Charles Apple

It’s Day Three of newspaper coverage of the aftermath of the huge earthquake in Chile. And already, we’re seeing a lot of the same images, over and over, on the fronts of newspapers all over the world posted at the Newseum.

Does the news media not have adequate access to the regions struck hardest? Is the damage not as great as what we saw a few weeks ago in Haiti? Or are the world’s newspapers simply weary of running earthquake damage photos as lead art on page one?

I’ll restrain myself today and show you only 17 front pages from the U.S. and Latin America, starting with the two dailies in Chile.

El Mercurio of Santiago ran a large picture today of armed personnel vehicles patrolling around the central business district of Concepción, where heavy looting has taken place:

Reports say 10,000 troops have been called up to stop the kind of looting we saw on Monday’s front pages. The photo is by Mario Quilodrán — presumably of the el Mercurio staff.

The other big daily in Santiago — La Tercera — ran an even more dramatic photo of the same scene, shot by Claudio Santana of Agence France-Presse:

O Globo of Rio de Janerio, Brazil, used that same photo to great effect:

The Los Angeles Times led with a five-column photo of a store in Constitucion that had been reduced to rubble:

The picture was by Times staffer Michael Robinson Chavez. The LAT circulates 657,467 copies daily.

Comércio of Franca, Brazil, turned this nice picture by Claudio Santana of AFP into a poster-like front:

Hoy of Quito, Ecuador, featured a picture from EFE of a man picking through debris in Dichato, which was smashed by both the quake and a tsunami:

Boats strewn across the countryside seemed to be the big picture of the day. This picture — also taken in Dichato — is by Natacha Pisarenko of the Associated Press:

The paper, of course, is the Miami Herald, circulation 162,260.

I’m unclear where this photo was taken. The markings on the boat are the same as in the Miami Herald photo, so I’ll guess Dichato as well:

That’s La Hora of Quito, Ecuador. There is neither a credit nor a caption for the picture. The deck notes that the body of an Ecuadorian national killed in the quake cannot be returned because of health issues.

Here’s a shocking image, also from the AP and shot in the port city of Talcahuano. It shows a man armed with a rifle, standing guard on the roof of a building. Behind him, you can see cargo containers that had been tossed around as if they were shoeboxes:

That’s el Universal of Caracas, Venezuela.

This photo by the AP’s Natacha Pisarenko of a Talcahuano street littered with debris, cars and a good-sized boat was used by a number of papers in the U.S., where an AP story that focused on the tsunami angle was a popular choice for A1 today.

Here is the Advocate of Baton Rouge, La., circulation 87,881…

…the Sacramento (Calif.) Bee, circulation 217,545…

…and the Times of Seattle, Wash., circulation 263,588:

As you can see, each of the three gave large, dramatic play to the picture.

I’m not quite sure where the picture on the front of the Jornal do Commercio of Recife, Brazil, was shot:

The caption says, according to Google Translate:

Drama: Still upside down, Chile seems far away to regain normalcy. When night falls, the hungry invade stores in search of food and water.

The picture is by Martin Bernetti of Agence France-Presse.

The Washington Post led page one today with a generous four-column photo of residents in Concepción pulling water from a drainage ditch. There is no drinkable water there, the caption says:

The photo is from Reuters. Average daily circulation for the Post is 582,844.

I pulled this next page specifically to show aid getting out. Slowly, but surely, it’s trickling into Chile. Unless I’m mistaken, this headline says Now, Yes:

The picture is neither captioned nor credited. Perú.21 is based in Lima, Peru.

But then I found this photo — obviously at the same time — on the front of the Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg, Va., circulation 46,672:

Yet another picture by the AP’s Natacha Pisarenko, the caption says:

Residents reach to catch merchandise thrown from a market being looted in Concepcion, Chile, yesterday.

Sigh. Oh, well. Perhaps we’ll see pictures of relief efforts on the front of Wednesday’s papers.

At least someone in Chile received some help Monday. Here is today’s Gazette of Colorado Springs:

Isn’t that a great picture? Please click for a larger view:

It’s credited to only “AP.”

Average daily circulation for the Gazette is 93,859.

So, have you wondered just what the tsunami looked like Saturday when it washed over Hawaii?

Greg Holzman took the photos below of his son on a dock in Kikiaola Bay on Kaua’i island, after the all-clear was given but as the waves rolled in.

It apparently seemed like the tide was coming in and out all afternoon. Of course, it wasn’t the tide at all. It was the tsunami waves, which Holzman measured at about four feet, four inches. These pictures were taken about four minutes apart:

These pictures ran on the front of the daily Garden Island of Kaua’i, Hawaii, Monday morning:

Meanwhile, far more serious matters faced quake-stricken Chile. Here is the front of today’s El Mercurio of Santiago:

The main picture of the soldiers — sent in to stop the heavy looting reportedly going on — is by the Associated Press. More about that looting shortly.

