Charles Apple

Arizona Republic sports designer Desiree Shoe is leaving Phoenix to take a part-time job at The New York Times and to pursue free-lance work.

In his official announcement to the staff of the Republic, news design director Bill Pliske wrote:

On one hand, you’re probably saying “Wow! the NYT!” … and then it hits you, “sh*t, we’re losing Des.”

We’ll obviously miss her terrific design skills, work ethic and everything else she brought to our products, but y’know, we’ll mostly miss her. You simply couldn’t ask for a better co-worker or a nicer person.

It’s hard to believe it’s only been a couple years since we brought over that UNC girl and threw her into the (nearly) all-boys club in sports. But it couldn’t have worked out any better.

So…. her last day will be Saturday, Dec. 27. Stop by and say “hi” to her on the 7th floor if you get a chance. Des can fill in the blanks, but in addition to the NYT, she also has some lifelong friends there in the city and her family is a drive away down the coast. So despite her being sad in leaving her Phoenix family, she’s definitely got a lot to look forward to.

A 2007 graduate of the University of North Carolina, Desiree served as a marketing intern at Eurosport and wrote features for the Daily Tar Heel before accepting a Pulliam Fellowship at the Republic. That internship evolved into a permanent position.

Desiree wrote in her blog about her reasons for the move:

Working part-time in the sports department of the Times is going to be an exhilarating, scary experience.

I worry about money, obviously - I know the cost of living is ridiculously high in New York. But the job pays well for a part-time gig, as long as I keep working steadily, and in the meantime, I hope to find other freelancing or more permanent opportunities in the city. I’m interested in exploring the publishing and advertising worlds.

Basically, I’m making one of the biggest gambles in my life, going to New York… but, deep in my heart, I think it’s a gamble that’s going to pay off.

And, she says, she will miss Phoenix:

It’s bittersweet to be leaving Phoenix and its sweltering summers and dry, desert landscape… but damn, will I miss it here.

I’ll miss this place that I’ve made into a home, however much I may have resisted it. I’ll miss the enormous, open bowl of blue sky. I’ll miss the mountains in the distance. I’ll miss the drive on the bridge over Tempe Town Lake, looking across at the mountain cradling Sun Devil Stadium. I’ll miss the random tumbleweeds, the In n’ Out, the Thai place in downtown Phoenix, and the Coyotes (the hockey team, not the small canines).

Most of all, I’ll miss the people.

A few samples of Desiree’s work:

See more of her work in her online portfolio or in her NewsPageDesigner gallery.

Find Desiree’s blog here.

Newspapers have received a government bail-out.

Um — not really. But kind of, in a very indirect way.

Auto manufacturers, as you know, are receiving a $17.4 billion government loan. A few dollars ended up floating into newspapers last week in the form of full-page ads.

Fox News’ Judson Berger reports:

The ads ran last week in several major daily newspapers, including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Since USA Today and The Wall Street Journal are two of the highest-circulation newspapers in the country, full-page ad rates are steep. A full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal runs between $206,000 and $264,000, and a full-page ad in USA Today runs between $112,000 and $217,000.

Chrysler has posted on its web site some of the same info in the ad. Find it here.

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“It’s quite ridiculous to be spending that kind of money,” said Princella Smith, national spokeswoman for American Solutions, an organization headed by former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “Those ads are just a precise example of the fact that they do not get it … and it’s just in our faces.”

Last week, we discussed the use of poster fronts on Christmas Day — or, in this case, perhaps, they should be called Christmas card fronts.

Tom Graser, managing editor of the Marion Star — a tiny Gannett p.m. paper in central Ohio — wrote about this very thing in his Sunday column. Basically, that single-copy sales are dead on holidays:

On big holidays, like Christmas, most stores are closed and people don’t leave their homes. Reading a newspaper is a solitary act and holidays are about spending time with people.

…Last year, as Christmas approached, I began thinking about single copy sales. I knew they would be dismal. Since we can’t manufacture news to overcome the impact of the holiday on sales, we decided to take advantage of the situation and publish a large Christmas card to our readers on the front page.

So for last year’s holiday paper, Tom used a big Christmas parade photo with a “Merry Christmas” header and a fat cutline.

This year, he wanted something a little more elaborate. So he had an advertising artist build…

…something that looked more like a Christmas card and less like a news photo with some writing on it.

The design came out great (thanks, Steve), but we were still faced with a tough decision. The ice storm Tuesday night and Wednesday morning resulted in two fatal car accidents.

And that’s where Tom ran into his dilemma. Should he dump the Christmas presentation and lead with the car crashes? Or should he run the Christmas card as planned, push the crashes inside and refer to them?

Tom chose the latter:

The above-the-fold design was by Steve Jordan. Photo editor Bill Sinden shot the picture.

Tom writes:

On most days, these accidents would have been on the front, but this day, I decided, we wouldn’t do that. We announced the accidents in the skybox on the very top of our front page, stuck with our Christmas card design and ran the stories on page three.

