Charles Apple

I shouldn’t have been surprised when it happened. I’ve covered a number of stories over the past two decades that involve death and horror. It usually kicks in about three days later. I had never detected a pattern until 9/11. Now, that one was tough.

But it finally happened at breakfast on Friday, four days after the shootings.

I’m sitting at my favorite downtown joint, the D’egg Diner, when I see a TV clip of the Virginia Tech marching band standing in front of a Blacksburg hospital, playing the Tech fight song for student patients inside.

And, for some dumb reason, that gesture touches me. And I begin to cry.

Which is not what I’d prefer to do sitting in a restaurant in downtown Norfolk at 7 a.m.

Luckily, I’m able to regain control after a moment or two. Tanya gives me an odd look and asks if I want another Diet Pepsi. Monica brings my breakfast and comments that I look tired. Neither appear to notice my little lapse. Or, at least, neither mention it.

I feel pretty silly, but I have to give myself credit: It’s been a long, hard week. This was a much more local, much more personal story for The Virginian-Pilot than 9/11 had been for The Des Moines Register, back in 2001.

And what’s more, our paper kicked some major butt covering the story; bringing it home to our readers and giving them something to remember and to rally behind as the events of the week unfolded.

I’m so proud of my paper right now.

—

MONDAY

Today starts about as ordinary as a Monday can come — meaning I’m already overbooked. We had installed new typefaces the previous week and they had glitched badly. Our technical folks didn’t get the problem resolved until Friday afternoon. By then, it was too late for me to get my staff up to date on what I needed them to do over the weekend.

In addition, I had spent most of Friday working on a graphic that was doomed from the start. I had tried to ditch the project earlier in the week but succumbed to the accusation that I was being difficult. So I tried my best to make it work. Finally, Friday afternoon, another editor — bless her heart — stepped in, looked at the graphic and raised the same objections I had raised earlier.

So we killed it on the spot. That’s what I get for not following my instincts.

So Monday, I’m looking for a way to get back on schedule with our big graphics redesign push, as well as some administrative paperwork that’s seriously overdue.

The 10 a.m. news meeting is not extraordinary in the least. But when I return to my office, CNN Headline news is all over a dorm shooting on the campus of Virginia Tech.

Wow. I drop everything and turn up the sound on my TV.

A lot of Hampton Roads kids go to Tech. We cover the school routinely as local news — despite the fact that it’s much too far away to truly be local: Blacksburg, Va., which is a good five hours’ drive from Norfolk.

We’ll need a good campus map, I decide. So I jump online to see what I can find.

I go to Google to see if a clean aerial is available. It’s not good. My IT folks have yet to buy me the professional version of Google Earth — it’s still on the backburner — and I have no interest in low-resolution, so I make the call: We’ll go vector.

The first thing I discover is that Virginia Tech’s Web site is completely jammed. I can’t get anything out of it. I’m forced to resort to Google to hunt down various campus diagrams. I finally see one I think I can work from. Figuring a two-column ought to do it, I start tracing it right away.

—

Meanwhile, Headline News is prattling away. One shooting, probably domestic. Possibly two fatalities. Police are looking for the gunman.

Of the three artists I have working on Monday, Miranda Mulligan is in. I tell her to keep working on Sunday’s Jamestown anniversary graphics. I’ll let her know if I need her.

That is mistake No. 1. I should Miranda draw the map while I research information. But at the time, I had no idea the story would grow so large.

Before long, CNN is buzzing with more news. A second shooting on campus. A classroom building. Multiple casualties. I listen intently and I try to draw faster.

Shortly after noon, officials at Tech hold a press conference. You can hear the folks at the press conference gasp when the campus police chief says as many as 20 are dead.

Instead of handing over the map to Miranda, I compound my error by deciding to finish it myself. I ask Miranda to pull together a timeline of school shootings. I don’t know the numbers off the top of my head, but this would have to be among the biggest. Ann Johnson, who heads up our research department, walks by just then. I ask her to help Miranda.

Before long, we have three people compiling numbers of college and high-school shootings. Miranda has enough material for a serious list.

I also ask Miranda to build a piece showing the two buildings involved in the shootings: A dorm and a classroom building. Naturally, we don’t have floor plans or anything, but I noticed earlier there were photos online at the Tech library archive web site, which apparently resides on a different server than does the regular Tech web site. Miranda pulls some photos and some great factoids about the dorm, but we can’t find enough about the classroom building to make it work. After a while, I kill the graphic.

I’m furiously trying to finish my map, but there are a LOT of buildings at Tech. I really want to get done quickly so we can post this thing online.