The other big daily in Santiago — La Tercera — used a huge picture of homes in Pelluhue, southwest of Santiago, that were stricken first by the quake and then by the tsunami. The picture — and so many others I’ll show you today — was taken by Robert Candia of the Associated Press:

Equally shocking is the secondary art of the looter being held at gunpoint.

Many papers used that same AP picture of the mud-covered town today. Here is El Universo of Guayaquil, Ecuador:

It’s an awesome photo. Note how the designers are smart enough to run it large and get out of its way.

This is El Colombiano of Medellín, Colombia:

And a number of U.S. papers used it as well. Representing those is the Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., circulation 176,638:

The damage in the town of Pelluhue made particularly good A1 photos today. Consider this moving shot of a child surveying what’s left of his mud-covered village:

The picture is by Ivan Alvarado of Reuters. The paper is the Diário of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The Los Angeles Times — circulation 657,467 — built its front page around that same picture…

…as did El Universal of Caracas, Venezuela:

The aforementioned Robert Candia of the Associated Press also sent pictures of folks wandering through the rubble of Pelluhue. This one was used to good effect by the Star of Ventura, Calif., circulation 86,276:

Same photographer, same location, different newspaper. This is the Times-Dispatch of Richmond, Va., circulation 133,161:

One of my favorite pictures of the day is this one by Candia of a man holding up a Chilean flag. Or, rather, what’s left of one:

That’s el Nuevo Dia of San Juan, Puerto Rico. The same picture was selected as lead art by the Miami Herald, circulation 162,260…

…and the Republican-American of Waterbury, Conn., circulation 50,903:

Here’s an AP photo of folks picking through debris in the town of Pelluhue, used by Los Tiempos of Cochabamba, Bolivia:

Here’s a particularly surreal shot on the front of Express, the commuter tab published by the Washington Post:

The picture is by Martin Mbernett of Getty Images. Average daily circulation for Express is 183,916.

Here’s another AP photo — this one was taken in Talcahuano. The paper is the Journal of Winston-Salem, N.C., circulation 81,930:

O Globo of Rio de Janerio, Brazil, built its page one around this wonderful photo by Jose Luis Saavedra of Reuters:

Note the dog on the roof of the house on the right. This was the city of Diachato, of which 80 percent was reportedly destroyed.

I’m unclear which city this is on the front of Diario de Pernambuco of Recife, Brazil, but you can see the tsunami washed boats onto the shore:

And, a few papers showed us the apartment building snapped in half in Concepción that many papers had put out front on Sunday. I’m not sure these pictures by Rafael Vallejos of EFE told us anything different today, other than perhaps having a closer angle.

Here is Pioneiro of Caxias do Sul, Brazil…

…and here is Diário Catarinense of Florianópolis, Brazil:

A few papers focused on rescue efforts. Here are workers breaking through a wall in Concepción:

The photo is by Daniel Garcia of AFP. The paper is Correio Braziliense of Brasilia, Brazil.

And here is an AP photo of workers lifting a deceased victim out of a building, also in Concepción. The paper is the Times of St. Petersburg, Fla., circulation 240,147:

El Universal of Mexico City attempted something risky: Instead of lead art, it placed three horizontal photos on A1, hoping the entire unit would serve as a visual centerpiece:

And, y’know, they pulled it off. Quite well, too. If I understand the photo credits properly, two of the three pictures are by El Universal staffers, too — some of the few staff photos I’ve seen so far come out of Chile.

Many newspapers chose to focus on the looting going on in the aftermath of the quake. And, unfortunately, the looting was widespread enough so that photographers had no shortage of subjects to shoot; designers had no shortage of looting art from which to choose.

This picture from EFE shows looters in a store in Concepción:

That is el Espectador of Bogata, Colombia. The same photo was chosen by La Nacion of Buenos Aires, Argentina:

Here’s a similar photo — also in Concepción — shot by EFE’s Geraldo Caso and used by Hoy of Quito, Ecuador:

Folha of Sao Paulo, Brazil chose that same picture:

More looting, also in Concepción:

That is Clarín of Buenos Aires. The picture is from Telam.

I’m going to take a wild guess here and say Concepción happens to be where photographers were assigned to shoot looting art. It strains my imagination to think the only looting was happening in that one city.

This next looting lead art is blurry and uncredited:

LaHora of Quito, Ecuador chose to play its lead art at the bottom of the page, as opposed to a more traditional top-of-the-page.

