Charles Apple

Once upon a time, I wanted to be an editorial cartoonist.

That shouldn’t really surprise any of you who know me. After all, what is an edtiorial cartoonist but a professional smart ass? You have to admit, I’m eminently qualified.

I spent a couple years drawing cartoons for the two Morris-owned dailies in Athans, Ga.: The morning Daily News and the afternoon Banner-Herald. I got into graphics, really, as just a way to pay the bills until I caught on and got my shot at the cartooning big-time.

More than two decades later, I’m grateful for my career in graphics and design. I only really miss the cartooning when I think of an incredibly tacky one-liner on the day’s news. Which is only three or four times a day.

Would I have eventually received a shot at a full-time cartooning gig? Probably not. Check out this excerpt from a recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review. The italics are mine:

Since 1957 the number of full-time newspaper doodlers has fallen from 275 to eighty-four, with most cuts coming since 1980, according to the [Association of American Editorial Cartoonists]. Today less than one-tenth of American newspapers have staff cartoonists. That means that a baby born today is roughly five times more likely to play in the NBA than draw full-time for a newspaper.

Tony Dokoupil continues:

…At a time when the “fake” news of The Daily Show and the false certainty of “answer” shows like Lou Dobbs Tonight are ascendant, it’s surprising that newspapers aren’t expanding their investment in smart cartoons. After all, editorial cartoons offer a print equivalent of easy-to-absorb punditry and satire, and in this multimedia world, are ideally suited for the Web.

Because a) it’s cheaper to buy cartoons from a syndicate. And b) many editors prefer to avoid controversy, Dokoupil writes.

And that’s a shame. A home-grown editorial cartoon is a great way to provoke thought in a community. If we’re going to focus on local content, local cartoons are a great way to do that.

Read the story yourself in CJR:
http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/newspapers_are_killing_cartoon.php

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In my presentation last summer in Orlando, I happened to include a number of examples of work by Patrick Garvin.

Although I prominently featured several pieces of Mr. Garvin’s Myrtle Beach Sun News work, the little sunuvagun managed to walk out of the room before I showed his slides. Can you believe that? That’s gratitude for you.

And, of course, Patrick has gone on to become a big graphics star at the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville.

I’ll be speaking at the Atlanta QuickCourse on Saturday, June 23. You can’t get up and walk out on me if you don’t sign up to attend in the first place!

Also speaking will be Cassie Armstrong of The Orlando Sentinel and several folks from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, including Kenny Monteith, Dee Dee D’Assaro, Rick Crotts, Minla Shields and my old buddy Michael Dabrowa.

Dee Dee will talk about how to survive change in the newsroom — which hits home with our hosts; they’re reorganizing their newsroom at this very moment. Mikey and Minla and others will show us how to strengthen the connection between our print and online operations. Kenny will speak on Alternative Story Forms. Cassie will cover design for inside pages. I’m speaking on the proactive graphics department.

My official session description:

In this time of newsroom cutbacks, your “art department” has to be more than just a place to get locator maps, logos and icons. The only way we’ll survive into the next decade is to push content, content, content. Turn your “graphics geeks” into a resourceful, powerful content-driven visual journalism operation. Leading the way: Graphics geek Charles Apple, The Virginian-Pilot graphics director

As if all that wasn’t enough, consultant Chris Kelley — formerly of DallasNews.com — will speak on industry trends like targeted readers, micro sites and niche publications.

Sounds like a productive way to spend a Saturday.

Come learn with us. We’ll be at the AJC building in downtown Atlanta, just a few steps away from CNN headquarters and Centennial Olympic Park. Myself, I’m looking forward to stopping at The Varsity for a hot dog.

Sign up here:
http://www.snd.org/events/events.lasso?ID=32924

We’ll see you there!

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If you’re not already using Adobe Illustrator for your vector drawing needs, you’d better hurry up and make the switch.

As the SND Update blog noted overnight: FreeHand is no more.

Adobe posted Wednesday on its blog page:

After a long and storied career, Adobe (neé Altsys, Aldus, and Macromedia) FreeHand has reached the end of its development road. The application has not been revised since Macromedia released MX nearly four years ago, after which the company removed FreeHand from the Studio product line.

