Visual journalism tells compelling story in Minneapolis
Four dead and 60 injured. And 20 still missing.
That’s the toll as of this morning in Minneapolis, where an interstate bridge collapsed last night, dumping traffic into the chilly Mississippi River.
The death toll is better than it was only a few minutes ago — it’s rare for a number like that to actually go down, rather than up. That’s good news for the families of the victims. But with 20 people still missing, those numbers will likely fluctuate throughout the day.
There are a lot of first-person stories pouring out of the disaster. Here is one of the best I stumbled across this morning in the Pioneer Press:
Shiraz Din and his girlfriend, Tina Nguyen, were on their way to their new house in Eagan when the southbound lanes of I-35W fell out from under them. Their car plummeted into the Mississippi, five stories below.
“We went straight down, nose forward, and hit another car going down,” recalled Din.
“I just was just trying to get out. Just trying to get out of the water and get my girlfriend out of the water and get on top of the car before anything else happened.”
Din crawled out his window - the driver’s-side door was still out of the water - then reached in and dragged Nguyen out of their wrecked Toyota. The two picked their way across the wreckage and walked up the riverbank.
He looked around at the wreckage and saw injured people around him, others running across the rubble, screaming. “There was, like, 10, 10 or 15 cars down there.”
This is from a story posted on the Pioneer Press web page. A slew of reporters teamed up for the reports.
As you’d imagine, the Pioneer Press has posted a number of stories, photos, videos and a gallery of reader photos. Find it all here:
http://www.twincities.com/
Unlike their neighbors across the river, the Star Tribune requires its web readers to register after a certain number of web views. To hell with that; just give me the news. If you’re a more patient reader than I am, find the site here:
http://www.startribune.com/
From what I can tell, the Strib posted galleries of reader-submitted photos and video of victims telling their stories. Looks pretty comprehensive. If you register.
Most of the photos we ran in today’s Pilot came from the Pioneer Press. Some wonderful work by the staff there. Strangely, however, their online gallery is a bit short on material. A few samples:
 
The top and bottom photos were by Sherri
LaRose-Chiglo. The one in the middle was
by Brandi Jade Thomas. Both are
photographers for the Pioneer Press.
—ÂÂ
Find the Pioneer Press gallery here:
http://photo.twincities.com/index.php/2007/08/01/i-35w-bridge-collapse/
 The Star Tribune, too, put a number of compelling photos online:
Top two photos by Brian Peterson. Bottom photo by
Jeff Wheeler. Both are shooters for the Star-Tribune.ÂÂ
—
Find this gallery here:
http://www.startribune.com/10136/gallery/1338445.html
How about graphics? I’d imagine this was a tough story to cover, graphically. The timing of the collapse wouldn’t have allowed much time for graphic reporting.
Despite this, the Strib ran this fine diagram of the collapsed bridge, credited to four staffers: Billy Steve Clayton, Jane Friedman, Ray Grumney and MarkBoswell:
For a larger view, click on this thumbnail:
Find it here:
http://www.startribune.com/10072/rich_media/1338795.html
The Pioneer Press produced this diagram — which ran without a byline — comparing the profile of the bridge before and after the collapse:
Again, click this thumbnail for a larger version:
Find it here:
http://extras.twincities.com/images/bridge/bridge_compare.jpg
Even The New York Times didn’t have time to do anything more than a cursory look at the bridge as it was before the collapse:
For a larger version, click the thumbnail:
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The Chicago Tribune posted only a locator and aerial photo:
 
 I would imagine the Times and the Trib will be all over this in Friday’s editions. Stay tuned.
—
Alan Jacobson named the New York Daily News front as today’s Best Front Page displaying the collapse.
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Find BFD here:
http://www.bestfrontdesign.com/
The Pioneer Press front is Poynter’s Page One Today feature. Check it out here:
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=49&aid=127619
Read Poynter Online Managing Editor Scott Libin’s take here:
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=127739
If you’ve not see the secrurity-camera video of the collapse, dash over to the CNN web site and check it out. As of this moment, it’s on their home page:
http://www.cnn.com/
—
The Mississippi River doesn’t run through Hampton Roads. Instead we have another body of water that feeds smack through here: The Chesapeake Bay. All this water means oodles of tunnels and bridges; bottlenecks that we and our readers must deal with every time we get behind the wheel.
Perhaps that’s why the story of the interstate bridge collapse last night in Minneapolis struck such a chord here at The Virginian-Pilot and at Link. Both papers blew out the story on our fronts.
So we feel for you guys there in the Twin Cites. Congratulations on your first-day coverage. Good luck with all the follows. And best wishes to your cities and your readers.
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:28 am
I echo Charles, great first day coverage and good luck with today’s online coverage and tomorrow’s print coverage. This is scary stuff, and the graphics especially by both the Strib and the Pioneer Press were impressive considering the short time frame. And the photos, powerful stuff from both papers.
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:55 am
First of all, I really hope people and family members from the Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune are OK. It was one of those days you’ll never forget as a journalist.
I personally am proud of the effort the Pioneer Press put in last night. When events like this happen, it is truly amazing how a newsroom comes together. Reporters, editors, photographers, copy editors and designers really stepped up and delivered a high-impact newspaper and dared to be different.
Dana Albrecht did a wonderful job on our 1A, she was cool under pressure and listened to many suggestions from a number of people, including myself. However, she took ownership of 1A, and the Pioneer Press staff and readers should be proud our our front page.
In addition, Steve Thomas did a great job with our bridge graphic. He’s too modest to credit himself, but under a tight deadline, I think he delivered an easy-to-read and informative graphic. Credit also goes to graphic artist Alex Leary, who created locater and commuter maps.
It was a true team effort, and the Pioneer Press, as well as the Star Tribune, have a lot to do in the next months, trying to piece together how and why it happened. Along with stories about the survivors and the victims.
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Steve Thomas, huh? I’ll have to write that down in my “hire these people” file.
S. T. E. V. E…
Thanks, Ben. Y’all did fabulous work last night. Nice work on A1, the photos, the graphic. I notice that the AP has picked up the graphic and used it at the bottom of the piece they’re moving today. We’re considering using a slice of it here tonight.
Best wishes to you and your team, Ben. Keep up the good work.
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:59 pm
I thought the commuter maps that the Pioneer Press told readers about on A-1 were an excellent way to take the story beyond the news. I’m sure a lot of people were looking for exactly that information.
Looking at the AP photos submitted from the Twin City papers, they did a great job getting there and really illustrating what had happened.
Both graphics from the St. Paul and Minneapolis papers looked very informative and well done for the tight deadlines.
As far as the BFD goes, if the Daily News had localized the story, and reflected that on the cover, maybe. Otherwise, they weren’t showing readers anything they didn’t see on the 11 p.m. news or online. I think the content St. Paul provided its reader was much more deserving of a BFD.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Steve is ours. You can’t have him :-)
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:26 pm
I’m told our registration component has been lifted, and that we’ve also had we’ve had more than 900,000 unique visitors in the past 24 hours.
Thanks for the blog!
colleen
August 3rd, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Wonderful jobs by everyone in the Twin Cities.