Here is Perú.21 of Lima, also using an uncredited photo of looters with groceries:

El Territorio of Posadas, Argentina, also used looter art from Telam. The immediacy in this one — there’s some blurring but we can still see the the faces of the fleeing looters — makes it my favorite looter photo of the day:

I’ll close today with my former paper, the Herald of Rock Hill, S.C., circulation 30,848. I love the headline here, which captures the ying/yang feel of these disasters:

Go here to find my roundup of Sunday’s earthquake and tsunami front pages from the U.S. and Latin America.

Earlier today, I posted my final critique of Winter Olympics fronts. Find that here.

The China Daily — the largest English-language daily and China and known to many of us as the paper that hired Bill Gaspard a few weeks ago — launched a redesign today.

A before-and-after look at page one (click anything today for a larger view):

A story posted on the papers’ web site explains there will now be a daily in-depth “cover story,” with which…

…we aim to set the news agenda instead of just follow it. Our talented team of roving reporters will bring you the voices from the heart of the action, while our exclusive interviews with key policymakers offer a broader understanding of the motivation behind the decisions.

Here’s the jump page for today’s cover feature, Gold Standard:

Creative director Jonah Kessel tells us:

This redesign has been a very interesting experience. In some ways, the issues we face in China are much different than in the West; other issues seem to be universal.

Last night I asked Bill Gaspard at 3 a.m. to rate “the pain” involved in this redesign, compared to other projects he has been involved with. Beer in hand, with a smile on his face, he said, “about an 8.”

While monetary issues don’t necessarily make the top of our worry list here, many more people have eyes on what we do. Normally, we try to meet the needs and wants of our readers and publishers; but, here we are trying to meet the needs of our editors, publishers, government officials, a diverse expatriate population, a Chinese population — all while trying to push forward in the notion of a free press. Its a very tricky task, a very difficult task and at times, a very fun task.

Back to the paper’s news story:

One of the major aesthetic changes is the nameplate, which is based on the color of the original 1981 nameplate. The “Futura” font is a modern and bold new version, while the original handwritten Chinese characters were kept as a symbol of China Daily’s 28-year evolution from a newspaper to an international multimedia group.

The nameplate was introduced to readers last week via a four-page wrap, Jonah says.

This was a little different than anything I had done before. I had this idea of “Hollywooding” the new nameplate into the Great Wall about 4-months ago when I started this project. It took a couple trips to the Great Wall to get the right image, but eventually I found the right light.

Here are before-and-after looks at the new editorial page…

…the new features page…

…and the new sports page:

Big changes are in store for a small zoned insert. The paper reports:

Metro Beijing, inserted into the flagship edition for the Beijing market, will expand from four pages to eight, making the Beijing edition a 32-page daily. Serving millions of international readers who arrive in the capital city every year, this section combines news reporting with service information.

The paper reports:

This model will eventually be replicated in Shanghai and Guangdong, providing more localized content for each metropolitan market.

Go here to read the paper’s story explaining its own redesign. Find a second story and video here. Find a letter here from editor Zhu Ling.

Find Jonah Kessel’s blog here.

You couldn’t have asked for a better end to the Winter Olympics.

Sure, the U.S. hockey team lost its bid Sunday to “steal” a gold medal away from Canada. The Americans came back from a two-goal deficit to send the game into overtime.

But it was a fabulous game to watch — and I don’t even like hockey. And it was nice to see the Canadians win this medal, which seemed so important to them. Especially after the way the entire nation seemed to feel guilty about weather problems, technical glitches and other little obstacles that popped up earlier in the games.

Canada did a great job of a) hosting the Winter Games, and b) covering the games on page one of their newspapers. My hat is off to our gracious neighbors to the north.

I want to start my final round of mini-critiques of Canadian and U.S. pages, however, with the sports front of today’s Washington Post. To me, this was the ultimate picture that summed up the day’s gold-medal hockey game:

The photo is by Yuri Kadobnov of Agence France-Presse. And it’s brilliant.

Le Presse of Montreal played up a similar shot by Gary Hershorn of Reuters and — to my delight — broke out of the regimented format the paper has been using over the past two weeks to allow the photo to run with great size:

Again, this is just brilliant. I like the Post version better — you can see more of the fans screaming for their home team — but this works out nearly as well. Average daily circulation for La Presse is 214,953.

The Montreal Gazette also used a picture by Hershorn, but one that focused on just the team:

The Gazette circulates 151,042 copies daily.

The kid who actually scored that goal in overtime to win the game for Canada was Sidney Crosby. He figures prominently, as you would imagine, on many Canadian front pages today.