I decide to cut a corner and leave out the parking lots. That’s something else I’ll regret later.

Even more importantly, I decide to skip lunch. That’s an even bigger mistake: I have type-two diabetes. When I miss a meal, it has a huge negative impact on me. I buy two small bags of Frito’s to give me some carbs, but I just don’t have the time to eat anything more.

—

The editor calls an emergency meeting in the conference room. We’re in there maybe a half-hour. How many reporter/photographer teams should we send? Some say one, others say two. I say send as many as we can. Denis Finley opts for two, plus a columnist. Some of our folks bolt for the door. Dave Word, our operations manager, is already making financial and rental car arrangements.

I’m pleased that everyone seems so sharp. This area isn’t exactly the breaking news capital of the world. I’ve wondered how well we’ll handle the big story when it occurs. We seem to be on top of it.

Naturally, we’d like a diagram showing what happened. I say I can’t promise that yet; hardly any hard news is coming out of Tech. We have a nice campus map on the way and a big timeline of school shootings. I have two more artists coming in soon. We’ll jump on things as they pop up. If we find out what happened, we can pair it with the map. Not a problem.

By the time I get back to my office, CNN has reported the death toll is now more than 30.

Jesus. I e-mail my wife, Sharon, to tell her I won’t be home tonight. Don’t wait up.

Bob Voros calls to see if he should come in. He worked Saturday, so he has today off.

The man does nothing but eat, sleep and work; sometimes I’m convinced he has no life at all. I tell him that the rest of us ought to be able to cover it. He insists and I insist he take his day off.

Bob also insists I check with our pal Don Naden, whose daughter is an engineering student at Tech.

Damn. I didn’t know. I throw down the phone and bolt out to Don’s desk. Don tells me his daughter missed her morning class, so she was in her dorm room when everything happened. She’s fine.

—

As my other two artists roll in — John Earle at 2 p.m. and Ken Wright at 3 — I tell them to jump on our other dailies and then be ready if I need their help. I ask Ken to pull a locator of Blacksburg.

By 3:30, CNN is no longer calling this the biggest school shooting of all time. It’s now the biggest shooting incident in U.S. history. So when I pitch my three graphics at the afternoon news meeting — “The 3:30 pod” — I’m told we don’t want the school shooting list. Instead, we’d rather have a list of the biggest shootings.

Damn. I’m not sure we can scrape that together quickly. I say I’ll see what we can do. Meanwhile, I have the campus map, which I’ve just about finished. Again, if we get details this afternoon on what happened, of course we’ll key them to the map.

I return to my office and pull Miranda off the graphic. Sorry. She takes it well.

Then, I discover Joanne Miller Long, graphics editor of The Charlotte Observer has called. Do I have a campus map they could use? Heh… As a matter of fact, I do. We chat briefly and I tell her she’s welcome to the map I just finished.

An unedited version. I later updated the text about the kids jumping out windows:

I tell her about the list we killed and she replies that MCT has already posted a list of the world’s largest gun incidents. Virginia Tech is ranked No. 2 in the history of the planet, MCT says. I thank her for the tip and I get someone to pull the graphic for me.

I shoot my map over to our online folks, who decide to keep using the one they had obtained from The Roanoke Times. So much for rushing.

So we’re nearly caught up. Campus map, with the two buildings involved pulled out: Check. List of notable gun incidents: Check. Tick-tock of what happend: Nothing yet to work from. But I’m planning to stay around all night. I can jump on it if I need to.

—

Around 4:30 or so, I get three or four e-mails from folks around the building: Have you seen this? Each of them direct me to the MSNBC web site, where they have constructed a nice timeline of the day’s events. I’m surprised that the AP hasn’t done this yet.

The AP graphics folks moved a number of maps and diagrams and are pretty much on top of things. AP photos have mostly consisted of stuff from The Roanoke Times, our sister paper. But so far, I’m really disappointed with the coverage from the AP reporting staff. I’m getting much better info from Roanoke, CNN, MSNBC and The Washington Post.

I’m most fascinated, however, with the blog the Tech college paper is posting. I later read that the Collegiate Times staff is holed up in classrooms and dorm rooms all over campus. Someone started a blog and they’re all contributing. There’s a rumor here and some hearsay there, but by reading the blog, one gets a real sense of what’s happening on campus.

Those college students were having the worst day of their lives. And they were responding by providing world-class news coverage. Just astounding.

I figure that between the MSNBC timeline and a few other reports, I can piece together a timeline. I’m a little nervous about using MSNBC as a starting point, though, so I bounce it off my managing editor, Maria Carillo, who’s been an enormous supporter of my work over the past few years. She gives me the thumbs-up: Use what I need as long as I attribute everything, of course.