…Adobe does not plan to develop and deliver any new feature-based releases of FreeHand, or to deliver patches or updates for new operating systems or hardware. Adobe will, however, continue to sell FreeHand MX, and will offer technical and customer support according to our support policies.

…A special upgrade to Illustrator CS3 is available to all registered owners of FreeHand for $199.

I’m continually amazed at the number of folks who still use FreeHand. I loved FreeHand, back when it was an easy-to-use, elegantly-designed application. Which pretty much ended with the release of version 4.0, way back in 1994. After the infamously disasterous FreeHand 4 quickcourse at Poynter in April of that year — Ask Terence Oliver or Molly Swisher about it sometime — I and my associates at the Raleigh News & Observer ditched the app and I never used it again. Although I supervised folks in Des Moines and here at the Pilot who did.

So it’s about time. In my opinion.

Read the Adobe blog post here:
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2007/05/freehand_no_lon.html

Bookmark the totally excellent SND Update blog here:
http://www.snd.org/update/

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Virginian-Pilot Editor Denis Finley announced Wednesday: 

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Here’s wishing a happy VizEds birthday to Stephanie Guigou of Bowling Green University.

Stephanie poses with a guy
from the top of a wedding cake.
Photo stolen from someone’s
Flickr account.

Many of you will remember Stephanie from “The Intern” contest in Orlando last summer. I learned just how engaging she is one evening when I ran down to the hotel food court for one of my infamous fast-food suppers. I was just about to chow down when suddenly, a voice from nowhere invited me to share her table.

I was grateful for the company. And I was delighted that the voice turned out to belong a student. Many folks her age seem too timid to speak to us old-timers. Stephanie was great conversation and asked some of the most fabulous questions — not about design or typography or how large to play a photo, but about the nature of leadership.

I tried to be helpful to her. But as we chatted, it occured to me rather quickly: She’ll be a publisher one day. And I’ll be laying out agate pages.

A few examples of Stephanie’s work:

See more here:
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/portfolios/portfolio1.php?UserID=9686

Stephanie spent time in Europe this past semester and is working this summer at The St. Petersburg Times. She turns 21 today.

Happy birthday, Stephanie! Best wishes!

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You saw the story last week about the online news site Pasadena.com seeking to outsource a reporting job to India.

Justin Pritchard of the Associated Press wrote:

Outsourcing first claimed manufacturing jobs, then hit services such as technical support, airline reservations and tax preparation. Now comes the next frontier: local journalism.

James Macpherson, editor and publisher of the two-year-old Web site pasadenanow.com, acknowledged it sounds strange to have journalists in India cover news in this wealthy city just outside Los Angeles.

But he said it can be done from afar now that weekly Pasadena City Council meetings can be watched over the Internet. And he said the idea makes business sense because of India’s lower labor costs.

Read it here now, if you like. Go ahead. We’ll wait for you to get back:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070510/ap_on_bi_ge/outsourcing_the_news_2

Like a lot of people, I read this story with mixed emotions: Amusement, because no one with any common sense at all would think something like this could actually work. And fear, because it seems like a lot of decisions lately in this industry have been made without any common sense at all. Or, at least, without respect to readers or to the field of journalism.

What’s next, I wondered.

Gotta stop asking questions like that. All too often, they get answered.

Like this story, by Eric Ruth of the Wilmington (Del.) News Journal, which I found in today’s USA Today business section:

These days, when you order grub-to-go at several Wendy’s restaurants — from Lebanon, N.H., to Gainesville, Fla. — the route to the pick-up window runs through Delaware.

In an accommodation to evaporating profit margins and demanding consumers, some fast-food stores are outsourcing drive-through order-taking to distant call centers — like the one staffed by young workers in a non-descript industrial building south of Wilmington.

Pull up to a drive-through speaker in Middletown, R.I., for example, and you could be talking — via Internet phone lines — to Alpha Telemarketing employee Annette Miser at her desktop PC 306 highway miles away in Delaware. At a typical mealtime, 12 or so “agents” like Miser are handling the traffic for nine restaurants in five states, from New England to the South, and flashing orders to on-site crews.

Read the whole thing here:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2007-05-14-drive-through_N.htm?csp=34

Personally, the whole thing leaves me rather frosty…

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