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Ouch. That turns my eyeballs inside-out. You’ll forgive me if I don’t type this entire item that way.
Editor & Publisher reported today:
To draw attention to the launch of a campaign to stop gun violence against children, the Chicago Sun-Times on Tuesday printed its front page in reverse.
…The tabloid said it was kicking off a series examining the reasons for the violence, which since the beginning of the school year has taken the lives of more than 20 Chicago Public School students. Last weekend, the first with warm weather since the fall, there were at least 36 shooting incidents that left seven dead.
And, of course, former Sun-Times design guru Robb Montgomery is all over it. He posted an audio interview with Sun-Times editor Michael Cooke. Check it out in Robb’s blog.
Robb reports:
Chicago’s children are dying. The statistics are undeniable, and they are staggering,†said Sun-Times Editor in Chief Michael Cooke. “The point of today’s front page was to grab readers and agree together that we can no longer turn our backs on this problem. We need to, as a city, pull together and put an end to the killing.”
In a nice touch, Cooke gave props for the visual idea. E&P reports:
He said the reverse front-page idea came from the Bogota, Colombia, daily El Tiempo, which also used it to call attention to gun violence.
An interesting way to make a point. I’ll be curious to see what readers thought.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I don’t think it works at all and I place most of the blame on the choice of the photo. The kids who are dying are inner city kids and yet the photo gives the impression otherwise.
The Sun-Times manages to put themselves between a rock and a hard place with this solution because of our need to be sensitive by avoiding hints of racial profiling in our publications. Because everyone is white in the photograph it seems as if the very thing being avoided occurs anyway. I would have been less bothered if the photo had hinted at a broader allegiance against the violence.
But, hey, what do I know.
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Smells like public journalism, hope someone is reading Rosen in that newsroom