‘I’d like to make a formal complaint against Cyclopians’
They’re from the Andromeda galaxy.
The Stolen Child
The TNT is launching a three-part special report today. A short version is running in the paper, with the full series online. It is massive. I don’t remember the inch count. It was in the hundreds. The reporter has been working on the story on and off for about a year and a half.
Check it out.
First I lol’d, then I got sad.
Pearls Before Swine
I am never the biggest fan of comic strips (other than Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side, obviously) but Pearls Before Swine can be good.
This printed the other day, shortly after we launched our redesign. Our paper combined sections and some readers have yelled at us for making it smaller. We’ve all taken the calls, so we could relate.
The redesign
Here’s today’s paper.
It looked like hell last night. Oddly reminiscent of Evergreen nights, although I was just watching it happen, sitting back and listening to my scanner as copy editors ran back and forth, handing proofs to others and swearing under their breath. Of course like any launch, things went wrong. But I was just a passenger.
Fake edit: It look me quite a while, mostly because I am a lazy blogger and don’t really care that much, but I finally got to 100 posts.
Redesigned TNT to launch tomorrow
We’ve been working on a redesign for some time now. It was designed as an update, but also another way we are combining with The Olympian. Now the TNT is editing and designing all of the Oly out of the Tacoma newsroom. So the papers will look pretty much the same, other than the flag.
“We” is misleading. I didn’t come remotely near anything to do with the redesign. It’s nothing close to my job. I used to be a big design nerd, so I have watched it closely. There are some things I would do differently, but then again I am not a professional designer. It has a big KC Star feel to me. That’s not a bad thing.
One thing I do like is the paper and the Web site have the same feel, design-wise.
I could only find a black and white version. The flag is blue ala KC.
Here’s the editor’s column explaining the design.
The hardest days …
… and the hardest interviews can end up making the most rewarding stories, for both the writer and the reader.
On Monday, I covered likely the biggest story of my career and attempted the hardest interview I have encountered.
In the past few weeks, there have been far too many mass killings. Far too much innocent blood spilled. And it came to the South Sound — to the tiny town of Graham.
It obviously was covered by every local news outlet, even picked up by the WaPo and staffed by The New York Times. And on Monday, I went out to speak with someone who is going through unimaginable tragedy.
Here’s my story.
In situations like this, it’s impossible to feel like you are not imposing. Like you are the last person victims and family members would want to see. But you have no choice but to be respectful, and try to tell the story the right way.
No journalism class will ever prepare you for an interview like this. I don’t know if anything will.
Happy St. Paddy’s all
This goes out to all the former Evergreeners. (Sorry for the crappy video)
Sláinte.
Ethics discussion
Pictures of the dead rarely appear in newspapers, and when they do there is always a backlash.
There was a discussion here a couple days ago about the use of a photo to go with a story I wrote.
Both can be found here.
We decided that since the family invited the photographer in, and wanted us to explain the Muslim burial process, it was right to use the photo.
I don’t really want to talk much about it, but this one of the ethical decisions journalists face from time to time.
There are a lot of misconceptions about Islamic culture, and this was an opportunity to explain an extremely important tradition, and so there was a lot of pressure for the story. Being there, it was remarkable to see the difference between a Muslim service and the many Christian funerals I had been to. It seems like the norm to have someone at a funeral home handle someone who has died, but in Islamic culture, family and friends come together for it.
Victor’s doppelganger
I was going through YouTube looking for crappy punk I listened to, and I found Victor singing in a shitty “funny” punk band.