My heart goes out to the families who lost loved ones on Christmas Eve. Where their stories ran in the newspaper changed nothing for them.

We reported the news. And, we wished you all a merry Christmas. And for one day, at least, sales were not important.

Did Tom make the right call on Christmas Day?

As much as we applaud the Christmas card approaches we posted last week, we’re not so sure about this one. Normally, we would have argued to put the breaking news out front. Poster fronts and page one holiday tributes are fun and all, but we try to stress they’re only to be used when there is no news to report.

Tom Grasier, managing editor
of the Marion Star
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But Tom makes a great case. Especially since the Star is an afternoon paper, with an average daily circulation of right around 14,000. His paper wouldn’t hit the streets until well after lunchtime. How many convenience-store or newspaper-rack sales is he really going to make on Christmas Day?

We asked Tom what kind of reaction he’s received. He responds:

I have not had any reaction to the front. Of course, I have not heard from the circulation people yet.

…I think I may have been influenced by a call from a reader several years ago who congratulated us on an all “good news” front on Christmas. It was entirely unintentional, but it got me thinking.

I did get one call this year from an occasional reader who read the column. His complaint was that we moved the paper box he likes to purchase his newspaper from.

Find Tom’s Sunday column here.

A 36-year-old woman reported missing from a cruise ship Christmas night — a suspected suicide — was a talented reporter for print and online, a copy editor, designer and instructor, reports say.

Jennifer Ellis Seitz — a veteran of several small Florida newspapers — had been talking with the Winter Haven News Chief about part-time work, Shelly Godefrin of the News Chief reports:

Seitz had talked with News Chief Managing Editor Joe Braddy as recently as Dec. 19, the Friday before her cruise got under way, about some part-time reporting, copy editing and page design work.

“She told me she was looking forward to it and looking forward to getting back into newspaper work,” Braddy said.

Seitz told Braddy she wouldn’t be available Christmas week because she was going to be out of town. She said she would contact him after she returned.

“She seemed just fine,” Braddy said. “She seemed happy.”

A 1993 graduate of Queens University in Charlotte, Jennifer Ellis interned with the Lakeland Ledger before joining the News Chief in Winter Haven as a reporter. She moved to Flordia Today in 2000 and worked there four years, before getting into a number of outside interests.

Florida Today photo
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Among Jennifer’s accomplishments:

* Successfully fended off an attempt by a defense lawyer to get her testimony about her coverage of a doctor facing criminal charges.

* Took time off in 1996 to work as a volunteer for the Atlanta Olympics. She happened to be in Centennial Park when the bomb went off there and treated a victim with a puncture wound in his throat until help arrived, according to a New York Times story.

* Became Florida Today’s first full-time online reporter.

* Reported from ground-zero in New York two months after the 9/11 attacks.

* Taught college in Melbourne, Fla.

* Drove a school bus, holding a CDL class B license.

* Worked as a seasonal trainer with the Polk County Supervisor of Elections office.

* Started her own media production company, Newshound Communications, via which she took on free-lance writing, editing and instruction assignments.

* Underwent gastric bypass surgery and covered her 120-lb. weight loss in a series of reports for an Orlando TV station.

Jennifer and her husband were celebrating their first anniversary with a cruise to Cancun, Mexico.

John Torres of Florida Today reports:

“There were no outward signs or indication of anything being wrong or unusual,” her family said in a written statement. “Jennifer, however, has had previous emotional issues. The family suspects that Jennifer chose an unfortunate ending to her life. She was a beautiful and caring person and will be truly missed by all who love her.”

From the News Chief story, again:

Surveillance video from the cruise ship, Norwegian Cruise Line’s the Norwegian Pearl, showed a woman in a white bathrobe falling overboard around 8 p.m. Thursday.

On Monday, the Ellis and Seitz families issued a joint statement that said they suspect “Jennifer chose an unfortunate ending to her life.”

“She was a beautiful and caring person and will be truly missed by all who love her,” according to the statement.

The Coast Guard halted its search for Jennifer Monday.

Why not?

One day soon — perhaps as early as Wednesday — your favorite portfolio site, NewsPageDesigner, will go away for a while.

The current host is ending its arrangement with NPD, so Tim Frank and his folks are building a new-and-improved portfolio site. Thanks to your generosity, NewsPageDesigner has the funds to continue. The big question is: Will Tim’s crew be able to port over all the existing pages and comments?

The answer, most likely, will be no. So when the site comes back up — in January or February — you’ll likely have to register all over again and post your pages from scratch. And that’ll be impossible if you didn’t save copies of your pages.

So don’t delay. Take some time early this week to back up your stuff. Here’s a video primer by Robb Montgomery on how to get started:

Find more videos like this on Visual Editors

Contribute to the upkeep of NewsPageDesigner here.