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Charles Apple: The Visual Side of Journalism

 

‘Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot-News’ archive

Number of comments in parentheses

June 18: You can’t even spell the name of your parent company? Seriously?

You all know I’ve been critical of my friends at Advance Publications and their decision to print several of their formerly daily newspapers only three days a week. And Advance made the choice to downsize its work force. So I have a little less tolerance of dumbass mistakes like dummy headlines and whatnot in Advance papers these days. I’m also [...]

May 21: A look at today’s notable Oklahoma tornado front pages (2)

In the future, whenever you think of the horrifying tragedy Monday in Oklahoma, you’ll remember this image: That was shot in Moore, Okla., by Sue Ogrocki of the Associated Press. Sue’s first-person story is downright chilling: I expected chaos as I approached the piles of bricks and twisted metal where Plaza Towers Elementary once stood. Instead, it was calm and [...]

March 14: A look at today’s Pope front pages (3)

[Freshly updated with a few more credits that rolled in throughout the day Thursday...] As you know, we have a new Pope. He’s from Argentina and is the first Pope ever from the Americas. As you might imagine, papers in Argentina went crazy with the story today. But you can spot right away why I’m reluctant to spend a lot [...]

March 10: Perhaps the most honest op-ed headline ever (2)

Anyone can make an error leaving dummy text on a live page. I’ve even done it myself. (Got fired for it, in fact. Long story. Perhaps I’ll tell you about it sometime.) But if there’s one paper that really shouldn’t make a mistake like this, it’s a paper that’s cut back to publication only three days a week and has [...]

Oct. 26, 2012: How East-coast newspapers played the ‘Frankenstorm’ today (2)

I’ve been reading for days now about the tropical storm in the Caribbean that was going to head up this way next. But it’s been so cold at night here in Virginia Beach that I’ve not been taking the threat seriously. Tropical storms just don’t venture into cold water. Do they? But it was hard to miss this big display [...]

Aug. 26, 2012: A look at today’s Neil Armstrong front pages (4)

Most folks did pretty well on page one today. There were relatively few mistakes and flubs. I’ve love to take credit for helping that happen — with my post yesterday afternoon — but, most likely, all the folks out there in newspaper design land have simply become more aware of the common pitfalls. My hat is off to you all. [...]

July 1, 2012: A baker’s dozen of interesting, illustrative page-one treatments

Oh there was some fabulous work out there on the front of the nation’s newspapers today. Let’s take a look at a few of the more illustrative ones, shall we? — KANSAS CITY STAR Kansas City, Mo. Circulation: 200,365 The story in Kansas City today is about how a four-year-old girl was found malnourished, and taken from her mother. A [...]

June 29, 2012: The good, the bad and the most interesting health-care court ruling front pages (7)

One of the reasons I love the little 26,531-circulation Victoria (Texas) Advocate is because the paper does a pretty great job now. But it’s always looking to do better. Case in point: I heard this morning via Twitter from Chris Cobler, the editor of the Advocate. Chris writes: And my reply is: You did pretty well today, Chris. You recognized [...]

June 26, 2012: A look inside Harrisburg’s Jerry Sandusky verdict edition from Saturday

I had a few technical issues with my blog Friday night and most of the day Saturday. In addition, I also had a client in town for infographic and design tutoring. As a result, I didn’t get any Jerry Sandusky pages posted at all Saturday. Instead of looking at pages that Poynter’s Julie Moos already posted, let’s take a closer [...]

April 17, 2012: How Pulitzer-winning newspapers played their prizes on page one (2)

— UPDATE – 2:10 p.m. Links to winning entries added. — Granted, it’s a big deal when a news organization wins a Pulitzer Prize. It shows the commitment your newspaper has made to excellence — especially important when nearly everyone is cutting back on reporters, copy editors, photographers and designers. So you really can’t blame a paper for pushing its [...]

March 7, 2012: A look at today’s front-page Super Tuesday graphics (2)

Lately, I’ve done a lot of writing about election charts. Especially regarding what you might and might not want to try to show, graphically, during the primaries. I’m finding a lot of papers out there building huge map displays when, quite frankly, the story at this point of the election cycle isn’t about states or electoral votes. The story is [...]

Jan. 23, 2012: A look at today’s Joe Paterno pages (1)

Former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno held on overnight Saturday but then passed away Sunday morning. Despite all the bad stuff we’ve reported over the past few weeks, Paterno was at Penn State many, many years — he was named head coach in 1966. He is the winningest coach in NCAA football history. And he’s a beloved figure in [...]

Jan. 22, 2012: A nice compliment from Esquire magazine

By now, you’ve probably heard about the new issue of Esquire magazine. Former president Bill Clinton takes on the topic of achieving consensus and why that’s seemingly become a lost art. It’s a great interview, in fact. Read it here. There’s a cute little sidebar, however, called “78 other things we can all agree on.” I can’t find that online. [...]

Jan. 22, 2012: A quick look at a few Joe Paterno front pages (3)

By now, you know Joe Paterno — longtime football coach at Penn State and somewhat tarnished, suddenly, by the child rape scandal that made news in November — has passed away. If you didn’t see it, this was the home page at the CBS Sports web site for a few minutes last night, before Paterno died: I’m not going to [...]

Nov. 13, 2011: A look at Sunday’s Penn State football front pages (3)

Saturday marked the first Penn State University football game since 1949 that Joe Paterno wasn’t on the sidelines and the first since 1966 in which he wasn’t head coach for the Nittany Lions. This was traumatic to players and Penn State fans. Others, of course, were quick to point out that this wasn’t nearly as traumatic as what happened to [...]

Nov. 8, 2011: Behind Harrisburg’s full-page editorial front page (3)

Today’s the Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa., responded to the heartbreaking sex abuse scandal in the Penn State University athletic department with a full-page editorial Click for a readable view: Editor David Newhouse tells us: It’s a rework of the inspired 9-11 front from our sister paper, The Star-Ledger. If front page designs had credits, we would have loved to have [...]

Oct. 8, 2011: A look at Saturday’s baseball playoff pages (3)

It’s past time for our daily look at baseball playoff pages. National League teams clinched trips to the league championship series last night. _________________________________________ ST. LOUIS CARDINALS 1, PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES 0 Cardinals win series, 3-2 — ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH St. Louis, Mo. Circulation: 196,232 The obligatory locker room champagne celebration shot afront the Post-Dispatch is by staffer Chris Lee. — [...]

Sept. 13, 2011: An amazing coincidence regarding Harrisburg’s 9/11 page (1)

You’re never going to believe this. Yet, it’s true. David Newhouse — editor of the Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa. — writes: On Sept. 11, 2001, Maria Behr from the Harrisburg area was working as a securities trader at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center. She was one of 658 employees of the firm who perished when the north tower [...]

Sept. 12, 2011: Today’s best 9/11 anniversary front (1)

There was a lot of great work published yesterday. A lot of it I reviewed in my marathon blog post last night. A lot of it showed up in galleries posted by Julie Moos of the Poynter Institute and by Yahoo News. And there was a lot of it I didn’t see — I really wish I could have gotten [...]

Sept. 10, 2011: More great work showing the flooding in Pennsylvania

First of all, please accept my apologies for showing only pages from Harrisburg last night. I had intended to post pages from around the state but my epic on how college newspapers around the country are remembering 9/11 took up quite a bit more time that I had anticipated. Therefore, today’s post will include Pennsylvania pages from both Friday and [...]

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