Charles Apple

Here’s wishing the happiest of VizEds birthdays to Stephen Beard, senior news artist for The Indianapolis Star. Stephen turns 33 today.

Seems like just a few years ago when my old Chicago Tribune pal Ken Marshall — who had been hired by The Plain Dealer to be its graphics editor — told me to keep an eye on this kid working with him in Cleveland.

Ken was really high on him. And if Ken is impressed with him, then I’m impressed with him.

Flash forward a couple of years later when I found myself judging infographics contest entries for an Ohio-based news organization. I liked the stuff I saw from Columbus and Akron, as I recall, but I saw entry after entry from Cleveland that just blew me away.

The name on those entries? You guessed it: William Neff.

Oh, and Stephen Beard. His name was on them too.

A Stephen Beard self-portrait.
Photo from Nina Mehta’s Flickr feed.
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Stephen spent seven years as a graphics reporter for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. He and his pal Neff gave one heck of an interesting — not to mention hilarious — presentation at SND/Orlando in 2006. From now on, I’ll think of Beard n’ Neff every time I rewatch Planet of the Apes.

A 1997 graduate of Ball State University, Stephen spent a couple of years as night editor of The Journal Review in Crawfordsville, Ind., before Ken brought him to Cleveland.

Stephen has been back in Indiana a little more than a year.

Left to right: Gene Simmons, Scott Goldman and
Ryan Hildebrandt. Photo stolen from someone’s
Flickr feed. If you shot this, please let me know
so I can fix this embarrassing credit line.
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Ken Marshall of The Plain Dealer writes this about Stephen:

He’s 33? He must have just been out of high school when we hired him.

We dearly miss him in Cleveland. 

William Neff writes:

That’s one thing I could always rely on my old colleague Stephen Francis Xavier Beard to do, and it’s a skill I would like to think he taught me, or at least reinforced: to find a way to pull a smart, engaging and visually witty graphic out of even the most slack-jawed, brain-dead graphic assignments he’d find tossed onto his chair … usually using some new piece of software he was teaching himself to use. Give the guy a conceptual inch and he would take a mile — and you can check the SND books to see some of the mile-high graphics he managed to generate out of inch-tall story pitches. 

It’s just too damned bad that he chose to finish his Plain Dealer career by walking out with my stapler. If the man had a conscience, he would return that immediately. 

Scott Goldman, Stephen’s AME at the Star, writes:

We love Mr. Beard in Indy! He brings great creative energy to the paper every day, and a highly refined eye for his graphics, whether large or small. And today he’s spending his birthday finishing up a tremendous double-truck graphic on Indy’s brand-new library. (Links to come, when it launches on Tuesday.)

But happy birthday, Stephen! … Now, is that graphic done yet??

A few examples of Stephen’s work:

     

Find more examples in his NewsPageDesigner portfolio.

Stephen shares a birthday with singers Billy Idol and Clay Aiken, funnyman Ben Stiller, Hollywood babes Kaley Cuoco and Elisha Cuthbert and the damn near immortal Dick Clark.

Plus, today is Stay At Home Because You’re Well Day. Seriously.

Best wishes for a happy birthday, Stephen!

Let’s take a moment to wish the happiest of VizEds birthdays today to Josh Awtry, Assistant Managing Editor for Presentation at The Salt Lake Tribune. Josh turns 32 today. 

A graduate of Hastings College (It’s in South central Nebraska; Yes, I had to look it up), Josh was previously Managing Editor for Presentation at The Independent in Grand Island, Neb. and Design Director for The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

According to his official bio, Josh lives in the ‘burbs of Salt Lake City with his wife, Karenna — an ex-copy editor — daughter, Ally, and son, Andrew.

Andrew was born on Jan. 16 of this year. Read Josh’s baby blog here.

Josh has created a high profile for himself in the news design world as one of our best evangelists for Alternative Story Forms.  You’ll find his home page is a great resource for editors and designers craving handouts on how to create more ASF.

Josh has been on the visual storytelling bandwagon for a long time. Even back in 2003 — when he was still in Myrtle Beach — Josh was interviewed by Poynter’s Chip Scanlon on what Scanlon called “nonlinear narratives.”

A few samples of Josh’s work: 

     

See more in his NewsPageDesigner portfolio. 

Earlier this year, Josh’s staff provided some pretty impressive coverage of a mining accident. That same week, Josh’s staff also unveiled very nice new high school sports site. Read all about that here.

We all have our hobbies and Josh pursues his in a big way. He loves a role-playing game based on the movie Serenity — which, in turn, was an extension of a short-lived science fiction TV series Firefly. Being the always-organized type, he’s put together about a bajillion tips and resources for other players of the Serenity RPG.

