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Charles Apple: The Visual Side of Journalism

 

‘Industry woes’ archive

Number of comments in parentheses

Jan. 22: No, this is NOT a real front page from the Washington Post (17)

Have you seen this? It’s been making the rounds today. At first, it looks like a surreal juxtaposition — the kind I’ve been writing about lately (here and here). That looks nothing like the Washington Post you’ll find at the Newseum today. Most folks passing it around are claiming it’s an earlier edition. No, it’s not an earlier edition. It’s [...]

Jan. 22: Newsroom staffers receive iPhones; a visuals manager reacts (1)

I swore to someone, a while back, that I’d never ever post one of those ubiquitous Hitler rant videos. I lied. This one nails a very real problem we have in newspapers. Plus, it’s funny as shit. Enjoy: Thanks to David Sheets of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for tweeting about this today.

Jan. 18: Virginian-Pilot publisher earned bonus of ‘more than a quarter-million dollars’ (2)

Did you know the publisher of the Virginian-Pilot — Maurice Jones — has been nominated by the White House to become deputy secretary of the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development? Perhaps you did. Did you know that he sailed through his Senate confirmation hearings in November? Perhaps you knew that, too. Did you know that while the Pilot was [...]

Jan. 17: GateHouse Media to consolidate design, copy desks in Chicago and Boston (1)

GateHouse Media plans to consolidate design and copy editing functions of its newspapers to hubs in Chicago and Boston, a report says tonight. The first of the company’s 97 dailies to be moved to the hubs:  The Springfield, Ill., State Journal-Register and the Galesburg, Ill., Register-Mail. Design and copy editing desks of those two papers will be moved to Chicago [...]

Jan. 17: A few thoughts about the Great Online Protest Blackout of 2012 (6)

The great online blackout — aimed at protesting the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act and related legislation — begins tonight at midnight, Eastern Time. Or, at least, that’s when the blackout begins at Wikipedia. Where it will be observed for 24 hours. At Reddit, the blackout won’t begin until 8 a.m. Wednesday and will last only 12 hours. Twitter declined [...]

Jan. 12: The future of advertising and media (1)

Forget everything you’ve read about the future of media and advertising. I saw this brilliant, brilliant cartoon today by Zach Weiner of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. I can just about see this really happening… You saw it here first. Zach’s work is terrific. He posts daily. Find SMBC here.

Jan. 9: A little TOO much information, perhaps, about Twitter users (1)

Gavin Sheridan, innovation director of Storiful, blogs today about his attempts to put geocoded Twitter info to use in finding patterns that could be turned into stories. He ran searches on Twitter and fed the results into Datasift. What you’re seeing in the map below are 135,000 tweets over this past weekend from users who mentioned GOP candidates by name. [...]

Jan. 9: Roger Black gives a thumbs-down to changes in the Houston Chronicle (6)

Roger Black notes today that no one has written about the recent typographical changes made to the Houston Chronicle. He’s quite right. I try to note all redesigns and tweaks — big and small — here in the blog. But so many papers are making changes to make their looks compatible with design hub practices that it’s difficult to keep [...]

Jan. 5: Among those laid off by the Seattle Times: Jon Fisch and two photographers

The Seattle Times won seven SND awards last year, all in either photo or sports design. That’s why the news is rather stunning that, among the five layoffs the Times is making this winter, are: Jon Fisch, assistant sports editor/presentation Barry Fitzsimmons, director of photography Kevin Fujii, A1 and sports photo editor Also laid off: Two news clerks. Jon’s last [...]

Jan. 1: Name change kicks in for St. Pete Times

For the record, here is the first edition of today’s newly-renamed Tampa Bay Times: The editorial down the left side is about the name change. Which is a bit better than yesterday’s centerpiece, which I thought was rather overplayed. Read the editorial here. Here is today’s front, side-by-side with Friday’s edition:   And, of course, here are the nameplates: Here’s [...]

