Indianapolis Star in hot water over Coach K illustration
Scott Goldman, the assistant managing editor for presentation at the Indianapolis Star, tells us this afternoon:
Just got back from the stadium. Met with [Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski] and the athletic directors. We apologized, and Coach K was extremely gracious in accepting our apology.
What caused all the fuss — on the eve of college basketball’s Final Four this weekend in Indianapolis — was the cover of today’s Indianapolis Star sports section,
The story was about Krzyzewski, the man everybody seems to love to hate. The illustration was intentionally set up to make it look like someone with a ball-point pen had defaced your morning paper.
Scott Goldman tells us:
The image ran in our State edition. We pulled it for City edition, which is most of our run.
Here’s a before-and-after:
Reportedly, about 30,000 copies of the state edition went out. Average daily circulation for the Star is 201,823, meaning less than 15 percent of the Star’s readers saw the illo.
Indianapolis’ WTHR Channel 13 reports:
Dennis Ryerson [the editor of the Indianapolis Star] said he wasn’t made aware of the image until after midnight, after the state edition had already hit the presses.
Robbi Pickeral of the News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C. — not far from Durham, but you probably knew that — reports today:
Jim Lefko, the Star’s senior editor for sports, said the illustration was replaced with a regular photo of Krzyzewski around midnight. “The designer had the story, and thought it was a clever way to illustrate it,’’ he said. “But it was a concept that didn’t meet our standards … and we wish it didn’t make the papers [that it did].”
The illustration made only the paper’s state edition, which is delivered in the city’s outlying areas. Papers delivered to the team and media hotels included a regular picture of Krzyzewski. The Star’s circulation is approximately 200,000.
“We wish we wouldn’t have done it,’’ Lefko said. “It didn’t meet our standards.”
Tim Gardner and Thomas O’Toole of USA Today — a corporate sister of the Star — report:
Jeff Rabjohns, The Indianapolis Star writer who authored the story, was “stunned” to see the artwork this morning. He said he wasn’t aware of it until after he received numerous emails and voicemails early Friday morning.
“I had no involvement in the design whatsoever and was as stunned as anyone else to see that in the newspaper and horrified that it was above my byline,” Rabjohns said.
The Associated Press reports Krzyzewski was not amused.
It was kind of juvenile. Not kind of, it was just juvenile. You know, my seven grandkids didn’t enjoy looking at it: ‘That’s not Papi.’
…We’re going to try to win. If you don’t like it, keep drawing pictures, you know. Just keep drawing pictures.
Try to do them a little bit better than that, though.
There’s no word on who the illustrator might have been. The first-edition illo was not credited.
Ryerson has written a piece for Saturday’s editorial page. Scott was kind enough to send us this excerpt:
On top of the story was a photograph of the coach that was altered to include the kind of ink-on-photo remarks and graffiti that Duke-despising fans may be tempted to apply - a mustache, a target, long hair and horns. The image was out of line. It ridiculed one of the best and most respected coaches in college basketball. Had we used the Blue Devil mascot, it may have been a different story, but using the coach’s image was indefensible.
Go here for PDF copies of both pages.
- Find the AP story here.
- Read the WTHR report here.
- See the USA Today story here.
- Find the News & Observer’s report here.
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MY OPINION
And, y’know, a couple of people asked me today what I thought and I told them via e-mail. I also tweeted it. I really should have given you my take here in the blog.
I don’t think the illustration so bad. I think it’s fresh and clever. I certainly don’t think it merited the fuss that’s been made over it.
Yes, Krzyzewski is hated by hoops fans all over the U.S. I’m betting a significant number of folks looked at the illustration and laughed in agreement today.
Granted, I’d have asked the designer to tone it down just a notch, perhaps. For starters, I don’t like the bullseye on the forehead — that just seems ominous. Nor do I care for the long hair — I don’t think that works visually.