—

My next stop is Nick Mrozowski, who’s putting together our inside Tech pages. He has my map already; Now I can offer him a timeline. He says he’d like to put the info into a rail — a text chronology, rather than a timeline. Fine with me, dude. I’ll run out for dinner and then piece together his text when I get back.

By this time, I’m feeling really, really bad. I’m really regretting missing lunch. I don’t want to lose an hour, but I really need to eat something. I hit the Wendy’s on Monticello for a double cheeseburger, fries and a frosty. That’s way too many carbs, but it perks me right up. I’m good for a few more hours.

By the time I return, MSNBC has updated their timeline. I pull in what text I like, throw a little rewrite here and there and I add material from The Roanoke Times and the Collegiate Times. I find a few valuable passages buried deep in an AP story, so I fold in that, too. I give the whole thing another edit and then e-mail it to Nick and Maria.

Maria responds almost immediately: Great job. It looks like I’m nearly done for the night.

—

I drop by the A1 pod to see what Robert Suhay has cooked up. They’re playing the big work “Massacre” across the top with a photo of a victim being carried to safety by police. I’m surprised we’re using a photo with so much blood — normally, we’re very skittish about such things. It’s a bold choice by our editor, managing editor and all the folks involved.

An even bolder choice is the decision to take the nameplate of the paper down to maybe a fourth of the size it would normally run. Everything above the photo is reversed out of black.

Wow. Terrific. I tell Robert he’s done it again.

When I get to Nick’s desk, though, Nick says there has been a change of plans. They want to run the text of the e-mails in one of the rails. They also have great quotes for another rail. They want the mass shooting list from MCT in yet another rail. Can I go back to Plan A and fold the chronology back with the map?

Certainly, I can. Nick thanks me for being flexible, but in fact, he’s done me a terrific favor: Yes, this means quite a bit more work, but it also means I can update the timeline text up until deadline. It also means I’ll now have something to do for the rest of the evening. So I’m delighted.

The first victim has been identified: Ryan Clark, 22, of Martinez, Ga. Wow. That’s “back home” for me. The Augusta Chronicle already has a story posted. Clark was the RA in the dorm where the first incident occurred. My wife, Sharon, was an RA when we were in Winthrop. With the very first I.D., this story begins hitting me a little closer.

—

I cut out a couple items from the timeline and I add a couple more. And, sure enough, just before deadline, I find yet another AP sidebar that turns me on. I use a couple sentences and I ship the piece to the copy desk by 10 p.m.

By now, I’m feeling bad again. I really, really shouldn’t have skipped lunch. That really messed me up for the rest of the day. Luckily, we really are done. John Earle goes home for the night. Ken will stay until 11 p.m.

Brian and J.J. mark up the timeline and bring it back. I make the changes, print a fresh copy and take it back to them. I keep typing West Ambler Johnston Hall as “West Amber Johnson Hall.”

On a story like this, you can’t be thorough enough. I’ll push as many copies at them as they’ll read.

Finally, J.J. tells me we’re good to go. I ship the timeline into DTI so Nick can place it on the page. Both Brian and J.J. tell me they feel sure that’s it for tonight. I probably should stick around, but my God, it’s been a long day. I’m beat like a bad dog. So I decide to call it a night.

I glance at the clock as I walk out the door. Eleven p.m. Fifteen and one-half hours. I don’t even remember the drive home.

By the time I wind down enough to sleep, it’s nearly 3 a.m. My alarm usually goes off at 5:15. To hell with that.

—

TUESDAY

Yeah, it’d help if I were at work at my usual time. But I’m too old to pull a double shift and then reappear at 7:30. I stay in bed until 9 a.m.

On the way in, I stop and buy every paper I can find: The New York Times. The Washington Post. USA Today. The Richmond Times-Dispatch. I stop at a Chick-Fil-A to eat an early lunch and scan how everyone else has covered the story.

Richmond has a powerfully emotive photo above the fold. Ten pages of coverage inside, heavy on the photos. One big graphic, including a three-column campus map — they don’t have any more detail that I had — and a vector rendering of the outside of Norris Hall.

The Times graphic is nearly a half-page, including a timeline, a one-and-a-half column campus map, an aerial and a isometric drawings of Norris and West Ambler Johnston halls. Very nice, but it’s clear they didn’t have a lot to work with. My pals at The Post run a three-column color campus map, similar to what I drew — except no timeline.

