Does this two-day-old lede photo bother you?
The lede package afront today’s Virginian-Pilot seems like another winner:
- A wonderfully interesting photo by staffer Stephen Katz. Check.
- An imaginative and funny headline that fits the story perfectly. Check.
- Fresh pull-out info on incoming weather, road clearings and school closings: Check.
- Timely story by Dave Forster: Check.
So is there a downside to this page?
Possibly. The lede photo was shot Sunday.
Does this bother anyone else? It didn’t bother me, 15 months ago, when folks like the Chicago Sun-Times, the Harrisburg Patriot-News and the Richmond Times-Dispatch used file shots of the new president-elect the day after an election. (I even followed that up, a few days later, with a post on why Athens, Ala., did the same thing.)
It also doesn’t escape my notice that none of the five papers I’m showing you today used live art on page one.
But this one bothers me. If I’m wrong, please tell me why. Or, for that matter, if you think I’m right please tell me why. I’m having a tough time putting my finger on it.
I must admit, at least the Pilot was truthful about it. The cutline — at the bottom right of the package, just above the Defense Department hed — makes the age of the photo clear:
Average daily circulation for the Virginian-Pilot is 164,454.
A.M. New York, circulation 266,852, addressed the flood of New York City police officers retiring from the force in a clever and attractive way:
The Orlando Sentinel — circulation 181,090 — led page one today with Spider-Man:
The story that justifies this? Spider-Man is embedded into a number of attractions at the Universal Studios amusement park. However, Marvel Comics was purchased, a few months ago, by Disney. Find the story here by the Sentinel’s Jason Garcia.
I got a huge laugh today from the Tampa Bay Times, the youth tab published by the St. Petersburg Times, which promised lessons for us all from the John Edwards paternity scandal:
Oh, that’s a scream. And, naturally, I just have to read it.
So I click the link directly from the Newseum’s TBT page to, ostensibly, the TBT web site. Naturally, I’m directed to the St. Pete Times‘ page instead.
So then I have to:
- Click on the “Latest TBT print editon” button at the upper right.
- Scroll down the page and click on “today’s edition.”
- Pull down the page menu to page T22.
- Click on the story itself in order to make it pop into the large window on the left.
Memo to the St. Pete Times: You might as well use a paywall, folks, if you’re going to make me work that hard to read your story.
The only saving grace: The story — by Slate’s Christopher Beam, by the way — was a scream.
Headline of the day was this one by the Star of Anniston, Ala., circulation 24,500. The story: Budget cuts mean the end of NASA’s hopes of going back to the moon within the next few years.
The wonderful solution, by the geniuses at the Star:
Goodnight moon. Goodnight blog.
Goodnight John Edwards, wherever you snog…
February 2nd, 2010 at 6:42 pm
It doesn’t bother me, IMHO, because the subject matter is clearly a third-day story. It’s a story about how infrequently it snows in Hampton Roads, and I have to imagine that the plows have already gotten most of the snow in the area.
And really, I don’t think readers will worry about it either. If it were a BREAKING story, then yes.
February 2nd, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Absolutely not even a little bit. Here’s why:
Print newspapers MUST stop trying to be daily reflections of “news” and start focusing on “discovery” content that isn’t about reacting to an event. Print can’t win a competition with the Web and social networks. So change the game.
I like the snow truck piece. It’s timely in a way that makes sense for a medium that can never be up to the minute, and the illustration is a powerful one that speaks to a reality that’s fresh in the minds of the audience.
February 2nd, 2010 at 7:50 pm
It doesn’t bother me either. If it snowed enough for them to get the photo within 24 hours, they wouldn’t be writing that story. And probably people didn’t start questioning the city until after it snowed. But I suspect there was enough grumbling after the snowfall to make the story interesting to a lot of readers. So it seems to me the timing of everything is OK.
February 2nd, 2010 at 7:58 pm
It doesn’t bother me for the same reason the person above mentioned but also because it’s an original, not file, photo that (I presume) hasn’t run before. I’m not sure what you think might have been a better solution, but I think the presentation is about as good as you can get.
February 2nd, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Yep, I agree with Earnie and Yelvington. Photo works for me in the context it was used, seems like a strong package.
February 2nd, 2010 at 9:37 pm
It’s from the same snowstorm. Nothing is misrepresented. It’s not even an issue as far as I am concerned.
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:13 am
Also, the Orlando page needs a few more small doodads thrown on there to really bring it home.
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:47 am
I think the reason it bothers you is because the snow was the lede over the weekend for a lot of papers. It would’ve been great on the first couple of days, but after so many repetitious fronts, you wonder why they didn’t think of this sooner. I would’ve saved the idea for a rainy –or snowy– day, and tried to capture a similar image.
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:12 am
On the two-day old art:
I think it was soon enough to justify being used. Besides the event probably sparked the question and the story.
Great headline, too.
What does bother me, though, is the unnecessary dog leg created by a self-made box.
Did I miss the memo on letting the dog in the house?
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:04 am
I suppose you’re experiencing cognitive dissonance from what *looks* like a spot news photo, and we (grizzled veterans) all know spot news just happened yesterday. But, decades of TV, radio and the tubes have made ‘yesterday’ feel like ‘yesteryear.’ I wonder whether any layman would have the same feeling about the photo.
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:20 am
Good comments, all. Thanks for the input.
Paul Wallen: Ha!
Connie Beard: Actually, the PIlot has been using doglegs on section fronts for many years. When I first moved here in 2003, it took me a few weeks to get used to them. Now, I don’t give them a second thought. It’s a little different from what most newspapers do, but man, they use the resulting space to maximize the impact of their lede package.