USA TODAY - Sept. 30

September 30, 2014

The top story on the front, above the fold is highly relevant. The Supreme Court not deciding on gay marriage is kind of a big deal. The infographic/map was nice art, but it really overshadows the one photo of a couple being married, which adds more of the human element and is more interesting to readers. Also, all of the copy on this particular front page doesn’t draw readers in or make them want to pick up the paper. People like art and photos, not tons of daunting text to read. The designer should have maybe opted to jump more of the story and make the photo of the couple larger.

            The top story on page 3 uses “allegedly” in the headline which we were told, in class, was unnecessary. In the “What’s Happening Online” sidebar, I deleted “, ever” from the teaser “Airfare Expert: The two days you should never, ever fly” for redundancy. I also deleted an exclamation point from a teaser in this section, because newspapers rarely use exclamation points and it is consistent with all of the other teasers to have no end punctuation.

            Putting the “State-by-State briefs on a color page, seemed like a waste of color. It would have been nice to have color on a page with actual photos instead of just blue clipart and to emphasize the titles. The briefs page doesn’t really lend itself well to color, and as a reader it is more important to me that photos are in color than clipart, even the accompanying color page only has two photos appearing in color.

            Page 6 is very well designed, it has plenty of white space and doesn’t feel as crowded as most of the other pages. The whole paper would be more reader-friendly if all of the page designers took some tips from this one. The lead to the domestic violence in women’s soccer story was cliché. Almost all stories about domestic violence lead off with statistics; seeing a fresh approach would have made readers more likely to finish the story.

            The “Your Say” section on page 7 is a really good way to get more opinions of the public than just the couple of people interviewed for a story. It is presented well, and seems to get a lot of positive feedback from readers. In the Obama/Ebola story there was a widow at the top of one of the columns. Widows are small problems, but they make the copy difficult to read and they look like a design flaw, it would be nice if USA TODAY was more adamant about eliminating them, but it really is a design choice. That same story has a caption under the photo of Obama that falls in the middle of two columns of body copy and creates awkward white space. It would much more readable to have the caption span the length of the bottom of the photo rather than dissect the copy. Overall, it would have been preferential to readers to have more photos in this entire edition. It was very copy-heavy and daunting to pick up. 

USA TODAY - Sept. 23

September 23, 2014

            The photo of Gabby Giffords and her husband is very powerful and the lead to the story is moving as well and its placement on the page is appropriate.  I did delete “on” in front of the date in the caption of the photo, due to AP style rules, but I am beginning to think it may be a stylistic choice the publication is making since it has occurred so many times.

            The India Prime Minister story on page 2, had a widow in the top right corner of the story. In the “Kurds say Turkey not doing enough to stop Islamic State” I deleted the word “here” from the sentence, “He, like many in this crowd of thousands here, is itching for a fight.” It is unnecessary and awkward. Also, the photo captions in tiny columns are difficult to read. They would do better to make room under the photos always instead of putting the caption into a column.

            The Gabby Giffords story continues on page 6, and it begins with a widow, which would be best avoided. I deleted “on” before the date in two of the captions. I also questioned the use of “reassuring” in the caption with her mother, how did they know it was reassuring? In the briefs, there is also a widow in the last column.

USA TODAY - Sept. 16

September 16, 2014

The feature headline, “Syria strikes may be joint effort” is missing a comma after “strikes.” Also, it isn’t clear which story that headline applies to. Although there is a line separating the headline from the other stories on the page, it is a little deceiving to have a headline that spans the entire front page, and it only relate to one column on the far right side. The lead of the Syria story should have been rearranged to put the attribution at the end because what was said is more important than who said it. The photo featured with the Climate Change article seemed to focus on Leonard Dicaprio, which had no relation to the content of the story whatsoever. The editor could have chosen a crowd photo that didn’t feature a celebrity.

            I understand now that the “Voices” first-hand account of newsworthy experiences from USA Today editors is a featured item in each edition, but it would still be more appropriate on the Opinions page rather than the second page of news. The period is still missing in the endnote as well. The “In Brief” is also confusing in this edition as the briefs in the first one were.

            On page 3, the story about a Pa. shooting uses the word “here” to refer to the location of the shooting. USA Today is a national newspaper, and just because the story is from Pa. doesn’t mean that readers are in Pa. Specificity is important in news writing, and it would be clearer to readers across the nation if they just used the name of the town again at that point. In the “What’s Happening Online” sidebar, the teaser “Puppy rapists gets five years in prison” is a sensational headline and could be seen as making a joke of the situation. It would be worth discussing with other editors and getting some second opinions on the wording of that teaser.

            Design problems on page 5 included a widow in the insurance story at the top left of the page, and the headline “Israel’s Arab citizens alienated in wake of war” has too many spaces at the end of the first line. The briefs had several AP errors in the copy. In the missing student brief, I deleted the word “being” from the phrase, “was being sought” because it was unnecessary to get the point across. Also, in the phrase, “driving at a high rate of speed that caused police…” I deleted “rate of” and “that” and changed “caused” to “causing.” In the California laws brief I changed, “to drive for free or reduced rates” to “to drive for free or at reduced rates,” because it makes more sense. Then the brief about a ship getting stuck near the Statue of Liberty, I took out “on” before the date, as per AP style.

            On page 6, in the caption for the photo above the fold, I deleted “on” before the date, again as per AP style. In the headline “Republicans’ fake birth control promises,” there are more than three spaces at the end of the first line. The white space at the top of the page gives plenty of breathing room, considering all of the copy filling the rest of it. 

USA TODAY - Sept. 9

September 9, 2014

The headline for the Alibaba story is cluttered and the headline overlapped was difficult to read and it seemed a little flashy for a news story. The headlines on the front page split up infinitives and verbs across lines, which is generally avoided if possible. In the Newsline headline for the Money section, “Consumers open up their wallets,” I deleted the word “up” because of redundancy. In the headline below the fold, “Senate has a secret book of rules,” I deleted “a” because articles are generally left out of headlines unless necessary, and it was not necessary in this situation.

            On the second page of the News section, the article titled “Domestic violence from boy next door,” was a personal account of domestic violence from one of the paper’s editors. While the story was newsworthy and powerful, I thought it would be better suited to the Opinions page. In the caption for the photo accompanying that article, I replaced “in a briefing” with “during a briefing” because “in” was used again later in the sentence. Also, in the note at the end of the article, it should end with a period consistent with the other endnotes in the paper. In the continuation of the Alibaba story, IPO should be spelled out on first reference. There was also some awkward white space at the bottom of the page.

            On page 3 of News, the headline “USA heads toward diabetes crisis” left more than three spaces at the end of the second line. Also, in the lead of the same story, I questioned whether or not the use of “fatter and older” was politically correct. It would definitely be worth bringing up to other editors. I also found the “Nation in Brief” section to be difficult to read and follow. It could possibly benefit from a redesign.

            In the headline “Wis. Governor just taking it one race at a time,” I deleted the word “just” to eliminate any possible editorializing. The “World in Brief” section, like the “Nation in Brief” section was difficult to read and to follow. The unrelated photo dissecting the copy is a distraction and confuses readers.

Assignment 2: Micheal Brown Article

I found the Micheal Brown article to be very insensitive. Although the family was interviewed and presumably knew that what they said would be included in the article, I still thought there was phrasing and framing by the author which was inappropriate to the situation.

Most of the sections that I edited were just places where I felt the wording could have been a little more sensitive to the situation.