and widely publicized murder case of Sandra Cantu. In the first graph, the author references the police of Tracy, Calif., the residents, the victim, the suspected killer, and the suspects daughter, all without cluttering or confusing the reader with names. The names of all relevant people in this story come later on, in a clear and concise format.

Celebrating the Ladies

Ever heard of Skirt! Magazine? Don’t feel bad if you have not. I personally hadn’t before two of their employees came to speak at magazine club last week. It isn’t published everywhere, and the cover art is, well, art, unlike the photographs of celebrities we are all used to seeing.

In fact, at first glance I did not realize that Skirt! Magazine was indeed a magazine. The unusually large size of it (12 by 18 inches), considerable amount of white space on the cover and matte print give it more of a coupon book look rather than that of a traditional magazine.

Is its appearance the product of a conscious effort to make the magazine stand out by being different, or was this simply a way of saving money? I do not know, and I’m not sure that it works artistically, but what I do know is that the magazine’s uniqueness allows it to reach a broad audience. It doesn’t confine itself to the typical gossip that sells. I mean, really, how many different ways can Martha Stewart decorate an Easter egg, and how many new sex positions can Cosmopolitan think up? Actually, don’t answer that.

Skirt!’s popularity comes from its ability to appeal to both a grandmother and a teenager at the same time and in a fresh way. The ads and articles do not focus on a specific age group, and the content of the magazine, although always about women, is so diverse, that it would be hard for a woman to pick up the magazine and not be able to make at least one personal connection to it.

Also, the way that Skirt! designs its own ads for companies instead of using the same world-wide ad makes the reader feel special, as if the magazine has been tailored to specifically appeal to her.

Ladies, if you’ve been looking to connect with other wonderful females, than this magazine is for you. Don’t be afraid to put on that skirt, and enjoy the power of femininity.

Breaking news: the Internet wins again

We all knew immigration was a pretty heated issue in the wake of the past presidential election, but to some it's apparently a matter of life-and-death... or maybe just death. In a still-developing story from the Associated Press, a gunman reportedly staged an attack on the American Civic Association building in Binghamton, N.Y., today. The death toll is into the double digits (12-13), and the gunman is purportedly included among the casualties, making this a sort of single-handed kamikaze mission.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I was interested to inspect coverage of a breaking news story in light of the shifting focus of journalism from a print medium to an online one. There is no question that the rapid and malleable nature of the Internet allows for instantaneous, up-to-date coverage of breaking news (I had to refresh the article several times while writing this blog post because information kept getting added and revised). If this ran in a print publication, it would most likely be undeveloped, as articles must be written well in advance to go to print and be circulated. Plus, there would be no room for developing the story in the immediate sense.

Times are moving faster and faster these days, which calls for round-the-clock, rapid news updates. The visual components and ability to constantly update the news made possible by the Web show that print journalism just can't compete these days.

Thoughtless, large-scale assaults like this are, sadly, nothing new (unibomber Ted Kacynski, Columbine, the Virginia Tech massacre) -- but this doesn't change the sheer horror of incidents like this. In the volatile climate of our world, which is exacerbated by the faltering economy, catastrophic incidents like this can happen when you least expect it. Social issues boil to a head, and it only takes one zealous, deranged individual to make them erupt. The saddest part is that a college student was reportedly killed in this massacre.

It's unclear what the motives behind this attack were, and we may never have concrete answers now that the gunman himself is dead. But the motive behind the attack likely sprung from the gunman's hostile attitude toward immigrants hoping to become naturalized Americans. I think it shows the destructive nature of a purist, fundamentalist view like this of who should belong in America. That argument is null and void for anybody who lives in America who is not a Native American -- that is to say, practically everybody. It's tragic that people can be blinded by hate to the point of this type of lashing out.

Innovation in Newspaper Design

I never really realized how much the layout of a newspaper can affect the reader until I started looking at papers from around the country and comparing their designs. Creative design can make or break a newspaper, and at a time when more papers are being broken than made, design is more important now than ever before.
Here is the front page from today’s Times Record, a newspaper in western Arkansas.

