Charles Apple

From my daily spin through the world’s front pages posted at the Newseum…

I love the horizontal play of these five American oil executives atop today’s Houston Chronicle:

I realize these guys had nothing — nothing at all — to do with the BP oil spill. But man, they sure look guilty of something. This reminds me of some of those Watergate pictures from 40 years ago.

The picture is by Haraz N. Ghanbari of the Associated Press. The Chronicle’s Jesus Maldonado was the designer. The Chronicle circulates 366,578 papers daily.

The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk — circulation 164,454 — ran the same photo but paired with similarly-cropped photos of the president and of the BP ship in the gulf that caught fire after being struck by lightning Tuesday:

The best thing about this page is how the headlines, the “cutlines” and the photos all work to tie together the three main threads of the oil spill story. No one does this better than the Virginian-Pilot.

What I don’t like is the little graphic showing revised estimates of the daily amount of the spill. I don’t mind the circles — which work pretty well this time — but it’s the order that bothers me. I really, really hate the AP style of running the most recent number first. The reader sees that first dot and then sees them getting smaller and smaller. The estimates themselves, of course, are getting larger.

Many, many papers put the spill out front today. Many ran pictures of President Barack Obama during his speech last night. Some ran oil slick aerial pictures. And a number of them ran a picture — by Gerald Herbert of the Associated Press — of a gloved hand holding a glob of oil in Plaquemines Parish, La.

Of these papers, no presentation was cleaner or more effective than the one built by Ben Ramsden of the Pioneer Press of St. Paul, Minn.:

. Normally, I advise folks to stay away from morticing pictures. But this inset of the story and a secondary presidential shot doesn’t bother me.

Average daily circulation for the Pioneer Press is 185,220.

Memo the the Philadelphia Daily News, circulation 110,000: Come on, guys. Tell us what you really think:

This one — a photoillustration by art director Scott McCarthy — is one of my favorite oil spill covers of the year so far, mostly because of the brilliant headline:

“Gulf war.” That’s brilliant.

The illustration was built upon a base photo by Getty Images. The paper, of course, is Express — the commuter tab published by the Washington Post. Express distributes 183,916 copies daily.

Yesterday, I showed you a page from the Oklahoma City paper that used the Big 12 sports conference logo patched together with tape.

Today, the Avalanche-Journal of Lubbock, Texas used a similar idea for that same topic but to much greater effect in its centerpiece spot:

We see masking tape, electrical tape, twine and… Band-Aids? Oh, that’s funny. Note the not-so-subtle editorial comment on the two departing schools at the top, via crumpled paper.

The illustration is credited to staffers Geoffrey McAllister and Zach Long. Average daily circulation for the Avalanche-Journal is 49,094.

Virginian-Pilot design director Paul Nelson announced last week:

I’m sorry to announce that Lori Kelley will be leaving The Pilot to become art director of Express in Washington, D.C.

What’s Express? It’s a free, widely circulated tabloid-sized paper printed each weekday and targeting commuters. It’s owned by The Washington Post.

Lori came to The Pilot in 2004 from the Myrtle Beach Sun. Since then she has designed almost every page we produce, worked on the copy desk and as news editor, helped get the redesign completed and launched and became assistant director of presentation. Along the way, she also picked up a bevy of design awards.

We’ll miss her buoyant style and can-do attitude, and we wish her well in the nation’s capital.

In case you’re wondering, this is what I’ve been receiving here at home for my newspaper coverage of the Vancouver games.

The good news: You can click on almost any page below for a much larger view. The bad news: Most of the pages aren’t electronic copies: They’re photos I took of pages this afternoon.

The Pilot is based in Norfolk, Va., and has an an average daily circulation of 164,454. And full disclosure here: I spent four-plus years as graphics editor there.

The Pilot is placing a large photo across the top of A1 most days to promo to its Olympic coverage inside. Most play out pretty much like today’s front:

Yes, that pretty much gives you a split-screen, half-and-half effect in the newspaper rack window. In case you’re wondering.