I’d have asked for fewer marks on the face, perhaps, and I would have liked to see a version in which the devil horns were painted in — intentionally crudely, of course — with White-Out. It’s difficult to see them against that dark background.
And, as I told someone today via e-mail, I’d also like to have seen a blue, ball-point pen lying in the corner of the package.
Now, hold those thoughts about the hair and the pen. That’ll be important in a moment…
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UPDATE - 6:50 p.m.
My pal Aric West commented on this story at Facebook:
Mark my words, those earlier issues are gonna start popping up on eBay.
Wow. Great point. I remember only too well how much copies of the Daytona Beach paper went for, the day after Dale Earnhardt was killed.
There’s nothing there now. You can, however, buy a framed front page from Monday, celebrating Butler’s big win.
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UPDATE - 8 p.m.
It’s the story that won’t die!
An eagle-eyed friend — OK, OK, she works at a paper in North Carolina but is not a Duke fan — points out that an image of the early edition page posted by the Anderson, Ind., Herald Bulletin is different from the one I posted above.
On the left is a JPG of the PDF Scott Goldman sent me. On the right is a photo of a paper I presume was delivered in Anderson:
Differences, off the top of my head:
- No long hair. (Oddly enough, that was one of my suggestions, remember?)
- Some kind of label or caption superimposed in the upper right of the picture.
- A little hand holding a pen in the extreme lower right of the package, with text re-skewed to accommodate it.
Here’s another look at the one with the hand, e-mailed to me from yet another Indiana-based source:
And, sure enough — as I said above — I like it a lot better with the hand and the pen:
So which one of these actually ran? Or did both?
I’ll keep you posted…
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UPDATE - 10:45 p.m.
What a long, long day this has been for poor ol’ Scott Goldman. And instead of diving into a well-deserved six-pack — or something stronger — he’s answering my follow-up questions about what appears to be three versions of this illustration floating around.
Basically, the one with the hand was an update planned for the city edition. But then a decision was made late to scrap the illo entirely and go with the “Boo Devils” presentation.
Apparently, though, it didn’t happen quite that way, Scott tells us:
The production folks told us all the city edition papers (with the hand, and I liked that one better, too) were trashed, but obviously a few got out before the word came down to stop the presses.
So, to clarify:
- The one without the hand ran in State edition.
- The one with the hand was the “starter” for City edition, before we stopped the presses.
- The “Boo Devils” one was the final version. It ran for city edition. Looking at it at my house right now.
And I promise, there were only three versions!
Thanks much, Scott!
April 2nd, 2010 at 3:59 pm
As a UNC fan, I would like to say: love it
April 2nd, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Maybe I’m betraying my youth and immaturity here, but I’m amused. Yes, as Ryerson said, a defaced logo would have been more appropriate, but is it ‘indefensible’? No.
They should have run it yesterday and just passed the blame off on April Fools’ Day.
April 2nd, 2010 at 5:17 pm
I dunno, I think the original captures the impotent juvenality of sports-fan hatred. We N.C. State fans are past grand masters of that stuff; with football and basketball programs that’ve been irrelevant since … forever … there’s not much left but to poke fun at our more successful (in hoops, anyway) neighbors.
I think it’s amusing that Coach K got uptight about the page. I bet he dropped a few of his patented F-bombs. At least they didn’t call him Rat Face.
April 2nd, 2010 at 5:21 pm
I’d be curious what “standards” are they referring to - that’s kind of a nebulous answer right now. Maybe someone might confuse it as a mistake? Certainly you can make fun of a public figure.
April 2nd, 2010 at 5:24 pm
@Jim You’re right, I think the fact that he got really upset about it shows his colors more than anything else.
Also, forgot to mention before, but the updated version of the page? Ugly.
April 2nd, 2010 at 5:26 pm
They made a much bigger deal out of it by removing it from their later editions.
Let a funny illo be funny. If anything, it could’ve stood to be a little more absurd to emphasize what McBee just said.
