A few words on design

As my mini-biography on the right side of this blog indicates, I'm both a mass communications and art major. Art has always been my first love, however. I knew early on in high school I wanted to go to college for art -- it was only later I discovered how much I liked journalism as well. I couldn't decide between the two, so I majored in both.

Even though they're two different majors, there's still quite a bit of overlap between the two when it comes to the publishing industry. Design plays a huge role in newspapers and magazines and most other publications as well. Good design can help boost circulation and sales. Poor design may actually harm circulation and sales. Ultimately, the most well-designed covers and front pages become beautiful works of art.

With that in mind, it's interesting to check out web sites like www.bestfrontdesign.com or www.newspagedesigner.com. The first site provides commentary on various newspapers' front pages on a daily basis, while the second is a site that allows newspaper designers to upload their work. I often save as images pages that are especially appealing or beautiful, such as:







It's neat to see all the different ideas people -- some at the top of our profession -- have come up with and how they've executed those ideas. Some of the work, like the pages above, are absolutely amazing. (My favorite of the three, incidentally, is the Brett Favre feature -- both because of its elegant simplicity and also because I happen to be a huge Packers fan! Unfortunately the image is kind of small.)

In addition, my favorite Sports Illustrated covers include:





SI has had a number of excellent covers over the years. Sometimes the magazine makes its covers a little too busy (the Unitas cover would have been better without the gaudy green box in front of the masthead), but these are both covers that are simple and effective. There's no need for much text -- the photographs say it all. John Gaps III of the Des Moines Register (see my previous post) said yesterday that the best pictures capture "the" moment and make the viewer seem like a participant in the action, and not just a spectator. Both of the photographs on these covers do that.

The MNA awards

I along with Reporter editor in chief Bronson Pettitt and photographer Ray Starin went up to the Minnesota Newspaper Association awards yesterday. We attended two workshops, one on writing better leads and one on photography and video. The latter workshop was conducted by John Gaps III, a senior photographer at the Des Moines Register and a former Associated Press photographer.

I'm mentioning this particular workshop because much of the material Gaps spoke about and demonstrated seemed to fit right in with the theme of this JournalistU class. Gaps and (others at the Des Moines Register) have become literally one-man film production crews for the paper, which has started posting short videos on its web site. (If the site is any indication, the Register is leading the charge into the citizen journalist world.)

Gaps showed us several of the short videos (usually around 90 seconds) that he has done for the Register, including this one, about a farmer feeding cattle in the bitter cold. Gaps is able to put together these videos in about three hours, which includes the time he spends filming footage and then editing it on iMovie. Gaps is usually also responsible for getting photographs of whatever event he is filming. He spoke at length about the challenges involved in making sure he got both the photographs and the footage, and how to prepare for and meet those challenges. It was pretty interesting stuff. He also talked some about photography in general and what to look for when taking photographs.

The other nice opportunity we had was to see an immense variety of Minnesota newspapers -- both daily and weekly -- and what those papers have done. Some of the layout work and stories were tremendous, even from relatively small weekly and daily newspapers. It's always nice to see what others in your field have been able to do and it provides inspiration and motivation for someone like myself to try to do better.

A mixed bag

Steve Outing has an article titled "The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism" at Poynter Online. Outing says he's experienced "plenty of confusion about the concept" of citizen journalism among newspaper editors. "There's enthusiasm about experimenting in some quarters," he notes. "But mostly I hear concern and healthy skepticism."

Take one look at some of the ideas Outing proposes in this article and you can understand why many in the newspaper industry would be concerned and skeptical about citizen journalism. Not all of Outing's proposals are radical or whacky, however. His first proposal -- opening up all articles online for public comment -- is something that should have happened a long time ago. Today, however, very few newspapers have opened up their online news articles for public comment. Some like the Star Tribune, allow comments on their blogs, and that's it. That's a start, but why not go all the way? Blogs have become so popular in part precisely because readers are allowed to respond to everything through comments.

Others haven't been so slow to figure this out. Magazines like libertarian-leaning Reason and left-leaning The New Republic allow comments to their articles on their respective web sites, and the result is often both entertaining and informative. Many college newspapers, including the MSU Reporter, open all their articles to comments. I know of at least one presidential campaign that has a "Campaign HQ blog" on its web site. The blog, which is called "The Daily Dose," is open to comments from readers.

Newspapers should follow the lead of college newspapers and magazines like The New Republic and Reason and open up all articles to comments -- including straight news articles and editorials. Why shouldn't they? The advantages of doing so (solidifying online readership, provoking discussion, making the newspaper seem more open and reader-friendly) vastly outweigh any disadvantages I can think of.

Having said that, I can understand why editors would be reluctant to put in place some of Outing's other proposals. These include:

"Recruit[ing] citizen add-on contributions for stories written by professional journalists."

"Establishing a stand-alone citizen-journalism Web site that is separate from the core news brand."

Establishing an unedited version of a stand-alone citizen-journalism website.

Integrating citizen journalism and tradition ("pro") journalism. "Imagine, then, a news Web site comprised of reports by professional journalists directly alongside submissions from everyday citizens," writes Outing.

Finally, Outing concludes his list with this: "Wiki journalism: Where the readers are editors".

I'm not sure this is really the direction traditional news media -- in trouble as it may be -- wants to be going. Let's take the idea of wiki journalism, for example. We already have a good idea of what wiki journalism would look like thanks to Wikipedia. And the nearly universal verdict on Wikipedia is that it's unique, helpful and interesting, but not always reliable or professional. (That's why no one with any good sense will ever cite or quote wikipedia as an authority for any project that's actually important.) Is that really where news media wants to go? Newspapers have enough of a problem today dealing with accusations of inaccuracy, mistakes and bias. Going the wiki route would turn news media into a farce.

Introduction

Hello and welcome to The Peanut Gallery.  This blog was originally started as an assignment for Ellen Mrja's Journalist U class.  

I understand members of the class will need to comment on various articles and topics. I may post occasionally on other topics or issues as well.  We'll see.  I note my colleagues in the MSU Reporter sports department have started plugging their blogs in the paper, which I think is a neat idea.  It'd be kind of neat if other sections did that, too.  Once again, we'll see.

The last time I had an assignment similar to this was when I was a PSEO student taking English Comp three years ago.  The guy teaching the class had us all start our own Livejournals and one of our assignments was to update and post on our Livejournals through the semester.  (Unfortunately, the class was pretty much a joke.  And to make things worse, it was an 8 a.m. class. On Saturdays. I am not kidding you.)

I'm certain this class will be much more educational than that one was.  I'm just bringing the Livejournal assignment up because I always thought it -- like this -- was a unique assignment. It was also entertaining.  By the end of the semester, some of the students were practically pouring their hearts out on these Livejournals, venting about their significant others -- you get the idea.  I sometimes wondered if they had forgotten everyone else in the class could see what they were writing.

But I digress.  The real point I'm trying to make: stay tuned.