The largest graphic of the day is by USA Today. Their campus map is skewed to give a 3D effect. They extrude three or four buildings for emphasis. And they run half-page. Below is another rendering of the outside of Norris Hall. I see everyone found the same aerial photos we found at the Virginia Tech library site.

USA Today also spends about a third of a page showing the entire text of the four e-mails sent out by the university Monday. I wonder about that, but I agree the e-mails seem to be the story of the day. Overall, a nice job by the six USA Today staffers listed in the credit line.

So OK, the larger staffs produced larger graphics than we did. But no one totally kicked our butts. I drive the rest of the way to work feeling great about Tuesday’s paper.

—

The first thing I do is scan the news. There are developments. The killer is known. As injured students recover from their shock, they’re telling their stories. Many, many first-hand acounts are rolling in.

Most of all, however, we’re getting identities of the victims.

At 1 p.m., we meet in the conference room. We’ll expend most of our space and energy today honoring the victims. Senior editor Candy Hatcher is back today; she’s heading up our efforts to track down all the names and photos. Man, is she working hard on that.

We’ll have six open pages in tomorrow’s Pilot. We’ll have photos and thumbnail bios of every victim we can identify. We’ll have a color doubletruck of photos of vigils and the convocation that President Bush is attending today. We’ll also put together a big story on the shooter, who was from Centreville, Va., just west of D.C. — we have a reporter en route. And we’ll have something about the guns the shooter used.

It seems like a people-story day. Not much need for infographics. I tell them we’ll offer a locator of Centreville and a graphic on the guns.

As I return to my desk, I’m glad I’m getting off easy. I’m still worn out from Monday.

—

I ask Miranda to research the two guns used Monday — both were pretty heavy-duty handguns. She gets started. I ask Ken Wright to locate Centreville.

I answer an e-mail from a large paper asking me if I have floor plans of the two buildings. No, and I don’t have anyone in Blacksburg looking for them, I reply. A little later, I get a call from another graphic artist asking the same question — an artist whose work I’ve admired for years. I revert to fanboy mode chatting with her. But no, I have no floorplans. If anyone can get them, I tell her, it’d be The New York Times.

Speaking of lending resources, there’s a message from Charlotte thanking me for my help with the map. The folks at the Observer colorized the map and made it look really cool. I’m delighted they found it useful.

Charlotte’s version of my map:

Also, I hear phones are ringing off the hook with folks complaining about our A1 photo. Some are upset at the graphic nature of the photo — we expected that. But apparently, the rumor is all over town that the gunshot victim’s penis is visible in the photo.

Photo by Alan Kim/The Roanoke Times:

I like to pride myself on having the dirtiest mind around. I look back at A1. I don’t see it. But folks are calling anyway. We’re told Denis is writing something for Wednesday’s paper.

Read what Denis wrote here:
http://home.hamptonroads.com/blog/threads.cfm?page=303&page_id=6852&uid=116#top6852

Read about Kevin Sterne, the student in that photo, here:
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=123099&ran=180064

I check the wires. Nothing much is on the AP budget yet, but MCT has already moved a nice two-column graphic on the guns. I call Miranda off the chase, but not before she’s found three or four interesting factoids. I ask Bob Voros to merge Miranda’s text with the MCT piece.

At our daily 3:30 A1 pod meeting, it’s confirmed that today will be the day to focus on the victims. We won’t need additional graphics tonight.

Denis tells the meeting that he wants something very, very special for Wednesday. Something with as much impact as Sam Hundley’s famous 9/11 page, he says. Something clean, something dramatic.

I glance over at Robert Suhay, who again has A1 duty tonight. It’s a tough assignment, but it doesn’t seem to faze him a bit.

—

When large stories break, I’m in the habit of pulling 50 or 60 front pages from the Newseum and taping them to the large glass wall in front of my office. Folks love comparing what other papers around the country are doing — especially on a day like today, when it seems like 80 percent of the nation used the same lead art.

I pulled all the pages and print them out, but it takes me most of the day, working off-and-on, to get them mounted. Folks keep sticking their head in door to the department and thanking me for the display.

Glad to be of service.

Read the main VizEds thread about Tuesday front pages here:
http://www.visualeditors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6354

Will Virginia Tech affect the way we cover the war? It’s debated here:
http://www.visualeditors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6361

By 5 p.m., I’m pretty much done for the day. I’m still dragging. Should I leave early? What if another facet of this story breaks? I decide instead to take care of a large chart for later this week. At least I ate a decent lunch today. I can last a while longer.

I check by the A1 desk to see how Robert is doing. Looks like they’re trying to assemble a page listing every victim. Candy has assembled a large list from every wire source she can find, but we’re still several short. Robert plans to use the name and a sentence about each out front; photos and bios will go inside.

