TAKEAWAY: To the world press Dubai has provided the economic world with a sort of crisis, but maybe that is the wrong term for it. ALSO: Gulf News’ mega graphic of a Mosque PLUS: Follow up to The Nation’s return to general interest newspaper AND: SND to hold North Carolina program Dec. 12
Crisis? What Crisis?
European newspapers offer non-stop coverage of the Dubai financial crisis
It is probably all a matter of perception, or how news is viewed locally as opposed to from a distance.
Case in point: the so called Dubai Crisis, a label that we see on the pages of newspapers worldwide, not to mention as attention grabbing graphics behind television commentators everywhere.
I am surprised that this crisis still does not have a name, as did previous financial sagas, such as the Mexican one in 1994, labeled the Tequila Effect. And I guess Desert Storm has already been used for other purposes.
But, obviously, this is not a crisis in the same magnitude. Case in point: I wrote to Gulf News design director Miguel Gomez for him to send me any interesting front pages of the GN and other dailies in the UAE covering “the Dubai crisis”.
What a surprise it was to get the Miguel reply:
Well, we don’t have anything in the way of pdfs. This is not a crisis, it is a restructuring.
Really?
Well, you would not know this if you read the front pages of every major newspaper in Europe and the US, for example.
Apparently, it is a combination of the locals in the UAE not granting it enough importance, and the media worldwide “exaggerating” what truly has happened.
So, for now, no pages from how the UAE newspapers have covered whatever we call this little “inconvenient misstep” as the economy travelled through the desert.
Meanwhile, an interesting Gulf News graphic, on another subject
Interactive graphic from the Gulf News of Dubai: www.gulfnews.com
The graphic as it appeared in the print edition of Dubai’s Gulf News
While we don’t have any significant pages from the UAE covering the Dubai financial story——notice I am not calling it a crisis anymore——, we do have a beautifully rendered and informative news graphic sent to us by Douglas Okasaki, staff artist.
The graphic features the Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Grand Mosque. According to Douglas, the main challenge in this graphic was how to accurately depict the Mosque’s scale, opulence and beauty.
To view the interactive version of the graphic:
http://gulfnews.com/multimedia/graphics/interactive-grand-mosque-1.532905
There is enough information about the mosque to write a book, but not enough space in this newspaper to portray how wondrous the place is.
The UAE’s founding father and visionary, Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, planned the mosque in the 1980s. He decided to construct a mosque that would become the spiritual centre of the country, bringing peace to worshippers of all races and social circumstances. This is exactly what the mosque is — a place that raises
your spirits, regardless of what religion you follow.
Mosque facts
The mosque, which is also the final resting place of Shaikh Zayed, has achieved acclaim inthe Islamic world and internationally. It is the third largest mosque in the Arabian Gulf region, after those in Makkah and Madinah. Among its impressive structural and decorative features are some that have set world records: the largest carpet (5,700 square metres); the largest chandelier (15 metres high); and the largest main dome of its kind (32.8 metres in diameter).
A total of 43 contractors worked on the mosque, including designers, engineers, architects, artisans and builders from far-flung corners of the globe. They assembled materials from dozens of countries, including Italy, Germany, Morocco, India, Turkey, Iran, China, Greece and, of course, the UAE. The materials used include marble, stone, gold, semi-precious stones, crystals and ceramics of the highest quality.
The mosque was opened for daily prayers in 2007. The project team was led by Abu Dhabi Municipality and British consulting engineers Halcrow Group, along with Hill International. Today the UAE has more than 5,000mosques, with 2,289 of these located in
Abu Dhabi.
Credits with this graphic:
Interactive design: Jacob Hernandez
Infographics: Douglas Okasaki, Dwynn Ronald Trazo
Art Director: Miguel Angel Gomez
Editor in Chief: Abdul Hamid
See the interactive graphic:
www.gulfnews.com
Thailand’s The Nation reverting to original formula
The Nation changes back to general interest content: two sample front pages of new formula
In our blog post Monday we discussed The Nation’s return to its original general interest newspaper concept, which the Thai daily had abandoned in early 2008 when it became a business/politics emphasis newspaper.
I asked Pana Janviroj , The Nation’s Executive Editor, about the changes that took place Dec. 1. I was particularly interested in the question about the Daily Xpress, the free newspaper that was created in 2008, distributed all over the city of Bangkok, and inserted into The Nation, to cover sports, local news and entertainment. With Xpress gone, is there NO free distribution newspaper in Thailand? More importantly, my question for Pana was why he thought the experiment of the combined free Xpress/Nation experiment failed?
Here is his reply:
This is a question of staying power, since the advertisers need ample time to see if it works. However, we were unfortunate that there
was a political upheaval and a global financial crisis plus a rise in newsprint price – all these events happenned at the same time, prompting our decision
Just as I had suspected, this was not a question of young readers NOT liking or wanting their copy of the Daily Xpress during their morning commute each day. It was the events described by Pana above that conspired for the Xpress to cease publication. For the moment, for the moment,there is no free distribution newspaper in Thailand.
I am hoping that with potentially better economic times ahead, that the Daily Xpress may again be out in the streets of Bangkok, even if The Nation sticks to its general interest newspaper format.
To that point, Pana reminds me that the company has retained the name Daily Xpress as its property, and the new features section is aptly titled, xp.
Stay tuned.
SND program Dec. 12 in North Carolina
The Society for News Design is planning a day of presentations and conversations Saturday,Dec. 12, 2009, from 9:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. at the Hickory Daily Record,
1100 Park Place, Hickory, N.C. 28603. An optional, informal lunch will
follow with plenty of time for more conversation, networking and Q&A.
The program so far includes the following:
“How People Learn In Different Ways.” Learn “The Three E¹s of the
New Media Landscape: Embrace, Engage and Expand.”
“Multimedia on the Cheap,² low-cost, easy ways to add rich content to web sites.
“Five ideas that anyone can use for visualizing information in print and online.”
According to SND officials, the program is aimed at helping small to medium-size media markets.
Presenters include Baltimore Sun Editor Monty Cook, UNC-Chapel Hill Journalism Professor Don Wittekind, Charlotte Observer artist William Pitzer
and Richard Curtis, retired USA TODAY founder and managing editor/design.
SND membership is not required. Attendance is free but because of space
limitations at the meet up site, it is limited to the first 30 who sign up.
Please contact John Josey, Managing Editor, Lenoir News-Topic
(jjosey@newstopic.com) or Richard Curtis at lakehouse2@cox.net
Doing an early morning run in Genoa, Italy
Spending part of this week in Genoa, Italy, as we gear up to work with Il Secolo XIX. A run on the side of the Port of Genoa is just the right way to start what will be a busy day of developing pages, typographic schemes and color palettes.
TheMarioBlog post #429