The Hamilton Spectator – circulation 95,611 — blew out a huge poster treatment for a photo of Crosby reacting to his own shot:

Crosby’s stick is still in mid-air. His glove is flying off to the left. It’s a wonderful shot by Paul Chiasson of the Canadian Press.

Not nearly as effective was this Reuters photo used by the Province of Vancouver, circulation 165,838:

It’s not bad. But not nearly as effective as the two or three covers I’ve shown you already.We’re losing the fans and the environment, but we are seeing a lot of emotion on Crosby’s face. And the picture is relatively well-cropped for this page format.

I do like the Epic headline, though.

I was very disappointed in today’s National Post of Toronto, however. While the photo above worked well in that page format, this one does not:

That’s just an awkward crop. The photo is by Alex Livesey of Getty Images. The National Post circulates 197,034 copies daily.

This next photo — by Getty’s Yuri Kadobnov — was taken just moments after those last few and show the beginning of that mob scene with which we started today:

This is a great shot, and one that will be remembered for a long, long time. Which justifies the poster treatment by the Calgary Herald, circulation 121,800.

I hate to mention this after I wrongfully accused Lewiston, Maine, of this the other day, but I looks as if Calgary might have darkened the lighter parts within the window behind Crosby. Note how light the areas are in the same Kadobnov photo in today’s Windsor Star, circulation 68,147:

Here they are, side by side. Note the white reflections in the Star over Crosby’s head and left arm and the little white card over his right fist, as well as the absence of his jersey number reflected in the glass:

I don’t think it’s a good idea at all to photoshop a news photo, shot on cycle and run on the front page. If, indeed, that’s what’s happened here.

The Citizen of Ottawa ran a photo of that same moment, but from a less effective angle:

The problem here is something I’ve written about before, at length: If you’re going to show us celebration photos, then please let us see the emotion on the faces. I can see Crosby’s face and part of the face of the guy at right. But I can’t see Neidermayer’s face at all. Meaning, of the three people here, I can see only 1.5 faces. Not a good average.

A fine enough photo by Harry How of Getty. But just not front-page worthy. The Citizen circulates 128,600 copies daily.

Much, much better is this picture by Toronto Star staffer Rick Madonik:

I love the roll call up top of gold medal winners and the secondary picture below of fans celebrating the win. Nice job by Canada’s largest daily paper, circulation 335,680.

After the team received its medals, Crosby took a lap around the rink with a huge national flag. The Waterloo Region Record of Kitchener — circulation 57,855 — chose this as its poster front treatment today:

Very nice, clean design and a wonderfully sensitive typographical treatment on the photo. The picture is by John Lok of the Seattle Times.

Le Soleil of Québec ran a similar photo from AFP that had the advantage of showing the Canadian team in the background. King of the Games, the headline says:

This worked out very well. The red stripe across the photo doesn’t really bother me that much — I can still see plenty of fans. And I like the way the flag runs behind the paper’s nameplate.

This one didn’t work out quite so well, however. You can see the players, but their heads are covered up by the flag. And Crosby seems awkwardly cut off at his knees:

The picture is by Andre Forget of QMI. The Niagara Falls Review circulates 12,512 copies daily.

The front page of the Edmonton Journal — circulation 119,909 — worked out a little better:

The page feels a little cramped, however, mostly because of the text running over Crosby’s leg and the cluttered batch of medals in the upper left.

Having the flag protrude into the nameplate doesn’t bother me… which seems odd, given my reaction to the apparent Photoshopping by the Calgary Herald. Is it possible I have a bit of a double standard here? Hmm. Could be.

The picture is by Bruce Bennett of Getty Images.

There’s a good lesson here, on the front of today’s Chronicle Herald of Halifax, circulation 107,485:

The lesson: Keep it simple. Very simple.

Simple can be powerful, especially when you have a great photo — in this case, by Matt Slocum of the Associated Press. You use the picture huge and then get the hell out of its way.

The Sun papers — which have often published fronts over the past two weeks that were way too cluttered — road that simplicity thing with great effect today. Here is the largest of the tabs — the Toronto Sun, circulation 166,123:

Nice and clean. And very strong. The photo — very nice, I might add — is by Andre Forget.

From left are the Suns of Ottawa (circulation 39,233), Winnipeg (32,404) and Calgary (49,633).

La Tribune of Sherbrooke sampled a portion of a large hockey team photo for today’s A1. Which, as you can see, resulted in a relatively weak composition:

The picture was by Jonathan Hayward of the Canadian Press. La Tribune circulates 33,280 copies daily.

