How did you play the Boston Marathon explosions?

I did not like what the Chicago Tribune did either. I'm sure the intentions were good, but it was really hacky. I thought the mini-column attached to it was fine, but the whole "We are Chicago..." thing was pretty cringe-inducing.

 

I agree. I can understand putting the sports teams logos out there and some message of support. Not sure I get the "We are Chicago" idea.

 

It almost seems pandering... I mean, I don't mean to minimize on any level what happened in Boston, but that cover is just awful. It's one of the worst design ideas I've seen at a big paper in awhile.

 

Speaking of Mississippi, I thought the Clarion-Ledger did a great job on their front. It was the only story there. News story was from a USA Today writer, then they had three sidebars on Mississippians starting in the skybox space and jumping inside. I think they had a couple of more sidebars inside. Exactly how you should localize something like this.

 

That's a very nice looking cover. I like the way they handled the locals as well.

 

A friend couldn't get the local paper to bite on a story about a local couple who ran the Boston Marathon and were close to the finish line when the bombs went off, so my friend didn't offer a second news tip later: this one about the other local family ... the one whose daughter had her legs blown off by one of the bomb blasts.

I tell ya, this downsizing stuff really fucks up the local news coverage.

 

Agreed. A bold and proper choice.

 

I looked at covers on the Newseum site Tuesday, but I'm also curious about how weeklies around the country are covering it/already have covered it this week. I know the three weeklies I've been at over the years (including the one I'm at now) haven't used any kind of wire service, so that would seem to limit the options to finding a local person (either a local runner at the event or a local runner at home talking about what they watched on TV), writing a story based on TV/web coverage or ignoring it completely.
We had a local lady in the event and talked with her; her husband sent a photo of the wife with the wife's friend (who was in Boston to watch both her husband and this local lady run). Not the greatest pic since the two ladies were smiling and holding wine glasses after finishing a local race a couple of years ago, but our graphics guy wisely cropped the pic plus found a green Boston Marathon ribbon to go with it.
Just wondering how many weeklies ignored the event.

 

I used that picture on our sports front.

 

Had there not been a local runner in the blast... it would have gotten zero mention in our paper other than maybe an editorial. Luckily, I featured a guy last year who ran the marathon and knew he was there this year thanks to Facebook. I called him, got a story on their thoughts and how things went down from their perspective and it was the top story on A1 this week. I also did a column on our Editorial page.

We do not use a wire service.

I'm just glad we had someone there so this wasn't completely ignored like murphy fears happened in many weeklies across the nation.

 

Yeah. No big pictures of locals grinning after finishing the race.

 

I saw at least one smallish daily on Newseum that was all local with a refer in the upper right for the marathon explosions.