This front page, in my opinion, is one of the reasons that newspapers are failing. There is one image and four stories. The four stories are perfectly lined up from top to bottom. As one story ends, the next starts directly below the first. The columns are all perfectly centered, the same width and nearly the same length. It is as if the designer put the stories into InDesign and clicked an “auto format” button.
There are some positive aspects of the paper. All of the front page content is local news, something I find increasingly important for smaller, local newspapers. There is a side column (Getting Started) that shows what is in the rest of the paper and gives a good summary, and the first story has a great pull quote. Aside from that, the front page is just entirely too text heavy.

Now, look at a video from www.ted.com , a Website that posts videos from conferences on technology, entertainment and design.

This Polish newspaper designer completely changed the layout of his paper. He says, “I wanted to make posters. Not newspapers, not even magazines – posters.” And that’s what he did. His front pages contain very few words, mostly one gigantic attention-grabbing image. He treats the entire daily like as, “one composition like music…[with] ups and downs.” One page is full of photos and charts, and the next will be full of articles with pictures almost fused into the stories. His re-design of papers all across Eastern Europe was able to increase circulation by up to 100 percent. With print companies all across the U.S. looking for answers to financial uncertainty, I suggest experimenting with innovative design. I mean, what’s left to lose?

G-20 ipod

President Obama recently attended the G-20 sessions to discuss America's place in re-vamping our worlds economy. Most would agree this is a very very important part of Obama's plan, if not the most important. The recession in America has hit everyone in one way or another. Despite its severity, the article by Ben Pershing, focuses on the non-traditional demeanor of Obama and the First Lady. Entitled, "Obama Courts G-20 with Star Power, iPod." Obama is a star, yes. But he is not supposed to be Brad Pitt nor is Michelle Obama supposed to be Angelina Jolie. He is supposed to be the president of the United States of America. 

Rather, than covering the topics discussed by the G-20, Pershing discusses how Obama gave Queen Elizabeth II an ipod. The article also discusses how Michelle Obama "breached royal protocol" by touching the queen's back. Obama is everywhere-- the cover of People Magazine, "60 Minutes," "Jay Leno," etc. No other president has been so informal with the media. But is he too informal? Is he too much of a celebrity, that people are not criticizing his presidency like they should? With Obama's first 100 days in office close to being over, what does America really know about Obama's political agenda? 

Unfortunately, most American's know that the Obama girls are getting a dog, possibly to be named "Moose,". Now, Americans are aware that Obama gave the queen an iPod. Who cares? The answer is tragically enough, a lot of Americans. Otherwise these frivolous, unimportant articles would have stopped being written. 

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, should look into having Obama do an iPod commercial. It could be named the "G-20 iPod" and even feature a cameo of the new "First dog,". Obama might be game for the commercial, since he certainly seems to have the time for People and "Leno"; why not Jobs as well?  

The AJC's continuing obsession with Mike Vick

In recent weeks, I have begun to notice that the lead story on ajc.com is more often than not about former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Mike Vick, who is serving jail time on dog fighting charges. I would be curious to see the numbers on the view counts for these stories. Since Vick has gone to jail, I have gotten the impression from everyone I have talked to that he is no longer newsworthy. The people of Atlanta seem to want to forget about him and look forward to a new era of Falcons football led by Matt Ryan.

However, the good 'ole AJC continues to dredge up the past by publishing countless stories about Michael Vick. Even Vick's fiancee said yesterday on television that she could not figure out why the story was still news. I can understand the need for a story such as yesterday's that tells what Vick plans to do when he escapes....errr, is released from prison. However, an almost daily account of the soap opera that is the life of Mike Vick is largely unneeded. The efforts of reporters assigned to the Vick beat could be much better channeled into stories about how the economic crisis is impacting the Atlanta area. The AJC seems to cover the economic crisis only on a national level, rather than on a local level as would be more fitting.

The bottom line is that Mike Vick will never play another game in an Atlanta Falcons uniform. Heck, he may never play another game in the NFL. Consequently, he is no longer relevant enough in Atlanta to warrant an almost daily story about his struggles in the city's daily newspaper.

G-20 summit sparks news as well as bias

The Banner-Herald shrewdly relied on this Associate Press article for their coverage of the G-20 summit, keeping their resources focused on local stories.

I like the lead. It conveys the news hook with a somber tone that emphasizes the story’s significance to any American or international reader.