He tells me he might need some help from our designated illustrator, John Earle. We have a few non-Tech-related assignments in, but nothing too taxing. I tell him there’s no problem. Robert clearly has a long way to go tonight. I’ll get out of his hair.

I tell my staff I’m going home to crash. Call me if you need me. As I walk out the door, I glance at the clock. Ten minutes until 6 p.m. I normally try to leave by 6. So much for getting out early.

Sharon is surprised to find me home on time. I’m really dragging. She’s fixing shrimp. It’ll be ready shortly. I change and check my e-mail to discover yet another e-mail from a graphics editor looking for floor plans. I repeat my apology and my joke: It’ll be those guys at the NYT who get floor plans.

I eat some shrimp, check the wires again and fall into bed. I’m asleep by 8 p.m.

—

WEDNESDAY

I’m at the D’egg Diner by my usual 7 a.m. But instead of just a Pilot, I’m there with all the papers. I have to check out what everyone did.

The Pilot is stunning. Suhay — with help from lots of others, I’m certain — pulled off a masterpiece. The ribbon, the roll call of names, the white space, the white nameplate… It’s just perfect.

We’re only missing one victim name. Candy Hatcher deserves a medal for her work.

Most everyone else is going with mugs of the shooter or photos of kids watching the Tuesday convocation on the big scoreboard at the football stadium.

Richmond leads with a question head. They ten pages of coverage, including a page of victims and several compelling first-hand accounts by witnesses and wounded students. Like us, their only graphics are a Centreville locator and a two-column gun graphic.

USA Today has less coverage than I would have thought. Their only graphic is a two-column gun graphic.

The Post runs the obligatory gun piece but also runs a map that takes up nearly a half-page. Not only does the map show nice detail, it’s paired with a timeline — not unlike the one I did for Tuesday. I keep telling myself they didn’t have much more Wednesday than I gave readers Tuesday, but somehow, I keep looking at that map and wondering if I should have insisted on one for today, too.

When I pick up The New York Times, however, I nearly fall out of my chair. My wisecrack has come true: They got the floorplans to both Norris and Ambler Johnston halls. To my relief, they don’t have a lot of detail yet about what happened inside the buildings.

Hey, I know we can’t go head-to-head with The New York Times on a story like this. But I’d like to keep from getting my ass kicked.

At least that makes like easier for me today: I won’t have to find floorplans. We’ll just buy the graphic off the NYT wire. To hell with it.

—

As soon as I’m in, I sketch out a plan. I want to take a full page tonight and build a huge piece that incorporates everything I can find.

I’ll use the NYT building diagrams. I’ll also use a big campus map — more detailed than the one I ran Tuesday, but perhaps tilted at an angle like USA Today did that first day.

Most importantly, however, I want to take all the eye-witness accounts I’ve seen — and there are dozens of them out there — and, as best I can, reconstruct the entire day. On one page, we’ll recap the entire day for readers.

I start researching the page right away. I’ll sell the idea later.

I mine sentences and facts from every wire story I can find. I use stuff from everywhere. I’m careful to write down each source — I want to attribute everything.

One story that really strikes me is that of Shaozhuo Cui, a photographer for the Collegiate Times. He was shooting pictures in front of the main administration building, next to Norris Hall, Monday when campus police realized he matched the profile of the shooter. They arrested him in full sight of other photographers. He wasn’t released until hours later. I remember seeing photos by The Roanoke Times and wondering who this guy was.

Photos by Alan Kim/The Roanoke Times:

The Collegiate Times later posted an interview with Cui and then Richmond ran a nice story about him today. We’ve not had it yet. I want to put it into my piece.

Read the Collegiate Times piece about Cui here:
http://www.collegemedia.com/stories/4-17-07/news/shaozhuo-rivera.html

While I’m absorbing everything, I come across a story that says that Friday will be a day of remembrance for all the victims. They’re asking everyone to wear Virginia Tech colors on Friday.

Damn. I have some orange Clemson stuff, but I’m not a Tech fan in the least. I have nothing suitable. And I’ll be much too busy today to run out and look for something in my enormous size. I fire off an e-mail to Sharon, begging her to run to the mall as soon as she’s out of school, to buy Tech shirts for herself, Elizabeth and me.

—

At the 10 a.m. staff meeting, I inform the other editors of our full-page recap. The editors are cool with it.

My plan is to have Miranda deal with my art elements and to get Bob Voros to build the graphic itself. I’ll spend all my time today on just writing and art direction.

