How the bridge collapse played on Page One
Newsdesigner.com’s easy-to-view display of 50 U.S. newspaper front pages from Aug. 2 — the day after the Minneapolis bridge collapsed — provides a great lesson in (1) headline writing, and (2) photo editing. If you teach a newspaper editing course, you could probably get a full hour’s discussion out of this.
I really love the Star Tribune’s head: “Buckling and swaying, then down, down, down.”
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch headline seems to assume that the morning readers would not have already heard about the event: “Mississippi River bridge collapses in Minneapolis.” Geez, talk about underestimating your audience!
Most of the photos selected for full-width treatment emphasize the cars, smashed or dangling. A few — notably The New York Times’s choice — emphasize the full scale of the bridge. Great fodder for discussion!
(I’m finished writing about the bridge collapse now, I’m quite sure.)
Leave a Reply