Being a sci-fi geek myself, I really dig what Josh has done with his hobby site. Check it out.

Josh shares a birthday with a large number of big entertainment names: Jon Stewart, Ed Harris, Randy Newman, Paul Shaffer, Judd Nelson and Anna Nicole Smith. 

Plus, today is Make Your Own Head Day. Seriously.

Best wishes, Josh, for the happiest of birthdays!

Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher reports today: 

When the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press wanted a Page One image to go with a package of stories on Gov. Jon Corzine’s controversial plan to borrow money against the state’s toll roads, a mere photo would not suffice.

So Executive Editor William “Skip” Hidlay approved an illustration for Sunday’s paper showing Corzine, a Democrat, in a hat and tweed coat, opening one side to reveal cars pinned to the inner lining like a peddler offering his trinkets.

Photoillustration by Jeff Colson/The Asbury Park Press
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Under the headline, “Hocking the highways,” the accompanying stories investigated how Corzine’s plan would likely increase tolls.

…The approach did not sit well with Corzine’s office, which responded Monday with a terse press release that included an open letter to the paper calling the image “a tremendous disservice.”

The governor’s chief of staff, Bradley Abelow, wrote in a press release labeled as ”an open letter to the editors” of the Press:

While working with photo editing software may be a useful tool for assembling gag photos or correcting minor imperfections, using it to manipulate the Governor - any governor - into a sinister character is not what we would expect from a responsible media organization.

As we enter the important debate on how best to restructure New Jersey’s finances to better serve the public, the free press must do so without their own opinion or agenda. Images that are nothing more than editorial cartoons morphed into photographs are fine – for the editorial page. But placement of such images on the front page of the Sunday edition demonstrates a blatant disregard for objective reporting.

 Strupp reports:

“We weren’t attempting to show the governor in any kind of sinister light,” Hidlay told E&P. “We were looking for a way to illustrate a very complex problem that is difficult to show visually.”

…The paper published the entire release as a letter to the editor on Tuesday, but Hidlay said no apology would be forthcoming. “We think the reporting is outstanding and frames the issue for New Jersey readers,” he said. “It is no different from what any other news organization has done in the past.”

Reaction to the controversy has been mixed — as you’d imagine. A reader who calls himself Puffaroo commented Tuesday on the Press web site where the open letter was posted:

Well, the APP doesn’t owe me any apologies. I thought the Photoshopped image of Corzine pretty much captured the essence of the deal. It was a riot to boot.

Another reader posted:

Responsible media organization? HAAAHAAHAheeooouuaaahaahaaa!!

He should have added: “It is, however, what we expect from the servile lackeys who serve their paymasters at the Gannett-run APP, though.”

That reader called himself DumbAsABush. Read into that what you will.

The actual story from Sunday generated feedback from readers, as well. The fourth comment posted was from Justaguy:

I see the new publisher has added Page One to the APP Opinion Pages.  

Someone called APP Reader posted:

What’s with the picture?! Has the Asbury Park Press turned into the N.Y. Post?! 

Strupp points out in his story that the partisan blogs got involved Monday. The Democratic blog Blue Jersey posted:

The Asbury Park Press editorial board has a history of partisanship, but apparently even their supposedly objective reporting is slanted. It’s pretty sad when the Asbury Park Press is putting out content on par with the Trentonian.

Another political blog, In the Lobby — which, I presume, leans in the opposite direction — felt differently: 

By publicly complaining about the photo illustration, Bradley Abelow made it into a news story. In effect, he gave it legs.

But we have to ask: Have Corzine or Abelow ever seen political advertisements — especially some of the ones that the governor’s money helped pay for?

The governor is the one who is making us wait until Jan. 8 before he tells us what he has in mind. He’s the one who’s been acting like he has something to hide.

Instead of sending out a press release complaining about the Asbury Park Press, it’s too bad Corzine and Abelow couldn’t send out a press release telling us how much we should expect in a toll hike.

Looks to me like the illustration — created by Asbury Park’s Jeff Colson — caused folks to stop and think and to form opinions of their own. Which is what any good illustration would do. 

Did this one go over the line? Is it closer to being an editorial cartoon than a page-one illustration?

What do you think?

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The illustration was created by Jeff Colson of the Press. See more of his work here. 

Click on the thumnails below for larger jpeg views of the illustration or the whole page:

 

Find a PDF of the Sunday page containing the illustration here (at The Newseum).

Find Strupp’s E&P article here. 

Find the press release from the Governor’s office here. 

Find the Press‘ posting of the press release — along with comments from readers — here.

Find Sunday’s APP A1 lead story here.

See readers’ comments to that story here. 

We first read about all this today via Romenesko.