Update #6: Tuesday, April 9, Johannesburg, South Africa 16:36
TAKEAWAY: Breaking news represents one of the greatest challenges for printed newspaper editors: how can the headline make a dated story fresh?
It’s another one of those breaking news that one hears about via a mobile platform: I was in the midst of conducting a workshop for The Citizen in Johannesburg, South Africa, Monday when my iPhone indiscreetly beeped the news that former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had died at 87.
Less than a month ago it was a similar inappropriately timed beep when the Pope Francis news was announced.
Immediately editors turn their attention to the breaking news at hand, and how to cover it. For those responsible for print editions, the process begins: how to make this important news not seem old 18 hours later, or how to write a second day headline on the first day that enhances and inspires and not one that repeats the obvious.
I will be on the lookout today for how those printed front pages remind—that’s the important word here—the world that Thatcher has died.
Four that got it right
By not using a headline, but, instead, a quote that says it all, The Guardian made us want to read
For The Independent a front page without headline and an intro that resembles more that of a book or magazine piece treatment
The Times opted for a double page cover, with photo and no headline at all: great impact and symbolic photo of Thatcher’s visit to Moscow and a wave of the hand
Gulf News of Dubai: Elegant and simple treatment
Ooooppppps for The Times (of London)
Walter Buchignani, of The Montreal Gazette, is a keen observer of the digital condition. Especially on a day like Monday, when news of Margaret Thatcher’s death broke, he points out how The New York Times and Germany’s Die Welt led with the news in their online editions, but, alas, not The Times of London. It was all happening at exactly 9 a.m. EST.
Walter’s email begged the question:
Which is the British paper again?
I am sure someone at the Times had some explaining to do.
Perhaps one of the best headlines
The New York Times’ online had a headline for the Thatcher story that I thought hit the spot: advancing the story and relating it to the present. Headline reads: Thatcher Freed Market Forces, and Europe is Still Adjusting
And one headline that looked tired
Why would the London Evening Standard state the already known in its front page headline?
It may be the type of thinking one still hears about in newsrooms: “Oh, we are the newspaper of record, and we must report the news when it happens as it happened, for posterity.”
While this may be a somewhat valid argument, nobody will be seduced by a Thatcher Dies headline, not in today’s instant breaking news via mobile world. I may pick up this newspaper if you give me a hint of what coverage you have, or a verbless headline that advances the story and puts it into the more analytical perspective.
Or, as some of the examples above, simply NOT saying anything and letting the portrait of Thatcher and a short biographical annotation, do the rest.
Thatcher was no hero in Argentina—as the headlines will tell you
Headline: “Galtieri waits for her in Hell”
Clarin: Thatcher the imperial symbol of the Falklands War
La Nacion: Margaret Thatcher: marked an era, left a wound
Coverage of the death of someone as controversial as Margaret Thatcher will vary from region to region.
I had to wait till my colleagues in Buenos Aires, at the office of Garcia Media Latinoamerica, would wake up, to ask for front pages of newspapers there. And here are three.
Paula Ripoll, our senior art director, writes me that “As you can imagine, Thatcher was not such a popular personage here.”
Indeed, she wasn’t, and the headline in Pagina 12 says it better: “Galtieri waits for her in Hell”. Leopoldo Galtieri was president of Argentina during the last military dictatorship and ordered the invasion of the Falkland Islands, which the British retook while Thatcher was Prime Minister.
Clarin, meanwhile, played down the Thatcher story, while giving major top of the page play to the death of Spanish actress/singer icon Sara Montiel, who died the same day as Thatcher.
The more elegant and discreet La Nacion handled the Thatcher story below the fold, but also used the headline to
It wasn’t only the Argertines who did not love Thatcher….
And here how that darling of tabloids, The Sun, covered it
Meanwhile, in South Africa
As I start my day in Johannesburg, I take a look at how the South African press covered the death of Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher once referred to the ANC (African National Congress) as a “terrorist” organization, but on the day of her death the ANC joined in the many tributes given the Iron Lady.
The Star’s headline: ‘Terror’ ANC hails Thatcher
The Times: headline reads ‘English Rose, with Thorns’
The Citizen: headline reads ‘Hailed and despised’
Of special interest
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age mobile audiences soar
http://panpa.org.au/2013/04/05/the-sydney-morning-herald-and-the-age-mobile-audiences-soar/
First paragraph:
The mobile sites of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have more than 400,000 daily users, according to Fairfax Metro Media’s February audience report released yesterday.
How do your daily budgets reflect multi-platform planning needs?
How do your daily budgets reflect multi-platform planning needs?
Highlight:
Steve Buttry’s suggestions for a Digital First news budget are a must read. A couple of particularly useful ones here:
Visual. What are plans visual content such as breaking photos for social media and web, video, photo galleries, multimedia, etc.? If not clear from staffing, this column might identify who is providing visual content. Another approach would be separate columns for photo (could be multiple columns, perhaps for breaking photo for social/web, photo gallery), video and multimedia.
Visual social. Mention plans for sharing photos and videos via Twitter, Facebook, G+, Tout, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr and/or YouTube.
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