Thursday, January 19, 2006
Clear as mudslides
Rather than going on an extended ramble like I did last week, I have a very specific concern with this week’s RedEyes: Infographics and photography, and the way they end up being used. I would argue that they are used quite poorly, without being informative or clear, and that’s something that could be easily remedied by thinking about the purpose of those graphics.
N.B.: I apologize for the disaster photo quality. My scanner is dead, and I didn’t feel like hiking a two-mile round trip just to use the MediaWorks scanners. So I took photos of the pages.
Example No. 1 is the around-the-nation round-up on Page 13 in yesterday’s RedEye (January 18):
Notice anything interesting about Item #2? Maybe, say, its awkward location?
That’s right — RedEye is using datelines rather than, you know, the actual location of the story to place its dots. For the most part, that shouldn’t represent much of a problem, but what happens when the meat of a story is really elsewhere?
Background: The Supreme Court decided, Tuesday, that the federal government couldn’t stop doctors in Oregon from prescribing barbiturates for physician-assisted suicide. (I know you can’t really read the text in the photo.) Now, that story is going to be datelined WASHINGTON, but that’s not really where the story takes place; it’s Ashcroft v. Oregon, and really, the dot ought to be placed on Salem, Ore., about 50 miles south of Portland. The logic of placing a Supreme Court case in which a state sued the DoJ in Washington seems kind of curious, really. I think that might make a good generalized rule too; why in the world would you respect the WASHINGTON dateline on a Supreme Court story when 99% of the time the case takes place elsewhere? The key to every Supreme Court case isn’t where the decision is delivered, but where it happens. Please. This is silly.
Example No. 2 is the ridiculous use of a standalone as filler. It’s literally meaningless. From page 9 in the same issue:
Now, tell me what benefit — other than adding a photo on the page — this provides? The caption reads, “U.S. Sen. Barack Obama answers questions following his town hall meeting at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn. Obama spoke on issues dealing with the war in Iraq, education, social security and jobs.”
That says nothing. Oooh, he talked about the war, education, social security and jobs. And what? What did Barack say? Oops, sorry, not enough room in a standalone!
That’s a waste of all that paper. It’s one thing for your standalone to be something cute, or self-evident, but a great glamour shot of Barack is meaningless if you can’t report on the content of his town hall. Are we supposed to infer what Obama had to say based on the photo?
It’s just a shame to squander all of your opportunities on something like that.
N.B.: I apologize for the disaster photo quality. My scanner is dead, and I didn’t feel like hiking a two-mile round trip just to use the MediaWorks scanners. So I took photos of the pages.
Example No. 1 is the around-the-nation round-up on Page 13 in yesterday’s RedEye (January 18):
Notice anything interesting about Item #2? Maybe, say, its awkward location?
That’s right — RedEye is using datelines rather than, you know, the actual location of the story to place its dots. For the most part, that shouldn’t represent much of a problem, but what happens when the meat of a story is really elsewhere?
Background: The Supreme Court decided, Tuesday, that the federal government couldn’t stop doctors in Oregon from prescribing barbiturates for physician-assisted suicide. (I know you can’t really read the text in the photo.) Now, that story is going to be datelined WASHINGTON, but that’s not really where the story takes place; it’s Ashcroft v. Oregon, and really, the dot ought to be placed on Salem, Ore., about 50 miles south of Portland. The logic of placing a Supreme Court case in which a state sued the DoJ in Washington seems kind of curious, really. I think that might make a good generalized rule too; why in the world would you respect the WASHINGTON dateline on a Supreme Court story when 99% of the time the case takes place elsewhere? The key to every Supreme Court case isn’t where the decision is delivered, but where it happens. Please. This is silly.
Example No. 2 is the ridiculous use of a standalone as filler. It’s literally meaningless. From page 9 in the same issue:
Now, tell me what benefit — other than adding a photo on the page — this provides? The caption reads, “U.S. Sen. Barack Obama answers questions following his town hall meeting at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn. Obama spoke on issues dealing with the war in Iraq, education, social security and jobs.”
That says nothing. Oooh, he talked about the war, education, social security and jobs. And what? What did Barack say? Oops, sorry, not enough room in a standalone!
That’s a waste of all that paper. It’s one thing for your standalone to be something cute, or self-evident, but a great glamour shot of Barack is meaningless if you can’t report on the content of his town hall. Are we supposed to infer what Obama had to say based on the photo?
It’s just a shame to squander all of your opportunities on something like that.