Note how the upper part of this cover image seems much more structured than did Sherbrooke’s. An artist pulled out four hockey players, pushed other parts of the photo back and inserted the paper’s nameplate and a headline:

It makes for a better cover image. But again — man, that’s a lot of Photoshop work. Wouldn’t it have been better to show readers an unaltered view of what happened Sunday? We’ve seen plenty of other examples.

The original photo was from Reuters. Le Journal de Montreal circulates 225,427 copies.

The Daily News of Nanaimo — by far the smallest paper I’ll show you today with a circulation 6,868 — ran a nice team photo across the top of the page and then added medal shots of all the other Canadian gold-medal winners:

Now, that’s a keeper. Nice job, Nanaimo.

The Sudbury Star — circulation 15,253 — simply ran a team photo across the top of its page, above the nameplate:

The picture was by Daniel Mallard of QMI. The treatment allowed the Star to run, downpage, a photo of fans watching the game at a local pub.

The Prince George Citizen — circulation 14,456 — also focused on fans watching the game on the huge screens at a local sports arena:

The picture is by staffer David Mah. This page is pretty solid above the fold but awfull gray below it.

And I’ve picked on the Winnipeg Free Press an awful lot this week, so I’m tempted to not dwell its page today. Other than to say: Still too scattered; still too much going on.

The photo of fans in Vancouver is by Scott Gardner of the Canadian Press. The Free Press circulates 127,065 copies daily.

Only two Canadian papers posting their fronts today at the Newseum led their front pages with pictures of the closing ceremonies. One was the Globe and Mail of Toronto, circulation 332,764:

I imagine the justification was that they blew out hockey in their daily special section. Unfortunately, I don’t have any special section pages for you today: The Globe and Mail’s free access to PDF pages expired with the new month.

The photo was by Kevork Djansezian of Getty Images.

And the Olympics’ hometown paper — the Vancouver Sun — went out with a bang: A wonderful exterior shot of fireworks over BC Place Stadium during the closing ceremonies:

The picture was by Todd Korol of Reuters.  The Sun circulates 176,690 copies daily.

A lot of U.S. papers put the Olympics out on A1 today — really, many more than I had expected, given all the news in Chile. Therefore, I’ll show you only the very, very best or most notable Olympic fronts from below the 49th parallel.

Sidney Crosby — the kid who scored the winning goal for Canada — actually plays pro hockey for the Pittsburgh Penguins. So, as you’d imagine, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — circulation 184,234 — played a nice celebration shot of Crosby with two staff-written stories:

The picture is by Paul Chaisson of the Associated Press.

The Star-Telegram of Fort Worth, Texas went with a nice mass celebration shot from the AP’s Chris O’Meara that would have topped many of the photos on the front of Canadian papers today:

Average daily circulation for the Star Telegram is 167,364.

The Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill., chose to focus on dejected Americans, picking their way through the equipment Team Canada dropped to celebrate:

Not only was the headline nice, I also liked the triple-deck treatment beneath the photo. The picture is from the Associated Press.

The Ledger Independent of Maysville, Ky., used a great AP photo of U.S. goalie Ryan Miller after he gave up the winning goal:

That’s a fabulous special treatment by the 8,692 daily.

The News of Buffalo, N.Y. — circulation 165,511 — focused on the “Miracle on Ice” theme for this great headline:

The picture was from Getty Images.

And many, many U.S. papers put the closing ceremonies out front today. One of the biggest and boldest treatments was this one by the Seattle Times, which has done fabulous work throughout the Winter Games:

The picture is by staffer Mike Siegel. The Times circulates 263,588 copies daily.

Nearly as nice was this one afront the Record of Stockton, Calif., circulation 57,486:

The picture was by George Bridges of McClatchy-Tribune.

As the closing ceremonies unfolded, the visual spectacle grew even larger. The Denver Post — circulation 340,949 — went with this nice visual by Robyn Beck of Agence France-Presse:

In particular, I like the headline. However, I think it’s a bit of a disconnect to put a head containing a pun about medals with a photo of the closing ceremonies. That might have worked better with a photo of an athlete.

I was fascinated by the large table-hockey cutout figures used by dancers in the closing ceremonies. I’m so glad the Fresno Bee — circulation 126,398 — got those out front today:

The picture is by McClatchy-Tribune.

The Austin American-Statesman — circulation 140,602 — went Fresno one better and built its front page around photos of the giant inflatable beavers that appeared later in the ceremonies:

Giant Inflatable Beavers. That would make a great name for a rock and roll band, wouldn’t it?

The photo was by Robert Gauthier of the Los Angeles Times.

