This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed. The next blog post is Monday, May 16.
Gulf News, Dubai, UAE
Here is a front page of the Gulf News which a story that resonates today , although it is 100 years old.
Indeed, it was a century ago that Sykes and Picot secretly planned maps for the Arab World in the light of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse . These maps divided the Arab World into countries under either British or French colonial power.
The after shocks of their geographic pact are still being felt today, as we so well know.
So, to put things into perspective, the Gulf News team put together a vibrant and informative, well documented package explaining it all. Take a look at the print edition, then how the multimedia story appeared via digital platforms.
Go here:
Worth reading #gulfnews #journalism #media #politics #history
Projects such as this one require a team effort, and here are those who participated in this project, headed by Editor in Chief, Abdul Hamid Ahmad and Design Director Miguel Angel Gomez:
Edited and Supervised by:
Manal Alafrangi, Opinion Editor
Region Pages:
Layelle Saad, GCC & Region Editor
Copy Editing:
Ajay Abraham, Senior Pages Editor
Web design and graphics:
Jacob Hernandez, Senior Digital Designer
Dwynn Ronald Trazo, Senior Infographic Artist
Muhammed Nahas. Designer
Print Design:
S M Arshad, Design Editor
Talib Jariwala, Design Deputy Editor
Seyyed de la Llata. Senior Designer
Videography:
Logan Fish, Videographer
Jaye Lentin, Video Editor
Orange County Register, Santa Ana, California, USA
This is the original sketch Jeff Goertzen drew to pitch the idea to his editors
Oh, it is all about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, as it is almost a sure thing that these two will be our Presidential candidates in the fall.
That great artist, Jeff Goertzen, makes the point beautifully on this front page of the Orange County Register. The power of illustration at work and, more importantly, the relationship between editor/art director/illustrator, which makes it possible for all to come together as we see here.
Friom Jeff Goertzen about the making of this page:
"The idea to do this fun page came about when our managing editor Donna Wares, asked me to do something fun and California-centric on the primaries. With Bill Clinton in LosAngeles for a fund raiser and Hillary in San Diego campaigning, Donna suggested the idea of “California Dreaming” as an illustration. Then it clicked! Have all the candidates on surfboards surfing the waves in Southern California. In about 15 minutes I had a sketch ready to pitch.
"Writing the captions was fun. But the original versions were heavy on political overtones and had to be toned down. For instance, in the first version, Hillary accuses Donald of“snaking” which is a surfer term for dropping in on a wave out of turn. Trump responds, “Hey Hillary! I dropped in LEGALLY!” Also, I originally had Bill Clinton saying to hiswife, “Hillary, watch out for the “white water,” which is what surfers are supposed to avoid when a wave closes out and what the Clintons were never able to avoid in the 90s."
Bravo, Jeff and team.
The Villages Daily Sun, Florida, USA
Here is a small Florida newspaper, The Villages Daily Sun, carrying a big stick in terms of its investigative reporting.
Two days before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Florida’s death penalty unconstitutional, The Villages Daily Sun of Florida published an investigation disclosing that Florida’s death row would be 74 percent smaller if it were required to play by the same rules as most other states.
In the words of Bonita Burton, Executive editor of the Daily Sun (FL).
"Then, we quantified the fallout on each judicial circuit under dueling plans to raise the threshold for a jury vote for death to either 9-3 or 10-2. Next, our further analysis revealed that the state has already executed 17 people who would not qualify for death under the 10-2 standard it just adopted. Next, we told the stories of each of 215 victims whose murders would not merit capital punishment under that new standard (42 percent of all current death row inmates).
"Then, 20 public records requests enabled us to document how a killer’s chance of getting a death sentence varies widely by judicial circuit because of the lack of statewide protocols for prosecutors who want to seek death. Today, a circuit court judge decreed the 10-2 standard unconstitutional, setting the stage for the unanimity question to finally be heard by the state Supreme Court. "
Bonita Burton on how the project developed
We’ve published stories on 19 different days this year, but the bulk of our investigation has published
over four days (jpgs attached):
Day One: On Jan. 10, two days before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Florida's death penalty
unconstitutional, we published a months-long investigation disclosing that Florida's death row
would be 74 percent smaller if it were required to play by the same rules as most other states. We
knew Florida juries could recommend death with only a 7-5 simple majority, we just didn’t know
how often this was happening. The data was not available electronically and required a team of
four people to travel 400 miles and spend four days in the state capital reviewing all 390 physical
case files.
Day two: On Feb. 11, as lawmakers were scrambling to revise the law, we published our further
analysis into the case files of the 92 inmates already executed. (This meant another trip back to the
capitol) We found that at least 17 would not have met the 9-3 standard being proposed, and that an
additional five men had been executed against their juries’ wishes. We also broke down the ways
juries voted by judicial circuit.
Day three: On March 4, lawmakers compromised on requiring at least a 10-2 jury vote for death.
The next day, we unveiled the stories of all 215 murder victims whose jury votes would not have
met the new standard (42 percent of all current death row inmates). We learned that while there is
a lot of public information on the killers, there is very little on the victims. To find each one of
them, we had to hunt down arrest reports, obituaries, news clippings and obscure legal filings all
over the state.
Day four: On April 29, the first murderer was sentenced under the new law (his jury just met the
new 10-2 standard). The next day, we showed how a killer’s chance of landing on death row
varies widely depending on where they’re prosecuted. Because there are no statewide protocols for
prosecutors in seeking death, a killer’s chance is one in three in one circuit, and one in nine in the
circuit next door. This data was the result of 20 public records requests that we cross-checked
against nearly 11,000 first-degree murder filings in the past 10 years.
Two weeks later, a circuit judge cited the lack of unanimity in declaring the state’s death
sentencing law unconstitutional, paving the way for a state supreme court battle.
About the team:
We call them “SWAT,” a squad of hungry, just-out- of-college journalists too crazy to know that things
like this aren’t supposed to be possible at a small, community newspaper with no data team. This
entire report was produced by a cross-discipline group comprised of an editor (Curt Hills), a writer
(Katie Sartoris), a researcher (Amy Johstono), a designer (Adam Rogers) and a photographer (Amy
Correnti). To me, one of the great shames of our industry’s consolidation into design and editing
centers is the loss of the ability to pull such a group together. Design is about so much more than how
something looks, it’s about how it works. About the user experience. On complex, data-heavy projects
in particular, it was essential to have the full team involved at the conception, development and
execution stages. We are constantly testing our thinking with each other along the way.
For your audience, I would make one other point as a long-time visual journalist who is now in the
editor’s seat: the truth about alternative story forms.
We know from EyeTrack research that readers not only pay greater notice to stories that break of
traditional narrative format, they also comprehend them greater and remember them longer. But
many newsrooms equate ASFs with short-form devices that add little storytelling value.
We sprinkle those layers into the report, but there are many long-form ASFs as well. You’ll see first-
person accounts, pro and cons, geographical roundups, Q&As, detailed vignettes and the data
presentations themselves framed with this approach in mind. It looks good, but even more
importantly, it works.
About the reaction:
There are a lot of ways to measure story impact, but for us it’s always about our local readers. For
me, there are two most gratifying moments: When a reader called Katie to tell the story of her
parents’ brutal murder for the first time in 25 years. And when the sister of a murder victim found
the courage to face her brother’s killer in court for the first time in 40 years – with Katie’s report at
her side.