After that, however, the tone changes, and I’m not so sure I like it. The second graph reads as a mockery of the British Prime Minister and the summit itself, calling the proceedings “a choreographed show of unity.” The article is about other nations’ disagreement with President Obama’s new stimulus spending; it is not an editorial about the ineffectiveness of the summit. This language is effective and well written but would fit better on an opinions page.

This video below is a segment of a newscast, which discusses Obama’s persistent optimism as well as the international disagreements at the summit. I feel that its two-sided approach to the story is much more effective than the AP article.

Watch this at Boston.com

Despite my quarrels with his tone, the author is undoubtedly a good writer. I love his plumbing metaphor for the economic crisis: “Collectively, the measures were an attempt to free the clogged pipes of capitalism….”

The fifth graph, however, could have been worded better. He says the leaders will “meet again in September, in New York in conjunction with the next United Nations General Assembly.” I think he could have found a re-wording that didn’t involve quite so many prepositional phrases beginning with the word “in.” The cluttered phrases are jarring to the reader.

In the seventh graph, we finally get to the content the headline promised. Some of the previous graphs probably should have been tightened in order to move this information more toward the beginning.

I’m not really satisfied with the ending of the article either. It appears to be a last attempt by the author to slide in his apparent scorn for the G-20 summit. I think it’s legitimate information, but it doesn’t work as a conclusion for this particular article.

The LA Times produced a less biased article in their editorial section (of all places), covering the same story with a more appropriate tone. It is also much more to-the-point than the AP story.

Sacrificing Visuals

As the economy continues to decline, the journalism industry is struggling to find more ways to cut costs and save their ship. As more metro newspapers eliminate circulation, or shut down print altogether, readers are left looking for more localized news online.

We, as students, have been motivated by the emergence of a different type of journalism -- you know, for the web -- but what are we sacrificing by making the switch to online? Will it all be glitz and glamour?

To be honest -- it’s not a pretty site. And that’s no typo; I’m talking site as in web site.

I know I've picked on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution before, but after hearing that it will no longer circulate to Athens, we are all faced with a new situation. Will we continue to read the AJC, even online?

Does a move to online really mean we have to skimp out on visuals? Printing photos can be a nightmare, so it only makes sense that moving to online calls for the use of those beautiful screens! And yet, both the AJC and Athens Banner-Herald lack prominent news photos on the front page of their web sites.

Don’t know what I mean? Take a look at Online Athens. Right now the only photo (without scrolling down) is half of a picture of a woman reading. As for the AJC, there’s a photo of firefighters in front of a house, a prom couple and Madonna.

CBS Sunday Morning News ran a piece on the decline of the newspaper on March 29, 2009. Here is the entire thing, approx 10 min. long:



The print version can be found here.

There is a quote that explains what we're all learning,

"What that means to me is not only do you have to know how to report and write, you have to be a wire service reporter, and blog, and you have to know how to use a video camera, you have to know how to appear before a TV camera, be on the radio," said Inquirer editor Bill Marimow. "You really have to be a maestro of the media."

He's referring to web journalism, of course. When you look at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution online, are you seeing the best use of these elements? To be truthful, I'm concerned that this push to online journalism is going to come at a great cost - of photo, video and design.

Thumbs up for Obama, thumbs down for riots

Photo courtesy of the Metro, U.K

World leaders at the G20 London Summit tackled tough questions concerning the global economy, regional wars and climate change. Despite the afternoon's gruesome agenda, President Obama took a moment before the meeting to strike a pose with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (above middle) and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (above right). It makes me wonder what they were saying to one another, teeth gritted while smiling. I wish politicians acted this goofy more often. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw some of the other leaders in the photo, particularly the man in the bottom left corner glaring at the camera. Does anyone know who the guy in the top right corner is? I couldn't seem to find a caption with his name.

Whoever took this photo struck gold. Not only is Dmitry Medvedev smiling, the photograph was an opportune moment that may have eased tensions between leaders, and possibly, their constituents. Today, countries such as the U.S., Italy and Russia are connected primarily through the Internet - which makes photography like this even more important.