When Miranda comes in, I ask her to download the NYT piece. I need the 3D renderings of Ambler Johnston Hall and especially Norris Hall. For some reason, the placed images come in tiled. Miranda fixes them up for me so they’ll be easier to use.

The NYT wire graphic, with only the fonts changed:

I’d love to use the map I drew Monday, but — you may recall — I left out all the sidewalks. Later, the AP moved a map with more detail. My wish is for Miranda to take the AP map, extrude the buildings and highlight the ones I’ll need to point to. Then, tilt the map at an angle. Not only with the 3D give the map some immediacy, it’ll also take up less space.

Miranda’s 3D campus map:

Today is the last day Miranda and her boyfriend will be together: He’s moving to Chicago to work for RedEye. Instead of asking for a day off, she’s in there building elements for my graphic. What a trooper.

I’m busy again today, but I really don’t want to skip lunch again like I did Monday. I run downstairs for a cheeseburger.

When Bob comes in, the poor guy looks like hell. Before I can tell him what we’re doing, he asks if there is any way he can go home early tonight. OK, change of plans. I’ll cut Bob loose early and I’ll build the page myself. Not a problem.

—

I start piecing together what I have and I find I’ve filled a page nicely. I didn’t get in nearly as much new material as I had hoped, but it still makes a compelling story when it’s all placed together. Miranda really rocks, getting the elements to me. I’m so glad she’s on my side.

I give a copy of my raw, undedited text to my copy editor for the night, Lauren Antonelli. It’s just text with no graphic, but this way, she won’t be blind-sided when she gets the completed piece in a few hours.

Sharon calls to make me promise I’ll take a dinner break. She says when other teachers at her school heard what she was doing, many of them gave her cash to buy them stuff, too. She went to two big sporting-goods stores and both were nearly out of Tech shirts. She picked up stuff for her friends, Elizabeth and herself, but couldn’t find anything my size. She tried the big-and-tall store up the street and got me a maroon-colored golf shirt.

That’s the best she could do, she says. It’ll do. I tell her I’m grateful for her trouble. She thanks me for the tip — the teachers are all eager to join the tribute.

Just as I’m heading out to Wendy’s, NBC shows the video the shooter sent them after the early murders in the dorm but before the classroom incident. New material for my page.

We have reporters talking to our local eye-witnesses, so I’m hoping to fold a sentence or two from each of them into my page. But when the stories come in, none of them mention which classroom, exactly, they were in. And our reporters have worked so hard and so long, I decide not to call them to inquire. I have plenty without them.

The evening becomes a blur. I have troubles arranging the text boxes around the Norris Hall cutaway we bought from the NYT wire. We still don’t know which rooms were shot up first, so I try to tell the most compelling story I can.

I want readers to see the blurb about room 207 first, because the descriptions from kids in that room suggest to me it might have been one of the first attacked. And I want room 211 to be the last copy block, because that was definitely the end of the story. The gunman shot and killed himself there.

Naturally, though, I don’t want my pointer boxes to point across each other. I struggle with the Norris Hall section; The rest of the page falls into place easily.

When I try to pull the photos of Cui — the Collegiate Times photographer — I can’t find them in the system. Martin Smith-Rodden takes a moment from his busy night to download the missing photo from AP and ship it my way.

—

After I plug in a couple of photos, I find I’m ready for Lauren to read them. I send multiples to the printer. It’s 10 p.m.

We go through multiple edits, just like we did Monday. One point of contention is the precise timing of the e-mails the university administration sent out. It seems different sources are listing different times, mismatching by a minute or two. That’s easy enough to fix. And I see I’m still typing Ambler as “Amber.” Thanks for the catch.

It’s right about now that someone tells me to check The Washington Post wire. The Post has moved a detailed reconstruction of Monday’s events.

Read it here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/18/AR2007041802824.html

Damn, damn, damn. They’ve done just what I did, except they did it in narrative form. I pull a copy and devour it with an eye as to what I’ve left out.

To my amazement, they’ve not beaten me by much. It’s a rich, detailed narrative. The writer, David Maraniss, weaves together a lot of threads. But although he has a lot of things I wish I had — the quote used in his headline: “That was the desk I chose to die under” being one of them — I also discover that my own tapestry, keyed to the map and diagrams, has a power of its own.

We differ completely on two facts: The time of day the shooter got up Monday morning and the time of evening police arrived at the shooter’s suite in Harper Hall. I feel pretty good about my sources and I have sufficient qualifiers in place. We decide to leave the graphic as it is.

I ship it to Nick at 11 p.m. I decide to stick around, just in case there are changes. I use the time to clean up the mess I’ve made of my desk and to get caught up on e-mail. I leave the Pilot around 12:30.

