No gamer on front page?

[Trey Beamon]

Because the design thread is as dead as Keith Richards ::)...

This designer chose NOT to put the Dolphins' gamer on the front. Interesting.

What's your take? With the traditional game story losing its importance -- at least in some publications -- is this a direction more will take in the future?

 

[Sam Mills 51]

Could have been a deadline issue. Easy to get a good centerpiece photo, cook up a strong headline and subhead, put in an early column and put the lead gamer inside with a refer.

I'm not condoning this, but it smells of a production issue with tight, tight deadlines cooked up by people who have no clue with sports.

 

[zeke12]

I don't like it.

It wouldn't kill the design to shrink that fact box a little and run the gamer one column and at least get the first few graphs in.

I hate to sound like DyePack, but it's a classic case of being drunk with design and forgetting to actually do your job.

 

[JayFarrar]

I don't mind it.
Nationally televised game, season opener of pro football, you'd have to think that people would know the result.
Put your name columnist with some analysis out front. Then refer to all the coverage inside.
At previous stops we did the same thing with all the football coverage. Called them poster covers. Giant art and hed with a column and scoreboard. For preps it was top performers and a whiparound of the games that were covered. For the lead college and pro games, we'd have a keys to the game package and then refers to expanded coverage inside.
Readers liked it and the APSE judges loved it.

 

[shotglass]

I hate to sound like DyePack, but it's a classic case of being drunk with design and forgetting to actually do your job.

Agreed 110%. This is not serving the reader. And there's no indication from the reeferage that the gamer would be on A1.

Jay, I'm sure you don't look at it this way either. But the day we let APSE judging make decisions for what we do, it's time for a little introspection.

 

[Sam Mills 51]

I hate to sound like DyePack, but it's a classic case of being drunk with design and forgetting to actually do your job.

Agreed 110%. This is not serving the reader.

Correct. Don't mistake my earlier post for defending what was done. To clarify: If I was correct in my earlier post, then someone in production is the tail wagging the dog.

If I was wrong, then it just sucks for readers.

 

[Stupid]

Another thing, that headline is a trainwreck.

 

[slappy4428]

Was it a wraparound or the section front?

 

[Left_Coast]

It's probably a wraparound, but the gamer wouldn't be in the main section, away from a Dolphins Extra section. And I would suspect the "designer" didn't make this decision. Not putting a gamer on the front of a Dolphins Extra section goes way above a designer.

 

[farmerjerome]

Another thing, that headline is a trainwreck.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that.

Honestly, this belongs on the front page of the sport section, with a teaser on A1. Sports is for sports, unless it's a major championship game.

 

[JBHawkEye]

I've seen this done before. I think the Chicago Tribune did this during the playoffs and series last year.

If the paper's trending toward where columns and analysis are more important than gamers, I can kind of see this.

But we are losing sight of the importance of game coverage, whether it's pros or preps.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

Could have been a deadline issue. Easy to get a good centerpiece photo, cook up a strong headline and subhead, put in an early column and put the lead gamer inside with a refer.

I'm not condoning this, but it smells of a production issue with tight, tight deadlines cooked up by people who have no clue with sports.

This is the Sun-Sentinel --- it's not that type of paper. Given the fact that the column mentions the final score and Culpepper's lack of performance, it wasn't an early column.

Y'all have to remember ... to most South Floridians, there's the Dolphins and then there's All The Other Teams, coming in a quite-distant second place to the Dolphins.

No problem with this coverage in this situation. With preps, you need to have a gamer up front because not everybody saw the game in question. With an NFL primetime season-opening game on network TV featuring The Only Sports Team South Florida Actually Cares About playing against the defending Super Bowl champs ... trust me, the sports readers down there definitely saw the game and won't need a 20-inch rehash.

 

[Sam Mills 51]

Maybe not, but somebody down there needs to quit fixing something that's not broken.

If you're correct, 2MCM, then put the gamer out front and put the column inside. It's different, but the obsession with a growing number of inky types to go outside the box went too far with this one.

When you turn on SportsCenter following the Super Bowl, do we get a photo essay or a review of the game? A lot of people saw that game, but you won't catch ESPN - or any other network or affiliate - offering the viewer a photo essay, POV diatribe or opinion pow-wow first.

 

[Bump_Wills]

I have a problem with the word "rehash." If that's the best your beat writer can do -- you know, the writer that spends every day with the team and should know its ins and outs better than any fan -- why bother covering the team at all?

At a paper like the Sun-Sentinel, I would expect the beat writer to be able to write with some flair, perspective and insight on a team that, as noted above, stands head and shoulders above every other franchise in South Florida. That, in fact, is the best argument for putting the gamer out there: Fans that rabid will read *everything* they can about their team, including and especially a well-written game story.

Beyond all that, I doubt that the placement of the gamer was the designer's call. Metros tend to have duty officers who make those determinations.

 

[Songbird]

If you look closely, this is "Dolphins Extra," not the main sports section, which is where the gamer could be.

 

[Bump_Wills]

If you look even more closely, it's a wrap. It's Section C. Up at the top, it says "Sports inside," with a refer to the Marlins story. Also in Section C.

No, the game story is inside the wrap. Let the debate about appropriate placement continue ...

 

[huntsie]

The score is there. The photo is powerful. The headline pretty much explains what happens. Next question: What kind of impression did Culpepper make and what can fans expect? All covered, all the "casual fan" -- if there is such a thing when it comes to the Dolphins in South Florida -- needs to know.
I might have at least started the gamer on the front and split the column and the start to the gamer with a hairline. But anybody who wants to know what happened is going to turn the page for the gamer

 

[Fletch_F._Fletch]

I believe the Indianapolis Star did something similar to this throughout last season, putting Kravitz's column on the front of the section with art played huge, then running the game story inside. I know two of the guys on their Colts team really well and they didn't like it because it played down the game story, but in the instance where the game starts at 1 p.m., I can understand it better. This is an age where people know what happened before they pick up the paper, so I think you lead with something that pushes the story forward, such as a column, and hook the reader.

In the case of the Pittsburgh-Miami game, though, it was a night game and fewer people (relatively speaking; I realize the number of people who called in sick Friday rose exponentially) know the result the next morning. In that instance I'd make sure that gamer is out front the next morning.

 

[fw]

I kind of doubt this was a design decision--I would think the sports editor made the call.
I used to come down pretty strongly on the side of the gamer HAS to be out there, but not anymore. Especially in a situation such as this, where you have a separate section with an opportunity for really good photo display on the cover. Every Dolphins fan saw the game, and many had probably seen highlights ad naseum postgame. What can you offer the reader that's going to be new to them at 7 a.m.? It's not as if the game story isn't there; it's just inside.
And no, I am not a designer or layout person. And I'm not a newbie either (though I do play one on this message board!). You could say I've been around the block several times ...

 

[Songbird]

The score is there. The photo is powerful. The headline pretty much explains what happens. Next question: What kind of impression did Culpepper make and what can fans expect? All covered, all the "casual fan" -- if there is such a thing when it comes to the Dolphins in South Florida -- needs to know.
I might have at least started the gamer on the front and split the column and the start to the gamer with a hairline. But anybody who wants to know what happened is going to turn the page for the gamer

I think it's a sharply done production.