International events, including the G20 summit, raise a larger question: are these meetings solely for the promotion of diplomatic relations, or is the meeting increasingly aimed at the media so journalists can provide transparent and cooperative impressions of global politicians to the public? In my opinion, most decisions involving international relations and diplomacy are made behind closed doors. I would argue that the topics and speeches at conferences like the G20 are well-rehearsed and are meant more for the media and public than for other establishing legitimate relations between countries. If this is the case, the public may be cheated out of authentic discourse, but at least the discussions aim to inform people about current policies that surround international issues. I'm interested to hear if anyone has any other ideas on the topic. Here are more images from the G20 conference.

On the other hand, the following CNN video shows the heavier side of the conference. As protestors gathered outside, tensions rose between the crowd and London police force. Though the majority of the protestors were peaceful, others provoked violence and quarreled with the police. As seen in the video, CNN reporter Nic Robertson and his crew were in the middle of all the action - even getting pushed around a few times. The video is an excellent example of how public events, especially involving protestors, can suddenly turn violent and dangerous. This is a consideration many journalists must make before deciding to travel to world events or entering investigative journalism.

Let's Move on... shall we?

I understand that as long as men want to look at pretty girls, girls will always be interested in fashion. As much as I love pretty clothes, I think enough is enough. I wanted to be a journalist in women's magazines not because I wanted to continue this trend of telling girls how they should behave to snab the guy, or how to wear their hair on the big night, I think as journalists we do possess the power to bring about social changes and this recent coverage of Michelle's outfits on her trip to London, doesn't make me optimistic about change.


Without being bombarded with information about the election, the inauguration, the first 100 days in office...etc, I think we've had enough coverage on Michelle Obama's fashion and style tips.

The media doesn't seem to care enough about Michelle as a person because the only coverage that people want to hear about is "what is she going to wear today?" It is getting very redundant.





However, the positive thing about our move towards visual media, is that in reporting news such as this, it is very useful. Nobody wants to read descriptions about what Michelle is wearing, we'd like to be shown with pictures so that we can track down the products or mimic them.

Online Advertising

When I first heard that we needed to add a video or photo to our blog assignment, I went straight to the news Web site where I knew there are always great videos: CNN.

As much as I love print journalism, some stories beg to be shown, not just told. As much as journalists aim to show the news to the reader through their vast knowledge of the English language, there is nothing quite like seeing an event take place with your own eyes. One such story that begged to be shown I first read about in the AJC. The story was on the Obamas' visit to meet with the Queen of England. As much as I enjoyed reading, I very much wanted to see President Obama giving the Queen an iPod, as the story talks about.

So I went onto CNN's Web site to look for videos of the trip and immediately saw a link to the much-televised video of the Queen putting her arm around First Lady Michelle Obama. I'm not really sure why the fact that they touched got so much press, but what struck me about the video wasn't that they were touching, it was the fact that a video advertisement preceded the news video. 

Now, before we can watch the Queen and the First Lady share an intimate moment, we have to hear from IBM about how we can build a better planet. 

Is video advertising taking over news sites like it has online television? Will we be forced to watch these ads because we don't have DVRs on our computers? What is the future of online advertising for news media?

I can tell you that as far as advertising goes, I would much rather see ads in a paper that I can skim over than be forced to watch ads online. 

Statistics as a Photo Story

This is a piece by Mona Reeder from the Dallas Morning News that won several awards and sparked interest in an issue that had been partially covered in pieces, but she was the first to compile it. In a nutshell, Ms. Reeder put together an investigative photo story after seeing the embarrassing statistics that the state of Texas held in relation to the rest of the country in areas such as poverty and environmental awareness.

'The Bottom Line' shows grim, intimate images of families dealing with impoverished living conditions, failing health, imprisonment, death...and yet, Texas is home to the most Fortune 500 companies in the country. Not to mention its oil industry.

I was fortunate enough to hear Ms. Reeder speak at the Atlanta Photojournalism seminar last year and this story—and its images—have stood out in my memory ever since. Ms. Reeder had pitched this story to her editors for years and got turned down over and over again until finally, they gave her the go-ahead.

I have no idea how much time she spent on this piece, but it was published in eight sections by category. After it was completed, Ms. Reeder sent copies of it to every elected official in Texas—and several in the nation—to highlight the issues and as of December 2008 had not received a single response.

Ms. Reeder spent a lot of time earning the trust of every family she worked with. She captured uncomfortably intimate situations as a result and created a collection of haunting photos and quick statistics that are impossible to ignore.

