Final update #8: Monday, May 2, Beirut, 23:13
TAKEAWAY: Waking up in Beirut to the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death. Already discussing it with art director at An Nahar, the Arabic language daily, and it will be interesting to follow up the rest of the day with the Lebanese perspective of this monumentally important development in the fight against terrorism. Stay tuned. ALSO: The Royal Wedding, part 2: a kiss pop up moment and a textbook case of good packaging for coverage of the event
Final page one for Tuesday
Top portion of An Nahar front page for Tuesday, May 3
It was a long and busy day, but the top of Page One is now done with the Bin Laden package.
The Mondrian managed to package enough images to tell the story at a glance, and the headline over the package reads: Al Qaeda is headless: Ten year chase ends in 40 minutes
The story thru an illustration
The Bin Laden story as seen by An Nahar illustrator Armand Homsi
First thing art director Ziad Kassis and I discussed over morning coffee today was to consider an illustration for Page One of An Nahar.
Remember, it is 24 hours between the time the news broke about the killing of Bin Laden, and when the printed edition of An Nahar will reach readers. We are already saturated with so many images of the event that we had a briefing with that talented illustrator, Armand Homsi, and told him that his illustration could go on Page One——maybe. Armand does illustrations for the supplements, and they are all top of the line quality.
Here is what he has produced, absolutely direct, elegant and worthy of Page One. But the editors have decided that the illustration would soften the impact of the news and to go with the Mondrian photo approach (see below).
However, Ziad and I have just decided to use the illustration, smaller, as part of the Mondrian grouping, then display it big inside, to do it justice.
The Mondrian-style front page takes shape
First sketch of the front page on the screen as we discuss the content/design with the editors
Good page one meeting and our idea of a Mondrian concept—-creating a collage of images on Page One to tell the Bin Laden story shapes up.
And, alas, the talented An Nahar illustrator, Armand Homsi, produces an illustration that will be played big inside, but we must incorporate it into the Mondrian.
The editor in chief of An Nahar, Mr. Francois Akl, offers me a fascinating perspective when I ask him what the Osama Bin Laden death means to the average Lebanese:
“For us this is a purely American story, in a sense. Of course, we are interested in this, but we have too many problems in this country, so this is NOT for us the same it is for American readers. The average Lebanese person feels indifferent about this. They did not like Bin Laden, and, depending on where in the country you may be, some like Bin Laden, so you see, the story for us is quite different for what it is for you Americans.”
And Editor Akl agreed that one of the photos in the Mondrian must be Americans celebrating outside the White House, a place where there has been little celebrations lately.
Discussions of our An Nahar front page for tomorrow
Right now, in mid afternoon here in Beirut, the art director, Ziad Kassis, and I, play with a variety of options before the 6 pm meeting in about two and a half hours, which is a more decisive step towards the planning of tomorrow’s front page.
Remember, we launched a new design of this Lebanese newspaper only three weeks ago, and the front page has followed a consistent style for the obvious reasons.
Tomorrow, however, we may drop the promos that appeared top left altogether, or we may make the promos part of the fabric of the page one illustration, since they may be part of the Bin Laden coverage.
Meanwhile, we have the talented illustrator from An Nahar working on an illustration collage, but we know that the still conservative editors here may feel that an illustration is too soft a treatment for such an important newsy story.
At almost 5 pm, this is where we are with the design of Page One. I am suggesting that we create a Mondrian effect to incorporate various images of the Bin Laden story into one large block, which will probably be six columns, in case the illustration does not fly.
Here is my sketch, inspired by Mondrian structure, for a group of images in tomorrow’s front page.
Stay tuned.
Citizen journalists to the rescue
It has happened again, this An IT consultant, living in Abbottabad, who unknowingly tweeted details of the US-led operation as it happened. Sohaib Athar wrote that a helicopter was hovering overhead shortly before the assault began and said that it might not be a Pakistani aircraft. His first posting was at around 1am local time.
He wrote: “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).”
Soon after, he reported the sound of an explosion, now known to have been US forces blowing-up their damaged helicopter.
“A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S”
Remember in 2009, when the event that came to be known Miracle on the Hudson occurred: the landing of US Airways flight 1149 jet into the Hudson River? The first reports of that incident came from citizens who were watching it happen from the windows of their offices in New York City.
It reminds us how difficult it is becoming for the official media to get there first.
And the crowds chanted….