April 2nd, 2010 at 5:42 pm
C’mon, it’s a legitimate use! Has the concept of parody been completely erased from our culture?
Besides look at what they replaced it with. “BOO DEVILS”?!?! Grammatically it should be “BOO, DEVILS!”
Mark my words, those earlier issues are gonna start popping up on eBay.
April 2nd, 2010 at 5:55 pm
I like the concept, but all the doodling was just overkill. All you needed were devil horns.
I feel bad for the designer in question. He or she had a concept that apparently got the green light at some point, but didn’t pass the Top Brass test. Talk about getting stabbed in the back by your bosses.
April 2nd, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Grow a pair, people. Fair or not, the illustration made this story—which has probably been written about Coach K a million times over—a must read. And its not like the illustration was anything other than an amplification of how many people feel about this guy. It caught the tone, made it a must read and got everyone talking about the newspaper again. Win, win.
Finally, he’s just a damn basketball coach people. It’s not like they did this to the pope or a world leader. On second though, strike that. Everyone should be fair game.
April 2nd, 2010 at 6:28 pm
Ummmm…wow! I just don’t understand all the fuss here. This is much ado about nothing. Aren’t newspapers supposed to get people fired up and elicit a response from readers?
I think papers should be doing more of this, not yanking provocative images mid-run. Too many people got their undies in a knot over this one.
April 2nd, 2010 at 6:36 pm
More bad news regarding the Coach K photo that ran in the Indianapolis Star. Here’s an even earlier edition with the “doctored” photo of Coach K.
http://slakingfool.blogspot.com/2010/04/indianapolis-star-coach-k-photo.html
April 2nd, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Love the first page. Second one is a bad, unnecessary solution. Why run a story about hating Duke if you’re just going to get all bent out of shape when it’s perfectly illustrated? Isn’t it supposed to be fun? Maybe it was all a stunt. What better way to show why people hate Duke than to bow down when the almighty Coach K complains?
April 2nd, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Slakingfool, Boo Devils is a play on Blue Devils, Duke’s mascot. And as far as I’m aware, who’s actually anti Coach K? Sure, people dislike Duke basketball, but publication after publication has Krzyzewski as one of the most respected, talented coaches in the sport. Seems like a pretty lazy attempt to sell papers, especially since the Indianapolis Star doesn’t exactly have a dog in that particular fight.
April 2nd, 2010 at 6:43 pm
The trouble with the public apology is it sounds like some high-powered Duke alum got to the management. I doubt that’s the case — you don’t have to point a gun at a publisher to make him flinch — but that’s how it *looks.*
April 2nd, 2010 at 6:59 pm
I don’t see anything wrong with this and would not have apologized. Way to defend the designer. What “standards” did the illustration not meet? The standard not to offend a sacred cow? Graffiti and defacing something date back to the stone age and totally works here. From Thomas Nast to the Sex Pistols, this ILLUSTRATES the story and the idea. The “after” version is just another story about Duke with another photo-headline-story treatment that I won’t read. Boring.
Everyone is fair game. We have the right to editorialize and keep drawing pictures.
April 2nd, 2010 at 7:12 pm
This design met several criteria for good design, including getting people’s attention and eliciting emotion. (Boy did it EVER elicit emotion!) Plus, excellent execution, this was NOT easy to do and did not happen in a vacuum. Designs will get killed, and I understand that it is totally possible, and frankly I’ve had designers who have had designs either killed or blasted the next day by higher editors. THAT happens. It’s the convoy of buses that bothers me, by writers and editors alike, that followed, apparently all day today.