Dec. 28, 2011: Leaving the newspaper business: Craig Runyon of Eugene, Ore., Register-Guard (2)

Craig Runyon, a designer for the Register-Guard in Eugene, Ore., covered the news pretty well in a Facebook post today. So here it is, nearly verbatim: I’m about to embark on a life-changing event. I’m switching to decaf. I’m kidding. I’m not that stupid. Actually, I’m leaving journalism. After 15 years in the newspaper business, tens of thousands of pages [...]

Dec. 27, 2011: McClatchy considering consolidating copy desks of five California dailies

McClatchy is considering consolidating copy desk operations among its five California-based papers, reports Ed Fishbein of the Sacramento Bee newspaper guild. Fishbein reported last week: Bee human resources director Linda Brooks said that it wasn’t clear whether the desks would in fact be consolidated, or where that would happen if they were. But she did say that an announcement on [...]

Dec. 14, 2011: Boise’s Tony Briggmin leaving the newspaper business

Tony Briggmin — assistant sports editor of the Idaho Statesman of Boise — is moving back to his longtime home of Bellingham, Wash., and leaving newspapers, he announced today. Tony tells us: The job is Marketing Coordinator with Bellingham Whatcom County Tourism. I simply wanted to get back to a part of the country I am truly passionate about. Now [...]

Dec. 11, 2011: Internet filters need some civic responsibility

This isn’t exactly new — it was recorded at the TED conference in Long Beach, Calif., last February. But I’m just now seeing it and I thought I’d share it with you. We may have the story about the internet wrong… This is how the founding mythology goes, right? In a broadcast society, there were these gatekeepers; the editors. And [...]

Dec. 8, 2011: Via e-mail: A quick discussion of internet freedom, crappy government and generational pride (1)

Hey, I love my “job” blogging for you fine folks. Not only does it keep me sharp and productive, it also leads to some really cool conversations. Here’s one from this morning. (I’m editing these to match my usual formatting and to embed links and videos and such) — Hello! My name is Danielle Morris, I am currently a senior [...]

Dec. 7, 2011: Tips on how to handle page-one headlines and other display copy (successfully) on deadline (3)

Over the past week, I’ve shown you two front pages from the Ledger of Lakeland, Fla. — pages that contained fatal errors in “big type” on page one.   Last Thursday, the Ledger used the word “Medicare” in its lead headline. The problem was: The story was about Medicaid. Today’s error seemed ever worse. The lead story was about a [...]

Dec. 5, 2011: You just can’t please some readers (11)

Submitted for your approval: The Nov. 27 front page of the Northwest Herald, a 31,192-circulation daily in Crystal Lake, Ill., in the suburbs of Chicago. As you can see, the Northwest Herald had two big local stories to balance that day: A local high school football team won the state championship. And a plane crashed in the area, killing a family [...]

Dec. 3, 2011: The soundtrack to that cool anti-piracy commercial? It was pirated.

Have you seen this advertisement aimed at discouraging folks from internet media piracy? Perhaps not. I’m told it’s not really playing here in the U.S. But here’s the great part: The music for this ad was stolen. Downloading advocacy site TorrentFreak reports: It all started back in 2006, when the Hollywood-funded anti-piracy group BREIN reportedly asked musician Melchior Rietveldt to [...]

Dec. 3, 2011: Obtrusive ad alert… sort of

Check out this ad for Ford Motor Company on a news site called Masthead. Isn’t that horrible? But not so surprising, given current trends. And good luck finding the button to make it go away so you can read the freakin’ articles. But then check this news report about the ad: “They should be ashamed of themselves for letting us [...]

Dec. 2, 2011: The very latest in journalism chic: Editors who don’t actually exist (4)

Old school: Janet Cooke of the Washington Post loses her Pulitzer Prize and her job because she writes about an eight-year-old heroin addict who turns out to be a composite of several people. New school: Editors who are composites. Check out this staff bio posted at Vibrant Nation: Yeah, I know: Too small to read. Here’s the text: Susan Lee [...]

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