A belated report on Saturday’s Small-Paper Summit in Connecticut
Sorry for the belated report. I’ve been a little ill since I got back from Connecticut. All better now. More about that later.
We had a small but very enthusiastic audience in Waterbury Saturday for the Small-Paper Summit.
I counted 18 folks in the room at one point. I’m not sure what the official head count was. Probably about the same as a typical Tampa Bay Devil Rays game, I suspect.
Those who did turn out learned a lot, I think. I know I did.
Host Scott Griffin and his teammates at the Waterbury Republican-American pitched in to create a fabulous atmosphere for a quick course, which made the day run smoothly and efficiently. The yummy deli lunch platters were a nice touch.
The Republican-American clock tower
shows 9 a.m. It’s nearly time to open
the registration table.
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The newspaper building is very, very interesting. A converted train station, the place has a clock tower outside and vaulted ceilings in the newsroom. I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite so picturesque a workplace.
Two views of the newsroom. Check out the detailing
in that old vaulted ceiling. The newsroom was pretty
small. But then again, the Republican-American ain’t
a huge paper. ‘Small-Paper Summit’ — right?
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Elise Burroughs — Executive Director of the Society for News Design — showed up bright and early, having driven over in a huge rainstorm from Providence with her husband. She said it was the first quick course she had ever attended.
Elise listens to our host, Scott Griffin, before we begin.
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Darren Sanefski of the Syracuse Post-Standard got us started with a primer on news design basics: Typography and grids. Very helpful stuff — especially for the design novices in attendance.
Darren said he wasn’t a huge type guy until he saw the movie Helvetica last fall at SND/Boston. Since then, he said, “I’m the biggest freakin’ geek in the world.”
Darren Sanefski of the Syracuse Post-Standard.
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Darren is a wonderful speaker — he’s taught classes for years as an adjunct at Syracuse University — but this was his first quick course, too. He was a bit nervous and was glad to go first.
I was very impressed with his presentation — especially when he got into Gestalt theory.
Huh? What?
Gestalt theory. Darren reached into Gestalt theory in order to show the logic behind ways to lead a reader’s eye though your page.
Darren preaches Gestalt. Or, put another way:
‘See the ball; be the ball.’
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I’ve seen many of the news design techniques of which Darren spoke. But I’ve never seen them framed quite this way. It allowed Darren to not just say “this works, try this,” but to get behind the psychology of why certain design techniques work, using color, shape and size to introduce movement into a page.
It was a brilliant approach. I’m betting he could flesh this out into one of the damnest seminars you’ve ever seen. Even as I write this, I’m attempting to set up a partnership with him for a program this fall. If it works out, you’ll read about it here in the blog.
Darren’s audience is in the palm of his hand.
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Among the things I learned about Darren last weekend: Steve Dorsey of The Detroit Free Press was once one of Darren’s interns.
After lunch, it was my turn to bore the attendees.
Scott Griffin graces me with a wonderful,
flattering introduction. Are you sure that
wasn’t Bill’s intro you were reading?
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I gave the framework of my Art of Being Brilliant presentation, but I cut out large portions in order to work in an extended section about small newspapers — something I normally do only in some of my longer sessions.
Where do good ideas come from? Fast thinkers
appear to pull them from all sorts of body orifices.
—
We discussed what it takes to do brilliant work and the ways one can seek a muse for brilliant ideas. We also talked about what kind of support one needs — especially from the boss — in order to do brilliant work.
We talked about harnessing the power of the smart-asses in your newsroom. Evil geniuses can be your friends. We looked at my infamous politically-incorrect brainstorming technique and we discussed the importance of thinking fast.
Then we looked at dozens of examples of brilliant work by small papers. One of my main talking points: It ain’t the size of your newspaper that counts. It’s the size of your ideas.
No one appears to be sleeping in this photo,
so I guess I didn’t do too badly Saturday.
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Y’know, I’ve taught a lot of classes over the past few months and I’m just starting to believe that I might — just might — be getting good at this.
And that’s when Bill Ostendorf begins his own presentation. And I realize just how much I still have to learn about teaching.
Oh, wow. The man is a master. He’s loud. He’s quiet. He’s dynamic. He’s self-effacing. he’s brilliant. He’s a scream.
And he cycles through all that every two or three minutes.
One excerpt — and in order to do this right, you have to yell pretty loud and wave your arms in the air:
Newspapers are not dying. On any given day, 51 million people buy a newspaper and more than 125 million people read one.
We make terrible mistakes in story choices. Not training people. Dumb mistakes.
Newspapers are not dying. They’re committing suicide.
Newspapers have a problem. And the problem is us.
Wow. Perfect. Walt Kelly would be proud!
The animated Mr. Ostendorf. What a speaker.
I hope I’m half as good as he is one day.
