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recent Listen With Reason columns Why a column like this? Because too many web sites seem devoid of personality. Because the world of newspaper design can always use a little more dialogue. And because, hey, it's my web site. So I thought, why not create the first regular online column about newspaper design, on the first web site devoted to newspaper design? Why "Listen With Reason?" Because "Listen to ..." sounded a little too preachy. Back to home page: www.ronreason.com (more tips on newspaper design, graphics and editing). |
A faithful
correspondent (who along with his newspaper will remain
unidentified) writes: "At my newspaper, we have a master budget and a daily budget. Now, the master should be filled out by reporters of upcoming stories/story ideas (we have seven reporters). Of all those reporters, one always does the job. The editor or I will bring up this sore spot in our weekly staff meetings, yet those words fall on deaf ears. Good news (I think) is evaluations for raises are coming up and that may be a repercussion for those not helping the editors or me. I even explained to the staff why I need to know: so I can plan ahead in terms of photos, graphics, breakouts, even possible sidebar ideas. As a news planner/designer who has to lay out anywhere from six to nine pages a day of local and state news, it gets pretty tenuous when you have to pull these ideas out of thin air when the story arrives on deadline. What is a polite, strong way to go about sharing with the reporters my pain?" I've seen many newspapers, large and small,
struggle with this issue. This is basically a management and
discipline challenge for your top editor to deal with. You hint at
one solution - connect reporters' and editors'
raises/promotions/assignments to performance factors that should
include satisfactory participation in the budgeting process. (Nice
concept, though not many papers do this effectively, to my
knowledge.)But designers can help as well, and stating your case for
the need for visual planning is a good start. Your next step should
be "show-and-tell" - in my experience, nothing works better to wake
up reporters. Share with them the least effective pages the paper
has published, bland packages that had great potential to sing,
featuring stories where there was no reason the reporter couldn't
have filled the budget out at 10 a.m. - or earlier. Then, do a
sketch or a quick Quark remake of the page, showing a pullout box,
graphic, better file photo, whatever, in a way that instantly
reveals the improvement you are talking about.
Be very articulate about what the pullout box or graphic would be,
and how it would help the reader; don't just put "glance element
goes here," or put an empty box that says "Fast facts." And don't
risk the reporters feeling you are doing it because it's the latest
visual journalism fad.
One paper I worked with this past year published just such a story,
a soft metro feature on Chinese New Year. The presentation was dull
as dishwater, just plain uninviting, featuring a headline, text, a
pulled quote that said nothing, and a photo and caption of
celebrants at a Chinese dinner party. There were so many
opportunities for another level of inviting information, that could
have pulled more readers in. Those include pullout boxes that might
have shared with the reader the following:
Information like this can either be gathered easily by
the writer during the early stages of reporting, or while being
on-site at an event, or by someone, perhaps the layout editor,
cruising the web - yes, even on deadline. (Visit this web site, which I found in a two-second visit to
the excellent search engine Google.com, and you'll come up with your own
elements.)
Everyone in the newsroom I visited connected with this concept, but
the culture didn't allow it to happen. Several things were missing:
a reporter who didn't know how to "layer" the information in this
way, a section editor who didn't urge her to do so, and a designer
who found out about the story too late to do much about it.
Ultimately, it took the top editor of the paper stating strongly
that he valued presenting information in a more compelling,
"layered" way to get the staff to take notice.
Happily, I have not encountered much defensiveness or excuses like
"that just takes away line lengths from my story" or "that requires
extra effort I don't have on deadline." This can be fairly easy
stuff. Often, the information for a pullout is either in the story
or readily available to someone on the staff, if the culture exists
to make it happen. Reporters and editors want pages to be inviting;
they often just lack the tools.
Back to my correspondent from above: Perhaps he could have a staff
workshop about this concern, sharing a few remade pages, with his
editor spelling out the ramifications of not filling out the budget
on time. It's important to be specific. Maybe the editor needs to
make a new, tougher policy or strengthen an old one - if he just
gets up and says "we really mean it this time, you have to fill out
the budget," that probably won't work. This is a key element - there
has to be some cost to the reporter for NOT doing it. Finally, this
newsroom could create a bonus of some sort for the reporter or
editor who is the best ally of visuals each month (perhaps following
the lead of the Charlotte Observer, which has given out "Golden
Eyeball" awards to the "word people" who help out the visual side
the most).
Final thought: In addition to beefing up budgets, some staffs
might benefit from the use of a "package planner form," at least for
centerpiece or project stories. It can be filled out by either
designers or writers, or better yet, teams working and talking
together. I have created a story planner
form that you can download now from my web site and adapt for
your own use - let me know if you introduce something like this in
your newsroom and if you find it helpful.Full index of past "Listen With Reason" columns Back to top of page |
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Web posted: Jan. 25, 2001. design@ronreason.com
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