The Bode Miller art was by Sergey Ponomarev of the Associated Press.

And yes: I love the Bodacious headline. Perfect.

Most days, the Olympics has been the main story on the sports front. Today, however, there was a fairly large local college basketball story and, of course, the Tiger Woods story out front. This bumped Vancouver to the top of the page:

Pilot sports pages are usually designed by Buddy Moore: for my money, one of the best — yet, somehow, underrated — sports designers in the world. And sports editor Colleen McDaniel confirms:

Yes, Buddy has primarily been doing the cover.

In each day’s sport section, pages two, three and four are devoted to Olympics coverage. Down the left side is the full medal count, a TV schedule and a quick fact or a look at any local folks participating in the games. Today, there was a Norfolk Admirals hockey player — playing for Latvia — who scored an assist on Friday.

The lede story is played up here with some hugely visual play. Today is a terrific example of this:

Jon Benedict pieced together a fun photoillustration — using Getty images — of skaters Evan Lysacek and Evgeni Plushenko in the sniping that’s gone on between them following Lysacek winning a gold medal Thursday:

Make sure you click on that one to read the quotes. They’re pretty funny.

Colleen writes:

Joe Garvey has been the guy compiling everything — the buzz, wires, roundups. He has been planning coverage for months. He doesn’t mess around when it comes to the Games; he did our summer coverage, too. He is great at seeing a plan through to execution.

Buddy really is the guy who conceptualized the inside layout. he’s not doing it, but he came up with the look and feel of it.

The aforementioned John Benedict has been designing the page 2/3 spreads most days, with Luis Vilches and Robert Suhay filling in.

Page four has been doing the heavy lifting Olympics news. You see one large story, two smaller ones, five briefs and a daily trivia contest. And a column of agate.

The rest of sports picks up on page five. Today, that was:

• Page 5: NASCAR news
• Page 6: Calendar and jumps
• Page 7: Jump of the page-one column and a half-page ad
• Page 8: Agate
  
• Page 9: Hoops and a half-page ad
  
• Page 10: Norfolk Admirals hockey, high school gymnastics and a half-page ad
  
• Page 11: More high school sports
  
• Page 12: Full-page ad

Thursday’s sports front was my favorite of the week. Wednesday was the day, you might recall, three U.S. athletes won three big gold medals. Even a few Canadian papers put U.S. medalwinners out on A1 that day.

As you can see, Olympics dominates the front. Downpage is local women’s basketball and a column.

The center spread on pages two and three were about the men’s figure skating finals, which were coming up that night. The bit at upper left — “the buzz” — wonders why fashion is such a big part of skating:

An office wag noted that the men’s figure skating short program made him feel like he was watching “Shrek.”

“Everbody looked like Lord Farquaad,” he said.

Each of the three large cutout photos are from the AP.

And here is Thurday’s page four:

The Pilot had a ten-page sports section that day, as well as the next: Friday.

Note the wonderful play on Friday’s front of an AP photo of Evan Lysacek by Mark Baker:

Also, note yet another great, great headline, written by — you guessed it — Buddy Moore.

You guys see why I like the Pilot so much, right? It’s not just visual wit at play here. The headlines rock, as well.

The center spread didn’t impress me quite as much Friday. I loved the briefs up top, but the crop of the AP picture of speedskater Shani Davis in the central package really bugged me. I needed to see another inch or two at the bottom and maybe to the right:

Even the presence of Animal of Muppets didn’t keep me from noticing the column-and-a-half cheesecake picture of double-silver medal-winner Julia Mancuso, who has her own line of lingerie, the Pilot reported:

Really? How interesting…

Must. Not. Run. Google. Search… Must. Not. Run. Google. Search…

Hmm. An Epic Fail on my part — predictably.

According to Mancuso’s web site, however, she had to take down the lingerie shopping page until after the Olympics. Due to IOC bylaws:

Amusingly, she spells bylaw: “bye-law.”

Look here to find an in-depth look at the Toronto Globe and Mail’s Olympics special sections.