As you’ve heard by now, there was yet another horrific school shooting Monday.
A total of five were shot. One died Monday. Two more passed away today.
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PLAIN DEALER
Cleveland, Ohio
Circulation: 243,299
The Plain Dealer responded today in a big, big way with an awesome front page led by an awesome photo by staffer Thomas Ondrey.
After the school was secure, officials moved the high school students down the street to an elementary school. Parents were allowed to form a line and retrieve them. That picture is of an emotional student and her equally-shaken mom.
You’ll see that photo several more times today. And for good reason.
Assistant managing editor David Kordalski tells us:
Deputy design director for news Emmet Smith and I did the design work. Michael Tribble was primarily involved in coordinating our extremely thorough online report (although we did solicit his opinion early and often … can’t let him totally abandon his print roots).
Director of photography Bill Gugliotta did the picture edit; deputy director of photography Dale Omori directed the staff in the field.
Photographers were Thomas Ondrey, Marvin Fong, Scott Shaw and Lynn Ischay. David Andersen did the video reports.
Among the amazing stories out front today — at the bottom left — is about Nate Mueller, a friend of the alleged shooter and who was among the group targeted by the shooter Monday morning. He answered questions for TV and newspaper reporters and showed photographers just how close he came himself to being a victim: A bullet had grazed the tip of his ear.
Find the story about Nate Mueller here, by the Plain Dealer‘s Patrick O’Donnell.
That picture by staffer Scott Shaw led page three of the Plain Dealer‘s coverage. Click this or any other page today for a closer look.
The downpage picture of the accused shooter is from the accused’s Facebook page.
Page four includes a huge photo by Ondrey and a second shot by him of the high school kids marching single-file to the elementary school.
Between them is another parent + child shot — this one by Marvin Fong.
This graphic by William Neff and Ken Marshall shows the vicinity of the school, the nearly elementary school and where the accused shooter was caught an hour or so later.
This slightly more detailed graphic by Neff showing the immediate sequence of events appeared on page one.
David tells us that Scott Sheldon was graphics editor for these pieces. David also wants to give a…
…Special shout-out to news editors Bill Lammers and Joe Hanak for producing the final versions of the pages … Hanak came in on his day off in order to help out.
Lead art for page five by Marvin Fong is of investigators near the suspect’s home.
The fourth and final inside page played up a picture by Lynn Ischay of the prayer vigil last night. The rest of the page is taken up by bios of the five victims.
Again, two more of these teenagers died this morning.
Editorial cartoonist Jeff Darcy got on on today’s coverage as well.
David Kordalski tells us:
Deputy managing editor Daryl Kannberg oversaw everything and made the big words sing.
Can’t say enough about the communication from our reporters in the field, or about our Metro team, led by AME/Metro Chris Quinn and metro editor Karl Turner.
Naturally, there’s a complete report on the Plain Dealer‘s web site.
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Here’s how other papers in Ohio presented the story on page one today…
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AKRON BEACON JOURNAL
Akron, Ohio
Circulation: 87,780
A number of papers used Thomas Ondrey’s picture as lead art today, just as the Plain Dealer did.
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CINCINNATI ENQUIRER
Cincinnati, Ohio
Circulation: 140,877
Cincinnati’s colorful headline made the Enquirer‘s front one of the best of the day.
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COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Columbus, Ohio
Circulation: 135,330
Columbus paired the same Ondrey shot with a second one by him showing high school students searched before they were allowed to enter the nearby elementary school to wait for their parents.
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RECORD-COURIER
Ravenna, Ohio
Circulation: 17,328
In Ravenna — just 30 miles or so south of Chardon — the Record-Courier pushed nearly everything else off A1 today.
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REPOSITORY
Canton, Ohio
Circulation: 55,327
Canton used the Ondrey photo but cropped in on it so tightly as to nearly render it valueless.
Yet, the Repository used a question headline that added nothing to the story. Nor did the bullet-point deck. The editors might have been better off chopping off a line somewhere and giving that lead photo more depth.
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CHRONICLE
Elyria, Ohio
Circulation: 24,594
The little paper in Elyria led today with a great Associated Press photo of a dad hugging his teenaged boy.
The one sour note on this page was the file mug shot of the Chardon High School principal. In which he’s smiling.
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MORNING JOURNAL
Lorain, Ohio
Circulation: 21,435
The Lorain paper also used a nice shot of a mom hugging her daughter at the pickup point. You can see all the anxious parents waiting in a line that stretches down the street and around the corner.
The picture is by Maribeth Joeright of the Journal Register News Service.
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GAZETTE
Medina, Ohio
Circulation: 12,357
The Medina paper led with an AP shot of a grateful dad reuniting with his daughter.
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ATHENS MESSENGER
Athens, Ohio
Circulation: 10,000
Tiny Athens built a nice vertical package using a vertical crop of an AP parent + kid shot.
Nice job… except that loud stack of ads to the left drowns out the package. There’s not much a designer or an editor can do about that, I’m afraid.
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BLADE
Toledo, Ohio
Circulation: 113,786
And the Toledo paper led page one today with perhaps the weakest choice of all.
Pictures of police cars parked around a crime scene don’t tell us anything. Sometimes, though, it’s all you have. In this case, the Blade clearly had more to choose from.
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PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Circulation: 187,875
And lastly, we should note the front page of today’s Tribune-Review featuring what the caption says are pictures from the alleged shooter’s Twitter feed.
But there’s one little problem. That’s reportedly not the shooter. Vince Grzegorek of the Cleveland Scene reports today:
To be clear, the photos showing a teenager with two guns and a message that appears to read “02-26-12″ and “high school massacre” are not of TJ Lane. Chardon students themselves have tweeted that it’s not him.
But they’ve been dubbed as such by everyone from 19 Action News here in Cleveland to Alan Cox to Q104 to WBNQ in Bloomington, IN, not to mention about half of Twitter‘s users.
Find Grzegorek’s report here. Find Jim Romenesko‘s write-up here.
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The Cleveland pages are from the Plain Dealer. All the rest are from the Newseum. Of course.
