Good old days

The mayor? And the publisher? In a fistfight? Outside the bank? Go it, publisher; go it, bear mayor! History of American Journalism is back and standing tall!

I need a new walking stick. There might be poltroons to cudgel on the way home.*

* And when it's snowing too hard to see Canada, it's time to head that way.

Welcome to Tombstone

Back when "design" was called "layout" and editors were expected to know how a proportion wheel worked, one of the first rules you learned was about bumping heds, or "tombstoning." As in: Don't. Or if you do, maximize the contrast (size, shape, weight) between the heds so they don't read into each other.

Bump bans could get extreme. Nobody's going to have trouble distinguishing a 1/30/4 from the 5/42/1 next to it on an elbow page. But when you ignore the basics -- as the folks downtown apparently decided they could do today with impunity (that's the top of 4A) -- the results can be pretty grisly.

Good Old Days are here again

A visitor from a few days back takes issue with the (perceived) suggestion that the days when publishers ordered their friends' business or social doings into the paper at random are gone. We're certainly happy to stipulate that that's not what we had in mind. For a variety of reasons,* I expect it's less prevalent than it was three and four decades ago, but that's a hypothesis, not an observation.** But for those who thought this flavor of sacred cow had gone extinct on us,*** have a look and enjoy.

How did the "local philanthropist" here come to merit the bulk of the front page -- "call him Waco's behind-the-scenes booster" lede and all? (Aside from his claim to have been the highest-paid insurance salesman in the country at age 25, I mean.) Hmm. Wonder if there are any hints with the jump? Like, say, that pull quote at the top of the page from the, ahem, "new owner" of the paper?

Well, freedom of the press has always been uniquely guaranteed to those who own one.**** Sometimes it's just a bit more visible than others.

* Counterintuitive as it might seem, the spread of chain ownership is one; when you're getting your passport stamped on a two- or three-year rotation, it's harder to build the sort of deep-catalog incestuous relationships you need.
** Nor do I know of any evidence that the public has a better idea of how often (or under what circumstances) it happens.
*** Or haven't heard the tale about the nuns and the pancake breakfast.
**** For extra credit, see how long it takes you to find the actual quote via Google.

Annals of advertising

See, kids, in the Good Old Days, when editors looked like Cary Grant and J-school grads looked like Roz Russell* and brontosaurus-riding waifs had the paper at the door of your cave by 6 every morning rain or shine, you could actually see "ads" and "stories" together on the same "page dummy" before you "went to press."

That produced what we call a "win-win situation." Ford dealers didn't like being opposite the daily PINTO EXPLODES story, and we didn't like it when CANDIDATE CAUGHT IN LOVE NEST WITH 'SINGER' jumped into a stack of ads for, uh, enhancement medications or the like. So when you saw this sort of story:

At about 6:16 p.m., Boone County sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the trailer park at 3501 New Haven Road after a caller reported a man was exposing his genitalia from the window of his trailer.

... you gave the page an extra look to make sure that none of the nearby ads had -- oh, you know, SuperBanker ripping his suit off. There are better ways to have your work immortalized in CJR.

* And city functionaries looked like Billy Gilbert! This is totally true.