And the Herald-Tribune of Sarasota, Fla., went even further than Austin to build around giant inflatable moose:

Yes, Sarasota, the hockey game was an exciting finish to the winter games. But the inflatable beavers and moose and appearances by Michael J. Fox and William Shatner were not exciting as much as surreal.

The photo was by Robert Bukaty of the Associated Press. The Herald-Tribune circulates 114,900 copies daily.

Montages rarely work on A1, I’ve found. But the Times-News of Erie, Pa., found a way to not only pull one off, but to pull it off very well:

The secret here was to use a grid and to crop very, very well. Of the 12 pictures shown here, only one would I argue with the crop (middle of the bottom row, and even that might be OK). Nice job, Erie.

Average daily circulation for the Times-News is 55,397.

And, of course, today is the final day of special sections by the Seattle Times. Thanks so much to Jon Fisch and Rich Boudet for sending them every day.

The final front focused on the hockey final, of course. Jon tells us the..

…final cover was designed by Rick Lund with a nice, up close and personal photo by John Lok.

Click any of these for a larger view:

He also treated us with a couple of inside pages:

Jon continues:

Rick Lund designed two photo pages looking back at the games and highlighting some of the wonderful photos by John Lok, Steve Ringman and Mike Siegel.

The back page recapped all the Times‘ special section covers including this one:

And that’s it for our daily critique of Winter Olympics pages.

I hadn’t really intended to write anything this elaborate every day, but the e-mails and comments these posts gathered suggested that we were indeed finding plenty of teachable moments here.

Plus, I hardly ever show Canadian papers here in the blog. This was a great opportunity to shine the spotlight on our neighbors to the north.

Thanks for all the feedback, folks! Congratulations again, Canada, on a job well-done.

And, as always, thanks to the Newseum for posting all these pages to begin with.

Greetings, folks, and welcome to our second post of the day critiquing newspaper front pages from the U.S. and around the world, as posted at the Newseum.

Earlier, I posted my penultimate look at Vancouver Olympics pages from the U.S. and Canada. This time, I’ll take a spin through pages focusing on Saturday’s giant earthquake in Chile. We’ll look at U.S. papers first and then open to look at Latin American papers.

And, as usual, we’ll be looking at only the best or most notable pages, or pages from which I feel I can extract a lesson for us all.

I’ll start right here in Hampton Roads, Va. — with the Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk, circulation 164,454. This picture by David Lillo of the Associated Press was perhaps the most commonly used as lead art by U.S. papers today:

And no wonder. It’s an awesome photo. You or I could easily have been in any one of those cars, atop the viaduct when the quake struck.

While this isn’t the best page the Virginian-Pilot has ever designed, you can see all the hallmarks of what makes the Pilot a great visual paper. A big, bold headline tells us just what we need to know. The photo is just perfect — especially for a place that has more than its share of bridges. Three nice pullout boxes cover the main questions on our minds, even comparing this event to the one in Haiti.

The same photo was used by the Times-Dispatch of Richmond, Va. The design may have been less intricate, but the impact was just as powerful:

I like the fact that Richmond got the Hawaii angle into the headline. The Pilot, of course, had done that with a two-column picture and a pullout box.

The Times-Dispatch circulates 133,161 copies daily.

This does bring up that interesting phenomenon I’ve written about from time to time, that of Regional Twins: When two papers, in roughly the same geographical area. choose the same picture and crop it nearly the same way.

Let’s be honest; most readers don’t really care what a newspaper published a couple of hundred miles away looks like today. But when a potential customer walks up to a set of news racks — or into a convenience store — and sees twins like this, displayed side-by-side… well, I wonder what she thinks.

There’s not much we can do about it. It’s just one of those things that pops up, from time to time — especially when we have access to the same wire photos and have roughly the same deadlines.

Just a little further up the road — in Washington, D.C. — the Washington Post used a different photo of that same scene:

The picture by Marco Iredes of Reuters is played well, across four columns. In particular, though, I love the little graphic down below the locator map:

Nice work by the Post’s Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso and Patterson Clark. Average daily circulation for the Post is 582,844.

The Buffalo News is one of the better papers in the country at using photography well, and that certainly applies to wire art. The News built today’s A1 around a nice Reuters shot of yet again, that same scene in Chile:

Very clean, of course — as is the custom in Buffalo. The News circulates 165,511 copies daily.

Now, compare that page to this one by the Tri City Herald of Kennewick, Wash., circulation 40,830:

The Herald doesn’t have quite the impact as did Buffalo, did it? Yet, the Herald used very clean design and some nice pull-out decks. So what went wrong?

