It’s a rare happening, but it takes place from time to time. It always has and always will: this is when there is a story about a given subject, and the ad near it deals with the same subject.

For example, a story about the drowning of a child in a swimming pool at home, next to a half page ad for home swimming pools.

When it happens, there is embarrassment all around, and finger pointing. Usually, the reason for the accident is a simple one: the editor placing content on a page or screen (although this is more prevalent in print), has no idea what the ad content will be. In printed newspaper dummies, usually an ad is simply a box with an X over it. In better environments, there might be a reference to the product advertised, “Sunshine Pools” for example. Without this, an editor will realize the mistake when she sees the page printed, probably at home. Not much that can be done.

It happened last week to The Las Vegas Review Journal with its front page of the high school massacre in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 and injured many more.

Meanwhile, at The Washington Post

Society of News Design New York: Celebrating 40 years

The Society for News Design’s 40th Anniversary Workshop, Creative Conference and Awards Gala will be in New York City, March 22–24.

Workshop chair Tyson Evans, of The New York Times, and an army of volunteers are organizing three packed days of talks, training, networking and inspiration about the future (and past) of storytelling, visual journalism and news products across print and digital.

Speakers announced so far include Scott Stowell, proprietor of Open and winner of the National Design Award for Communication Design; Jennifer Daniel, of Google; John Maeda, of Automattic and visual journalists from The New York Times, Washington Post, Axios, Vice, ProPublica and more.

I am honored to be one of the speakers.

If you would like to attend what promises to be one of the best SND gatherings ever, please go here for more information:

https://nyc.snd.org