—

I feel much better than I did Monday, but I’m still pretty tired. I’m usually in bed by 10 p.m., so this is pretty late for me. As I exit the Chesapeake Expressway and head west on Mount Pleasant Road, I’m looking forward to climbing into bed.

I’m not paying attention at all when the blue lights go off behind me.

Oh, my God. I must be swerving all over the road. This cop must think I’m drunk.

I put on my blinker but wait until I have a large, well-lit area in which to pull over. The officer carefully walks up to the window of my PT Cruiser. Do you have any idea how fast you were going?

Speeding. Not swerving. I stifle the urge to laugh with relief. No sir, I don’t know. It’s been a very long day and a very long week. I’m anxious to get home and I wasn’t watching the signs at all.

He checks my license and registration and lets me off with a warning. “But go home and get some rest,” he tells me.

Wow. Just a warning. Unbelievable.

I drive home — more slowly than usual — reflecting on the strange luck that sustains us in the world of visual journalism.

—

THURSDAY

The week has really worn me down. This time, I don’t even try to get up until after 10 a.m.

On the way in, I stop for papers again. My usual joint is sold out of everything I want — they’re even low on The Virginian-Pilot.

I stop at a 7-Eleven down the street. I find a Post, but no Times or USA Today. I stop at a second 7-Eleven. Again, nothing. The second 7-Eleven is completely out of Virginian-Pilots. A third has only a few Pilots but nothing else.

I run into Barnes & Noble at the same mall where Sharon bought her T-shirts Wednesday. Finally, I find a NYT and a USA Today.

I sit down at a Burger King to eat a Whopper and look over the day’s visual journalism.

The Pilot is quite nice. It’s a much more conventional front than we ran Tuesday or Wednesday, but that’s what the news called for.

Inside, we have several pages of compelling people stories. Nick designed a motif in which we re-ran mugs of the victims atop most of our Tech-related pages. The last of our Tech pages is a page with the jump of the shooter news — the NBC angle was quite big — leaving the right-hand page for my graphic.

I’m very impressed with it all. Even my graphic. Just perfect, all the way through.

The Post’s treatment of their long narrative reconstruction is masterful. The story begins atop A1, then jumps to A12. From there, it jumps page-by-page until coming to an end on A15. Sprinkled through are photos from Monday and simple floor plan diagrams of a couple of the buildings. Across the bottom of A15 is an aerial photo of campus with the key buildings called out.

Well done, Post. That is the perfect way to handle that long, incredibly rich narrative.

USA Today ran a half-page timeline, but they built theirs around an aerial photo. Accompanying it was a cut-away isometric vector drawing of Norris Hall, not unlike the NYT piece I used. At first I think it was perhaps drawn from the NYT graphic, but the perspective is slightly different. They must have found the floor plans.

USA Today avoided the pointer-box problem I ran into by simply pulling out one box with all the room-by-room descriptions in one copy block. Much cleaner than my solution.

I wince when I open the Times. What will they have today? They have a more detailed 3D rendering of the second floor of Norris Hall, with a list of victims called out each room. Not bad at all. but I figured they’d have more.

Richmond baffles me. Their graphic is quite large — Four columns by 12 inches. But they filled that space with a large campus map and then isometric renderings of the outside of Norris, Burris, Harper and AJ halls. The graphic really didn’t do much more than their Tuesday piece had done.

I sit back, taking a moment to be satisfied with our work. We had a national story break in what we consider our backyard, yet it happened all the way on the other side of a very large state. Although I wasn’t able to send a graphics reporter to the scene, we’ve managed to hold our own against the big boys.

Most of all, though, we were able to tell important graphic stories on the days we needed to tell them. Even if I had a set of floor plans and could have drawn them in time for Wednesday’s paper, where would we have put them? Nuts-and-bolts would have disrupted the solemn, victim-oriented tone we set in that day’s paper.

So I feel pretty good. We did our readers right.

—

After the full-pager for today, I didn’t really see much more we could do for Friday. I pitch no graphics at all for the Friday edition. Instead, our design team goes with a “Hokie Nation” theme to tie into the maroon-and-orange thing that was happening.

It’s about now that I hear about the online rumblings about the Pilot’s work this week. I’ve been so busy that I’ve not had a chance to log on to VisualEditors.com or check out NewsDesigner. There are nice threads at both, praising the Pilot for Wednesday’s ribbon front. Bonita Burton posted it at VizEds under the title, “The most gorgeous piece of visual journalism I’ve ever seen.”

Wow.