The cropping. While the AP photo selected by the Herald suggests scope — there’s a lot of space around the subject matter at the center of the picture — it doesn’t really show us anything more. This picture could have been cropped in much tighter to accentuate the carnage we see there.

To some extent, I feel the same way about this AP picture used by the Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif.:

It’s jarring to see the broken bridge and the vehicles strewn across the road as if they were Hot Wheels. But in the foreground is some broken concrete and a couple of downed signs. Nothing nearly as compelling as the stuff back there on the bridge.

So why not crop in tight on the compelling stuff? Or, better yet, select another photo that tells a better visual story? Like the photos we’ve already seen, for example.

The Press-Enterprise circulates 113,182 copies daily.

This was one of the more compelling angles I saw today, on the front of the Seattle Times:

The main art is downright scary. Again, just think of how many times you drive across bridges. The secondary picture and the bullet-like decks below the fabulous headline make it all come together. Average daily circulation for the Times is 263,588.

I’m a little confused about the origin of that main art, however. The Times says it’s from the Associated Press. But the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Minn., says it’s by Martin Bernetti of Getty Images:

Nice work by the Strib, which circulates 304,543 copies daily.

A moment ago, I mentioned scale. When things like this happen, it’s always good to find a photo that helps us grasp the enormity of the event.

The Star of Ventura, Calif. — circulation 86,276 — found a picture that did just that and it ran it huge across page one today:

There’s something about all that steel rebar that seems… ominous. Wonderful photo by Carlos Espinoza of the Associated Press.

Espinoza also shot the picture used by the Orange County Register of Santa Ana, Calif. What it loses in the innards of the concrete bridge, it gains in the rows of spilled autos:

The Orange County Register circulates 212,293 copies daily.

The other picture I found on many, many U.S. papers today was this apartment building in Concepción, snapped in half by the earthquake:

The News Tribune of Duluth, Minn. — circulation 40,305 — gave a great ride today to this photo from the Associated Press. I had difficulty finding a paper that actually named the photographer, however, If anyone can find it for me, please let me know and I’ll update this post.

The Observer of Charlotte, N.C. — circulation 167,585 — also used this photo six columns wide…

…and it’s beautiful, of course. But it also brings up more than just Regional Twins. These are Regional Quadruplets:

In addition to the Observer, you’re seeing the Greensboro News & Record (circulation 84,339), the Winston-Salem Journal (circulation 81,930) and the Asheville Citizen-Times (circulation 50,160).

Winston-Salem shrank the photo to four-and-a-half columns in order to put a quake story alongside. Greensboro and Asheville took it down in order to push another story above the fold. Yet, the only treatment I’d question here is Asheville’s, which sliced off quite a bit from the sides of the picture in order to make it more square.

And leave it to the Mercury News of San Jose, Calif., to find — and to use to great effect — a fresh angle of the same scene everyone else was running on A1:

That’s a picture of the same apartment, by Rafael Vallejos of EPA. And that simple, simple headline — aimed at a readership that certainly knows its earthquakes — is wonderful. Average daily circulation of the Mercury News is 225,175.

A few papers built their front pages around the same picture — by the AP’s Sebastian Martinez — as did the New York Times today:

And, in related news, the New York Times ran a four-column photo from the AP across the top of its Sunday front. Average daily circulation for the NYT is 927,851.

The problem I have with this picture is that it shows no scale. As you’ve seen, buildings were ripped part. Highway bridges were flattened. Hundreds — possibly thousands — of people lost their lives. And while that’s a touching vignette we’re seeing, it seems to miss the bigger story.

The same might be said for the lead art atop today’s Tribune of Salt Lake City, circulation 112,545:

A great picture by Roberto Candia of the Associated Press. But hardly an epic one. Of what is surely an epic story today.

No, if your editors want to go with a touching, people-oriented vignette to tell the story in Chile, perhaps something like this might have been a better choice:

The picture is by Victor Ruiz Caballero of Reuters and, even if you couldn’t read the caption, makes it clear we’re seeing folks who are very lucky not to be under all that debris. You’ll note, of course, that the David Lillo AP picture of the cars lying atop a fallen viaduct makes a wonderful two-column secondary photo.

The paper, of course, is the Bee of Sacramento, Calif., circulation 217,545.

Another great personal vignette photo would have been the AP picture selected by the Sun Herald of Biloxi, Miss., for use out front:

Wow. Powerful stuff, without being alarming. The Sun Herald circulates 44,613 copies daily.

Not long after the quake struck, the word went out to parties all along the Pacific: Be on the lookout for a possible tsunami. Hawaii braced itself, firing off alarms and rousting tourists at daybreak for the expected deluge, just a few hours later.

