The Chronicle because of the grand photograph and beautiful negative space (I lovvvvved that Chronicle photograph), and the Post because of the combination of the two photographs chosen (especially the emotional and appropriate bottom one) and the spot on headline and decks.

I was happy with the Chicago Tribune, and nostalgic seems to be the correct word — if the updated photograph is the one that is counted.

I like the Sun-Times in general, but I am not a fan of what it did for a milestone in American history. It felt off and not in touch with the sentiment of America.

My mini argument for some examples I brought up can be seen here:

http://brianatlas.blogspot.com/2008/11/obama-country.html

I am delighted to read that the pressrooms for both of the city’s papers were humming non-stop yesterday. An historic day for every Chicago newspaper veteran to savor. Save me a copy of the final, will you? I will be by to pick it up after the tourist lines wear down.

How’s Red Streak doing?

Leading the paper with a file photo — as the Sun-Times, your former paper did — on a historic news night displays a remarkable lack of judgment and courage.

I agree it’s a beautiful page, but it could have been done six months ago. We had a stunning file portrait of Obama but chose to go with an actual moment. I’d defend that position any time.

Do you still live in the Chicago area? If so, you certainly must have known that the early cover you posted did not circulate there. Maybe you need to get out more.

I doubt you’ll post this response, but I’ll take comfort in knowing you read it. Go grind your tired old axe on somebody else.

I’m the Page 1 designer at the Tribune. To answer your circulation questions…

That first edition page went to our Midwest/national circulation of roughly 20,000. All city and suburban subscribers, as well as all street buyers, received the version with the photo of Obama in Grant Park. That circulation was roughly 670,000 copies.

This morning and afternoon, we’ve printed another 250,000 copies to meet demand.

For some reason, only the first edition page went to newseum. They now have the main edition version…

Ryan

First edition was set up without a call on the race, initially. But when California and the west coast put him over, we were able to change the headline but not the color. Subsequent editions are significantly different.

That’s the early paper.

The second and final editions didn’t make it to the Newseum site.

It reminds me of Ali’s poem to Harvard students.

simply

Me,

Whee!!

Sometimes the simple things done are the most powerful

Thank you!

But it will take more radical approaches to meeting a reader’s expectations than anything we have seen yet. You literally have to redesign the company from the ground up starting with a new executive team, then design a new product and then go out and staff it and produce it. That’s how the Swiss experts help companies in fledgling industries retool their business models.

What we don’t have, fundamentally, is an industry in the States that is nimble enough to respond fast enough in the fashion necessary.

So perhaps from the ashes new phoenix’s will emerge. That is my prediction, but crashing and burning will not happen without significant retooling. Like Yelvington said in the tweetbacks, It is the debt load that will crush some media empires here.

Apparently there will be no bailout for U.S. newspaper groups or seeding of recapitalization money from the government.

They would rather close, I presume, than have any government ownership or backing.
You have to wonder, though, if newspaper haven’t suffered more from public ownership (Issuing stock, getting rich and bowing to the demands of Wall Street) than they would ever suffer under subsidies.

Newspapers abroad seem to be able to publish independent, high-quality papers that sell really well and they have suburbs and time-starved readers, too.

I think a big reason why the newspaper business model is dying in the U.S. has a lot to do with our society itself. Now, more than ever, we’re sprawled out into the suburban areas and many of us (I’d dare say a majority) spend our morning commutes driving back and forth.

Newspapers in this area lose their advantage because there’s literally not enough time in the day, each and every day, to read a whole newspaper. Unless you’re commuting via public transit (something that I love about my job), then you don’t have that luxury of time in the morning to read the paper on the way to work.

And now at home, many of these people turn to the Internet for the news (I know this is a “duh” point), because it’s quicker and faster to get relevant information they want. Also, the Internet provides a great amount of time-sucking distractions than ever before with the rise of broadband so we can watch video or play games online.

All these things add up.

Circulation is falling because the money a person pays for “just the news” could easily be put into other areas that provide more bang for the buck. If you’re paying $30/mn for a newspaper subscription, then why not pay $30/mn for broadband Internet instead and get a much more robust information experience? Plus, there’s the almost endless benefit of interactivity of content that the Internet provides, too (sharing, contributing, creating, etc.).

Once people realized this, they weren’t going to turn back. I wonder if anyone has done a poll of users who read the paper and how many of them spend more than, say, 7 hours a week (hour a day) on the Internet?

I think Americans are spending more than ever on consuming information and content, but we’ve just shifted it to other industries that benefit directly from it. The newspaper online is getting “trickle down” revenues from the gatekeepers if you think about it. The ISPs are really the new newspapers when it comes to massive subscribers.

The most successful papers right now are free commuter rags, like the RedEye, which are free and focused on just hitting a narrow group of readers that take public transit in a metro area. But once smartphones become every cell phone out there (and Google’s smart for realizing this by getting in on the ground floor with Android), I think those papers will come under attack, too.

Mobile advertising, in my opinion, is the one area that hasn’t been completely dominated yet and is up for grabs. As print advertising fades, we moved online and now are witnessing Google’s contextual search ads take over in that space, but mobile advertising hasn’t seen it’s revolution yet.

If newspapers were smart, then they would start there. Call the Internet a lost cause. They can’t ever win there. Keep print around long enough to sustain you. But start betting your future revenues on mobile. Of course, none of them have the money right now to do R&D necessary to get this off the ground.

The next area I’d focus on would be services. But that’s a blog post for another time and this “comment” is getting way too long.

It may be that you have to now be a developer for the iPhone to get access to the SDK and design guidelines.

It appears that $99 will allow anyone to develop for the platform and get all the manuals and software for building apps.

http://developer.apple.com/iphone/

I’d love to join the seminar.

So I still feel attached to the Trib, even though I left there 11 years ago. But for the nearly five years that I was there, I was proud to be a part of it.

And it’s been hard to watch the exodus of great talent but the redesign inspires particular chagrin. It’s like a middle-aged woman trying to feel better about herself by donning something young and tarty. It’s just sad.

At least the New York Times is still the New York Times.

And: It takes pretty good still photos. Can’t beat that!

When working as a freelance Solo VJ, here is the kit I put together that does everything I need and then some.

2 - SONY HC7’s (or Equiv) with A1U lens hoods adapted
1 - SONY VCL-HG0737C .7x W/A Lens with Cavision lens hood
2 - DM-Accessories cold shoe adapters for the HC7’s
1 - Ambient Recordings Tiny Mic with Mini Phone Jack (as good if not better than Sennheiser MK66 but smaller)
1 - Sennheiser Evolution G2 Wireless Lav
1 - Zoom H2 Audio Recorder w/ 2GB memory card
2 - SONY NP-FH100 batteries for the HC7’s
1 - 2GB SONY Memory stick for the HC7’s when I need to shoot stills

I can carry all but one of the HC7’s in a bike messenger bag with the Tenba Photo Insert for Messenger Bags - this is pretty much what I carry when biking or running errands. I utilize a Tenba P263 Photo backpack when needing to carry everything when traveling out of town.

If you can’t do it with this - somethings wrong.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | solovj blog