April 2nd, 2010 at 7:16 pm
To quote (and second) @designhawg: “Grow a pair, people.” We (as an industry) need to stop being so timid about potentially offending sources instead of connecting with readers. This is a creative and highly conceptual illustration that communicated a visceral message quickly and connected with readers’ interests. Apologize? Nay. Public figures are open to parody. In sports I would say x2. Or x50. (During the Final Four? Coaches x500). The only issue I would have here is that the Indy Star, presumably siding with the alleged “home team,” should have gone after MSU’s Izzo first in support of Butler. Then Coach K on Sunday (imagine the uproar this would have caused on Easter?! Oh. My.)
PS: I hope there’s a couple copies of this left floating around the Indy Star newsroom — I’d love to see how it gets voted on the tables for SND32 in Syracuse next spring.
We need to push boundaries. Go for it, I say.
April 2nd, 2010 at 7:29 pm
what’s the problem here? the design is clever and works absolutely perfectly.
love it!
April 2nd, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Let’s just say newsroom politics are a fact of life and most designers worth a hill of beans stir up the staff in that arena from time to time.
April 2nd, 2010 at 7:35 pm
I’m a big Duke fan and love Coach K, but I think the illustration was a great idea and executed really well. It is baffling to me that K would get upset about it.
It’s an article about people hating Duke (which people do), and the illustration captures that sentiment. But beyond that, the illustration reflects more negatively on people who hate Duke than on Coach K, because it IS so juvenile. It makes hatred of Duke seem a little silly, if anything.
Loosen up K, and enjoy the fact that people hate you because you win too much.
April 2nd, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Great concept that communicated to readers, period. No apologizes. Will papers keep playing it safe and risk free all the way to the grave? Boring. I assume this paper puts out a DAILY paper. Let it go, you’ll be putting out another 1A tommorrow.
April 2nd, 2010 at 8:09 pm
If a monodaily is willing to self-flagellate for days over something so innocuous, no wonder our industry is circling the bowl. Maybe it should be, because the culture is awash with things far more edgy than that. Hell, I did the exact same illustration to a photo of our college president in the Daily Eastern News more than 15 years ago.
April 2nd, 2010 at 9:10 pm
It’s absolutely brilliant (although much better with the pen in hand in lower right corner). It evokes the spirit of Duke haters. I know everyone always wants to make everyone feel good so I understand why Indy Star apologized to Coach K. Sometimes, the press should let its images and words stand. I believe this was one of those instances.
April 2nd, 2010 at 10:34 pm
I wonder if any of you who are championing the design actually bothered to go read the original story it illustrates. I’d say it’s more about the love/hate relationship fans have with Duke than implying it’s universally hated. http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20104020323 So maybe drawing a halo on one and horns on another might have been more appropriate.
I’m not super offended by what they did or anything, but calling it brilliant is pretty absurd as well. That design several years ago with the Duke voodoo doll with pins in it is brilliant. It was planned in advance, and was a striking illustration. This just clearly wasn’t thought out and it points to that as a bigger problem at newspapers, not just picking on some poor overworked designer. I’m liberal. Have a sense of humor. But doing an illustration that suggests a balanced story isn’t is wrong in my book, period. I think they were right to fix it.
April 2nd, 2010 at 10:35 pm
After all this fuss, I hate Duke even more.
April 2nd, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Amen, Ben. I’d like a framed copy for my office… and it’d make a nice dart board. I’ve made those same immature doodles on his face on my newspaper at home before … :)
April 3rd, 2010 at 1:05 am
Can you say bulletin board material?
I admit that I like Duke. This illustration didn’t bother me that much. I thought it was a great idea, but I would have preferred they had used a picture of the Blue Devil mascot. Say what you want about Coach K, but he runs a clean, successful program and graduates his players. I have a bigger issue with the paper pulling the illustration. I think that might start a dangerous precedent. The article itself is fantastic. It really captures how much Duke is hated in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area.
April 3rd, 2010 at 9:43 am
Wow, the Indy Star – a very conservative newspaper – actually running an illustration like this one.
As an avid reader of the Indy Star I say kudos for actually putting something shocking and intriguing in the newspaper. If i saw this edition on the news stand, I would have to buy it.