And then it didn’t happen. The Garden Island of Lihu’e — circulation 9,776 — documented all this with locally-generated stories, an AP graphic and a picture shot by a reporter:

The Advertiser of Honolulu — circulation 113,947 — summed up the relief felt by all islanders with this headline:

The photo — by staffer Andrew Gomes of lifeguards waiting for a surge that never really materialized — was inspired. Nice work.

West Hawaii Today of Kailua Kona — circulation 13,594 — also let out a sharp breath of relief today on behalf of its readers:

The picture — credited to William Ing of Stephens Media — shows water swirling around an inlet and bridge as the tsunami wave nearly washed over the roadbed. Extra water pooled in a nearby parking lot, the caption says.

As soon as the all-clear was given, folks took back to the surf, says the Star Bulletin of Honolulu, circulation 64,305:

What a wonderful poster front.

I have to wonder, though: Eight pages of tsunami coverage? How many pages would the Star Bulletin have produced if there had actually been real tsunami damage?

Now, let’s look through a few Latin American papers. And please keep in mind:

1. I can’t read Spanish — and neither, apparently, can my daughter. If her Spanish grades this semester are an accurate gauge.
2. Many of these papers don’t appear to credit their photographs. Meaning I won’t have identities of photographers.

The only Chilean paper posting to the Newseum today was El Mercurio of Santiago.

And wow, is that an incredibly powerful photo on page one today:

The lead picture is by Juan Carlos Romo — who, I presume, is a staffer for El Mercurio. This man, cradling the head of a deceased family member, is in the city of Talca, northeast of Concepción.

A number of papers ran photos of the collapsed bridge very large today. Here is huge poster play by Diário of Sao Paulo, Brazil:

This time, in Chile, the headline says. The photo is by Marco Fredes of Reuters — who also shot the front of today’s Washington Post.

That same picture was used huge by the Jornal da Tarde; also of Sao Paulo…

…and by Perú.21 in Lima, Peru:

Oh, and thanks so much to Perú.21 for reminding us that this quake happened just before a full moon.

Clarín of Buenos Aires, Argentina, gave wonderful play to this Reuters shot of the same scene:

A Tarde of Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, created perhaps one of the best displays of the day with this nice use of the same David Lillo/Associated Press photo used by Richmond and the Virginian-Pilot:

La Hora of Quito, Ecuador, punched up the drama of its presentation by tilting its picture a bit:

And here is the now-familiar Reuters picture by Marco Fredes, cropped very loosely by El Universal of Caracas, Venezuela:

The impact of El Universal’s presentation is diminished somewhat by the three-column secondary photo of the kids walking down the street. It competes too greatly with the loosely-cropped lead art.

Diário do Alto Tiete of Suzano, Brazil, managed to get up on top of the bridge to shoot a different angle from what we’ve seen elsewhere:

La Nacion of Buenos Aires, Argentina, took its lead photo down to three columns, added a tall, skinny map and augmented all this with three smaller vignette pictures to help show the scope of the tragedy:

It was a nice attempt, but this page really doesn’t share the impact as some of the others we’ve seen today. Perhaps if the lead photo were cropped tighter. Perhaps.

A number of Latin American papers also used pictures of the split-open apartment building. Most of these are the same picture — from the Associated Press — that we saw on the front of Charlotte and Duluth.

Here it is on the front of El Pais of Montevideo, Uruguay…

…O Globo of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil…

…and el Territorio of Posadas, Argentina:

Correio* of Salvador, Brazil, used a Reuters picture by Jose Luis Saavedra, but to equally great effect:

Crítica of Panama used a picture of the apartment but then obscured the bottom half of the picture with body copy and the top of the picture with a gaudy headline:

Not what you should aim to do with powerful news photojournalism, I think.

Dia a Dia — also of Panama — similarly hid part of its AP lead art with a giant text box:

And on the front of Panamá América — also in Panama — we’re treated to a view of folks leisurely strolling along what appears to be broken roads and bike paths:

The photo is used nicely at six columns. But does it really tell us anything — about the destruction and the death — of Santiago or of its people? I don’t think so.

Again, we see this same child or woman helped from the rubble of a Santiago building by rescue workers:

This is Hoy of Managua, Nicaragua — another city that’s known the horrors of shaking earth. And you get the sense that the editors of Hoy know what’s important at times like this: Every living soul.

And while the Samoa Observer of Apia in the Samoan Islands braced for the tsunami it figured to be on the way, its editors, too, used that same photo of a Santiago victim:

A great job, overall — on the part of all newspapers of the Western Hemisphere — covering yet more earthquake tragedy.

See my critiques of papers covering the Haitian earthquake here, here and here.