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Oct. 10th Surprises on Page One: Ben Franklin to the rescue at the St. Petersburg Times

We do not usually advocate illustrations on page one, but in yesterday’s blog, we offered that as one of the solutions, to avoid visual cliches of arrows and graphics that show the poor performance of the market.

Today, the mail brings us a note from Patty Cox, who supervises graphics and design at The St. Petersburg Times.  Her page is indicative of what can happen when illustrator/designer/editor meet and agree on the best concept to tell the story.

Here is how Patty puts it:

Thought I’d share our illustrative approach the day after the Dow dropped 777 points and the House failed to pass the bailout bill. Most U.S. papers went with a photo taken from the floor of the stock exchange or the dreaded fever line that day. The various interpretations of that line were interesting. John Corbitt, an ubertalented Times’  artist, approached me with the concept of the sweating, crumbling Ben Franklin two days before the story broke. I gave him the go-ahead to work on it and told him I would find a home for it. Bingo! The big news broke two days later and John’s illustration ended up a perfect fit on 1A.

Great work, Patty.  Any others out there who have approached the financial crisis story creatively and efficiently on Page One, please let me know, so that we can share with other readers.

The Oklahoman plays it low key

In Oklahoma City, The Oklahoman displayed the latest plunge of the Dow big, but not the visuals. Here we see a secondary reading box, and a rather muted infographic with the relevant information, and, indeed, those arrows, but nothing too extravagant. The story was developed more completely inside, since the new Oklahoman front page is more a navigational tool to the rest of the newspaper.

Mario to speak in Amsterdam Oct. 17

I am honored to be part of the World Association of Newspaper’s 11th Readership Conference, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Oct. 16-17.  The program is built as The Audience-Building Conference for Publishers, Editors, Marketeers and other Senior Executives..  The conference includes a keynote presentation titled The Eternal Power of Print (Why print will endure beyond the digital revolution and remain a part of our private and business lives forever! The business implications for media publishers of a bright future for print.) by William Powers, media columnist, National Journal magazine (Atlantic Media), USA .

My own presentation is titled A Successful Audience Strategy and will deal with the path of the story in a multiplatform world and focusing on specific segments of the readership.  I will have coverage of the conference in this blog next week as it happens.

For registration and full program information:
http://www.wan-press.org/amsterdam2008/home.php

TheMarioBlog posting #116

 

Posted by Dr. Mario R. Garcia on October 10, 2008