But I have to diss whoever decided to pull it. Single-sales of the paper could have been off the charts and maybe the newspaper front could actually make the nightly news. And what a bummer it is for the newspaper not standing up for the person who is responsible for the illustration. What a bummer.
April 3rd, 2010 at 9:47 am
I liked it — mostly. He’s a basketball coach, for goodness’ sake, not the pope. Oh, wait…
But did anybody else think the target on his forehead went a little too far? I would’ve run it, but without the target.
April 3rd, 2010 at 11:29 am
Indy, I love you and because I love you, Im going to say this:
How often does design make you laugh?
I’m not talking about a comic; I mean a news page design. Whoever did this, you have my laugh. This page identifies and communicates with readers. It’s not often you get to talk with readers and tell them, yeah, we get it. Using the mascot would have been more PC, for sure, but the mascot undermines the point.
The point: People hate Duke. People hate the couch. People doodle on pages and yes, this very page will likely get doodled on by readers but instead of the PC lose, they’ll write “Fuck you.” Yeah, I cussed. You’re not 12.
Maybe it’s jealousy (C’mon Purdue). Maybe it’s some underlying insecurity to tear down those that are great (The coach who shall not be named). Maybe it’s just that I like parenthesis (Heck yes!) But, this is how people work. This is how our readers work. This is the page that gets our readers talking and for good or bad, a design made people talk, design made people laugh, design made people take out their pens and write all over pages everywhere, design made people enjoy the printed page again.
This page is everything I strive for in visual journalism.
April 3rd, 2010 at 11:49 am
^^ What Martin said. The illo is clever and funny. Too bad some bosses went all chickeny on it at the last minute. If I was the designer, it would be difficult for me to want to take clever and funny chances in the future.
April 3rd, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Coach K said it was “juvenile.” That’s the POINT. It’s a reader’s juvenile reaction to a juvenile game. The guy makes millions of dollars to coach a game.
I was most offended by the writer saying he was horrified it was above his byline. It’s a story about a team being hated. The same story I’ve read for 15 years about the same team. This is not uncharted territory. Maybe the target was a little bit much, but I actually liked the hand in there. Wished I’d thought of it.
We did the same thing in San Diego 6 years ago after Eli Manning refused to play for the Chargers. We put ourselves in the fans’ shoes and the resulting web poll — about players San Diegans loved to hate — got more votes than any poll we’d ever done. It resonated.
Here’s the page: http://twitpic.com/1cy4ly
April 3rd, 2010 at 3:21 pm
I think the “long hair” you are referring to is meant to be the doodler’s attempt at the hood and cape that the Blue Devil mascot often wears.
April 3rd, 2010 at 3:26 pm
My two thoughts on this were:
1. Based on the reactions and attention, how long until the designer is sent packing?
2. That final page really blows (meaningless file art that says nothing).
Of course, the real question for me was how’d this get published for the first edition in the first place if people thought it was potentially controversial — and then how was the newspaper’s main editor later called in on it? (Makes me wonder about operational procedures.)
I like the “with hand” version of the page.
April 6th, 2010 at 10:12 am
Much noise about nothing.
April 6th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Heh. Cool. The city version is better.
Lisa P. makes a good point though. Half angelic, half demon might’ve been better especially if that’s the way the story went.
Otherwise I generally agree with the other 40 comments. It’s funny. Do it to it. Humor is lost on so many editors both in advertising and editorial. But humor transcends all barriers. The commercials we remember during Superbowl are the funny ones.
April 6th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Michigan State chimes in: http://www.statenews.com/index.php/blog/i_shot_the_serif/2010/04/indy_star_chickens_out_with_retraction_of_krzyzewski_illustration Found it among Romanesko’s Additional Items: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=180977
April 9th, 2010 at 10:43 am
If this had been a political cartoon in the editorial section with the exact same image, only hand drawn instead of an actual photo, would this even be news?