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Bill showed us a number of his redesigns for print and online and the classified advertising application his new software company is developing. All of it has, at its heart, making the page or web site easy for the reader to use.
Bill also showed how to improve headline writing, photo assigning and editing and caption writing.
He had fabulous statistics on the kind of readership that visuals get on a page. But if it’s proven that photos pull in readers, why, then, do we spend so little time editing photos, writing captions and coaching photographers?
Bill’s audience is mesmerized. No, that is not a plant
growing out of that editor’s head. What that is: The
reason why I don’t take pictures for a living.
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We closed the day with a lengthy critique session. Since so few folks attended, that simply gave us time to reach deeper into the portfolios of each attendee and, hopefully, to find something that would help them improve their work.
I saw some very good stuff Saturday, but what impressed me the most was the photography work being done by the Republican-American staff. The entire crew does great work, but one photog in particular — Josalee Thrift — really impressed me with her work and her attitude. Hey, check out her stuff and tell me I’m wrong.
In addition, she actually grew up here in Hampton Roads. I’m hoping she makes it back this way one day.
The three speakers, tired and ready for dinner.
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Afterwards, we three speakers — plus our host, Scott, and the Republican-American’s AME for photo and graphics, Bob Falcetti, zipped down to Leavenworth Street to a very nice restaurant called Drescher’s. We chatted for a long time until Bill had to hit the road for Providence.
Four days later — Wednesday — Scott wrote:
Thought you three would be interested in seeing what happened today at Drescher’s:
Photos by Steven Valenti/Republican-American
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Yep: That’s Kirsten Dunst. She and Ryan Gosling are filming a movie, All Good Things, there this week.
From the story at the Republican-American web site:
Republican-American photographer Steven Valenti captured Dunst smoking a cigarette during her break.
“The actors looked right at me and I said, ‘I’m with the local newspaper,’ and they were cool when they knew I wasn’t with the paparazzi,” Valenti said, noting the actors took time to pose for pictures with local residents and business people who were in the area.
And to think I spent most of my weekend hanging around with Darren Sanefski. I could have been stalking Kirsten Dunst! Yow!
Actually, I had a great time with Darren. I’ve known him a while — we’ve talked once or twice on the phone and we’ve e-mailed — but we knocked back a lot of beer the two nights we were in Connecticut. And we had loads of time to chat. SND routed us both through Philly, so we flew together from there to Hartford Friday and back again on Sunday.
I’m sure I bored the poor guy with a lot of old stories and gossip. But Darren wouldn’t tell me to shut up. So I didn’t.
Darren even indulged me by taking this photo of me with the car we rented in Hartford:
Me with the Chevy HHR we rented for
our trip from Hartford to Waterbury.
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That’s a Chevrolet HHR — which stands for “Heritage High Roof.” It’s a retro-styled station wagon that’s pretty much a direct ripoff of the ultra-successful Chrysler PT Cruiser.
And that, of course, is the funny part. I have a PT Cruiser at home — nicknamed the Deerslayer — also this same color and also with a sun roof.
When I returned to Norfolk Sunday afternoon, I discovered my luggage hadn’t followed like it usually does. Naughty, naughty luggage.
The nice folks at US Airways had someone drop it off at the house, which was great. It finally arrived just before midnight, which wasn’t so great.
I know, I know: I wish I could carry on all my luggage like Darren did. But unlike Darren, I can’t fit all my clothes into one carry-on bag. I don’t wear normal, store-bought clothes like Darren does. My wife has me upholstered.
I woke up Monday feeling poorly — I presume because of the stress of not getting to bed early Sunday like I had hoped. As the day went on, I felt progressively worse. By mid-afternoon, I was damn near incoherent.
I finally staggered to my doctor’s office, where — true to my luck lately — they lost my paperwork and left me sitting in the waiting room. For hours.
I knew I was in trouble when a mother and a teenaged girl walked up to the urgent-care desk and said the girl needed a physical in order to go to cheerleading camp. They had missed their deadline to get a physical, so they wanted one from the nighttime, urgent-care doctor. The nurse helped them fill out some forms and then took them right back.
That’s a true story. And yes: I was pissed. I knew I should have worn a cheerleader outfit.
One protracted, unpleasant conversation later, they finally took me back, drew several quarts of blood — their revenge, I suppose, for the protracted, unpleasant conversation — and discovered my blood-sugar levels were all out of whack.
In a follow-up appointment Wednesday — sans cheerleaders — my doctor increased my medications. So I’ll be as good as new in a couple of days.
My thanks to Scott Griffin and his team in Waterbury, the quick course crew at SND central — Steven Komives, Denise Reagan and others — and all the folks who attended our little shindig Saturday. It was a wonderfully educational way to spend an overcast weekend. I hope we made it worth your time.