Woke up at 7 am, turned on CNN and could not believe my eyes and ears: Osama Bin Laden dead announced the network’s Wolf Spitzer as a crowd gathered outside the White House around 1 in the morning, US flags everywhere, same thing in the reports from New York City’s Ground Zero, a symbolic gathering for those who came, as one firefighter put it “to honor my fellow firefighters who died here, now they know justice has been done.”
Outside my balcony in Beirut, total silence, a day off for workers who celebrate the May 1 International Workers Day festivity.
Then a meeting now with Ziad Kassis, the art director of An Nahar, to plan the front page of the newspaper. “Big news, indeed, ” he tells me, “and we will go 8 columns across with it tomorrow.”
The iPad already played a role here, as one of the guys celebrating outside the White House raised his iPad to show a screen that read: Obama1, Osama 0.
It should be interesting to contemplate this development from the Middle East. I promise more reports as the day progresses. Come back and check with me from time to time.
The making of page one: An Nahar
Like editors and designers worldwide, we are now working on the possible visual scenarios for Page One of An Nahar tomorrow.
Twenty four hours will have passed from the time the world found out Osama Bin Laden is dead. In one of our discussions, we are leaning towards a good illustration capturing the highlights of the man’s life and death, but the editor is not sure a soft illustration will do justice to the newsy event; we are also planning a photo collage of the most momentous events in Bin Laden’s life. All options are on the table.
As this is an Arabic language daily, I wanted to step gingerly into the discussion, but was reassured by two editors that the people of Lebanon are as happy to see “this man we hated” no longer with us.
Will continue to report on our front page concept as the day advances.
TheMarioBlog post #764
Royal Wedding and packaging of stories
TAKEAWAY: At a time when we cater to an audience who bring their click and go mentality to print, navigation and packaging gain extra importance. Take a look at Germany’s Bild Sunday editions and how the editors packaged the post Royal Wedding coverage: did anyone make it as easy to follow?
The wedding
The love
The kiss
The family
Pippa: the super sister
The father
The guests
The day after
The naked facts
The future
Today’s pop up
And don’t miss this kiss pop up moment: click the red button and the royal couple kisses. It’s love!
I was not really planning to touch the Royal Wedding again in this blog, believe me. We all have had our share of William and Catherine and I, too, believe they deserve to have a peaceful honeymoon.
However, when Frank Deville, our correspondent in Luxembourg, shared with me these pages from the Bild am Sonntag, I had to share them with you as well.
Here is simple, clear and easy to digest coverage of an event we thought we had so much of.
Follow the categories: The Wedding, The Family, The Love, The Kiss, The Guests, Pippa: The Super Sister, The Naked Facts, The Father, The Future.
Special congrats to the Bild photo editing team!
Clever, Bild. You’ve done it again. Many newspapers need to take a page or two from your book today! There are other royal weddings in store, for sure, but your example is applicable to a variety of stories.
TheMarioBlog post #763
The Royal Weddding: A kiss is not a kiss
TAKEAWAY: The marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton is now over and we have spent part of today Saturday looking at the morning after front pages of newspapers around the world. It is THE KISS photo on page one for 95% of the newspapers I have sampled. Ok, so when is a kiss just a kiss?
When is a kiss just a kiss?
The New York Times, USA
Germany’s Bild Zeitung displayed a double page poster of the Royal Couple riding the Aston Martin convertible
The Times of London
Il Secolo XIX, Genoa, Italy
The Independent, London, no photo; instead, a sketch by artist Tracey Emin on its front page.
Of course, the photo of the beautiful couple sharing their first kiss as man and wife on the balcony of Buckingham Palace shows the moment when this fairytale wedding between the middle class girl and the Prince became a reality to billions around the world. And, in fact, it was a historic moment when the couple shared a second kiss.
But, to me, the highlight was seeing the couple emerge from the gates of the palace in an Aston Martin convertible, complete with the hanging cans that are so symbolic of newlyweds everywhere. It was a common touch, a fun moment, the couple showing the world that, at the end, fairytale or not, they are like other couples in love celebrating their big day. That moment took all those experienced TV presenters by surprise. I was watching it on ABC, and the seasoned Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters were speechless momentarily when the couple appeared, with the Prince driving himself. To me, a highlight of the ceremony.
So I am happy to show some front pages here that put that one moment on their front page.
See here The New York Times, Il Secolo XIX (Genoa, Italy), and the Times of London. Bravo.
Note: I like the first kiss photo, of course, and I go on the record saying that I have nothing against kissing, but the surprise photo was the couple in the car!
Special kudos for The Independent of London, for being adventurous: instead of a photo, the editors chose to publish an original work by Tracey Emin on its front page.
TheMaroiBlog post #762