As I was trying to refresh my memory about the story behind the story, I stumbled upon an interview with Ms. Reeder on Poynter’s Web site and came upon a great quote of hers which I feel perfectly summarizes the importance of captivating images , as well as good design, in today’s struggling newspaper industry:

“To me, "The Bottom Line" project embodies what our managers have been saying the last several years as newspapers experience shrinking readership and news holes. This project represented a well-researched, in-depth piece about serious issues affecting the entire state of Texas, and it was presented in an innovative manner that even the busiest person could get through and absorb in a relatively short amount of time.
Photo essays are the bread and butter of major news magazines, and our world is increasingly focused on visual mediums. It seems to follow that newspapers would gravitate to cleaner designs utilizing compelling, in-depth photo stories to attract and keep readers.”

Just another example of how a statistics story can be made interesting… A really, REALLY good example.

(The slideshow above is awesome, but here are some of the photos with captions, which make them all the more depressing.)

Blog 4: The best news is fake news, or, the blog where I get angry

I blame FOX News. For what? Well, everything I can, really, but mostly for what has happened to television news networks over the past few years. The trend toward sensationalist reporting, a focus on talking-head personalities over actual reporters - a focus on entertainment over news. Certainly, this was always part of the field - CNN's (thankfully) deceased Crossfire was one of the first "news" shows to put the focus on empty arguments and emotional appeal rather than things like, y'know, facts and reason - but it was FOX, with their stable of fatuous non-journalists like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity (not to mention the bubble-headed cheerleaders they hire as female correspondants) that seems to have started the trend. Still, no matter whose fault it is (hint: it's FOX's), that style of "reporting" has, tragically, become the standard for the 24-hour news networks. CNN now has Lou Dobbs (ugh) and Nancy Grace (ugh). They had Glenn Beck (UGH), but he's now at FOX, where he fits right in with O'Reilly and Hannity and Geraldo Rivera and every other one of the network's "journalists" (with the exception of the surprisingly principled Shep Smith). They have become the model. And not to beat up on FOX too much (oh, who am I kidding? That's not possible), but their talking heads consistently, arrogantly proclaim their distance from the oh-so-hateful "mainstream media," apparently ignoring the fact that FOX's ratings are consistently the highest of the news networks. So you could say those claims don't really make a lot of sense. You could also say they're cynical, self-aggrandizing BS, but that would just be rude.

So thank God for Jon Stewart. It was Stewart's legendary appearance on Crossfire (transcript here, video here; I still get chills watching it) that arguably led to the show's cancellation. And I think The Daily Show's greatest strength has always been not how skillfully Stewart skewers politicians for their hypocricy but how he, moreso than any television news personality, holds the 24-hour news networks to the standards they apparently lack the integrity to hold themselves to. As in this clip from The Daily Show, where Stewart takes on CNBC:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
CNBC Financial Advice
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

If you're looking for real, in-depth, honest reporting, it seems like, increasingly, ironically, the best place to turn is the "fake" news show. What does that say about the rest of television news?

Spaghetti Harvest?

In the spirit of April Fool's Day, I decided to use a link I found from The Daily Beast on their Video Cheat Sheet section concerning an April Fool's prank played across the pond by the good people of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Fifty two years ago, BBC aired a fake news feature on April Fool's Day about a spaghetti harvest in Switzerland.
To add legitimacy to this broadcast, BBC convinced reputable broadcaster Richard Dimbleby to narrate the story and featured a family gathering what appeared to be an extremely bountiful spaghetti crop from the trees.
Audience responses ranged from outrage to inquires concerning how to purchase these amazing spaghetti plants. Apparently, spaghetti is considered a "delicacy" in Great Britain, which may somewhat account for the confusion on behalf of the BBC audience.
The question this broadcast raised in my mind on part of editing decision making was how this hoax would affect the network's credibility. We all know that the Brits have an interesting sense of humor, to put it mildly. However, all of the audience members who were reportedly "outraged" probably lost a small degree of respect for BBC. While this may seem ridiculous to some, one thing has been ingrained in my mind over my years in Grady: your reputation as a credible news source means everything. While I am all for having a sense of humor, perhaps it would have been prudent to use this material on another section of BBC's programming other than a serious news show. It would be best to separate legitimate news stories from comedy unless the spoof is explicitly dubbed as a farce of current events a la Jon Stewart.