Similarly, Alan Jacobson just goes bananas over it at his daily BFD page. “Again and again and again, The Pilot shows the rest of the industry – and the rest of the world – how to raise newspapering to a high art, with pages that are truly moving,” Alan writes. “It’s a pity other newspapers haven’t caught on. Only the Pilot repeatedly approaches poetry in its storytelling.

“No other paper speaks so powerfully, so eloquently, so often.”

I splice together an e-mail with urls to all these sites and I send it to several of our editors and designers. They seem pleased for the notice but — as is the custom here at The Pilot — they seem much more comfortable discussing what we’re going to do tomorrow.

Read NewsDesigner’s post — and lots of comments — here:
http://www.newsdesigner.com/archives/002747.php

Read Alan Jacobson’s BFD for Wednesday here:
http://www.bestfrontdesign.com/041807.html

Read the VizEds thread started by Bonita Burton here:
http://www.visualeditors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6359

Meanwhile, I’m getting plenty of love of my own. Throughout the day, folks from all over the building drop by to tell me how much they admired the full-pager. An advertising rep even brings a client up to meet me. I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before.

I spend the half-day I work Thursday getting caught up on weekend work. I manage to leave on time.

When I walk in the door, Sharon informs me that I kicked ass today.

That was probably the highest compliment of all.

—

FRIDAY

I find a bright orange T-shirt to wear beneath the new maroon shirt Sharon bought me. I feel downright fashionable.

I’m at my usual morning breakfast haunt, D’egg Diner, by 7 a.m., my usual time. Normally, I eat there five days a week. Today, however, is only my third meal here this week.

I run through the stack of papers to see if we missed any graphic opportunities. The New York Times shows me one of the most disgusting quotes imaginable — from talk radio host Neal Boortz:

Mr. Boortz, whose program is broadcast from Atlanta to more than 150 stations, suggested that some responsibility for the extent of the shooting lay with some of the victims, most of whom were shot in classrooms and hallways.

“When the history of this event is written,” Mr. Boortz said Wednesday, “we will have 25 students standing meekly waiting for this guy to execute them. Waiting for what? The government to come save them.”

A few moments later, as a transition to a commercial break, Mr. Boortz paused to play a snippet of a pop song from the 1980s. His choice? “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” by Pat Benatar.

See it for yourself here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/us/20radio.html

It seems like the story is winding down. The Post, The Times and USA Today have cut back on the space they’re devoting to the shootings.

Only The Richmond Times-Dispatch still contains nine pages of coverage. Their front consists of a ribbon, mug shots of all the victims and a different treatment for their nameplate. Alan Jacobson says unflattering things about it on his BFD page. Ouch.

I feel bad for them. I like their page — a lot. They simply have the misfortune of being two days behind what The Pilot did. I also really, really like the Friday front of The Roanoke Times.

Alan is comparing their work to that of Robert Suhay (designer), Paul Nelson (design director), Deb Withey (DME), and our leadership team of folks like Denis Finley and Maria Carrillo. You won’t find a better team for innovative front pages anywhere.

It was a difficult week for everyone at the Pilot. But again, we did our readers right — both on A1 and on the inside graphics work I was a part of.

And serving our readers is what it’s all about.

—

SUNDAY

My dad calls me every weekend to check up on me. This week is no different. He asks how it went this week with all the Virginia Tech coverage.

I tell him about the high points and the low points. And then I tell him he ought to check out the blog. I just posted it, I tell him. I don’t mention that haven’t really thought of a great way to end my post.

Dad launches into telling me what’s going on in Augusta. You may remember that the residence hall assistant killed at West Ambler Johnston Hall was from Martinez, Ga. The Virginia Tech marching band played at Ryan Clark’s memorial service Saturday.

From today’s Augusta Chronicle:

“Go Tech! Go Tech!” the band shouted twice while performing an upbeat song of school pride.

“H-O-K-I-E-S,” band members spelled out. “Hokies!”

Soon enough, the crowd of more than 1,000 people was standing and clapping along.

It was the day to remember the 22-year-old triple major who many said was best known for his trademark “electric smile” and was one of the first two people shot in Monday’s massacre, in which 33 people died at Virginia Tech. Mr. Clark was to attend graduation ceremonies and celebrate his 23rd birthday next month.

Read the story here:
http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/042207/met_125734.shtml

“There were about 100 or 120 of them,” Dad says. “Chick-Fil-A bought them lunch. T-Bones donated supper. The whole town pulled together to support them. We just can’t believe the marching band would come all the way down here for a funeral.”

That’s not just any marching band, Dad. Those guys are Hokies.

And God bless ‘em. Every one.

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