Greg Williams Design Director

We knew from the start that Florida's primary election on Tues., Sept. 10, would be big news for our readers. But we also planned to include a significant 9/11 presence on Wednesday's front page. Several staff-produced stories were being considered. For days, it had looked as though a package on immigrants by reporter Jan Hollingsworth and photographer Kathy Moore-Lengell (on location in New York), would be our best bet. One of Kathy's photos, a golden-toned shot of the Statue of Liberty, seemed to capture the proper mood of patriotism and calm reflection. Late in the day on Tuesday, we learned from Editor Pat Minarcin that another story by reporter Joe Henderson was a more appropriate offering for 1A, because it spoke poignantly to why so many would be gathering to remember on the anniversary itself. Unfortunately, the available images for that story did not convey the mood we were looking for. The story profiled one of the victims from the World Trade Center, through the eyes of his friends and loved ones. Most of the photos were family snapshots. A small group of visual leaders huddled with Deputy Managing Editor Craig Gemoules to discuss our options. Photo Editor Todd Chappel brought along an AP shot of an unidentified man on a park bench, seemingly reflecting on New York's transformed skyline. Cropped as a strong horizontal, it would invite readers into the scene. It didn't illustrate Henderson's story, but it illustrated the mood of the day. We realized that the first two lines of Henderson's story, combined with a simple photo of victim Marty Boryczewski, nicely matched the tone of our special section for that day, "No Life Untouched" -- a diverse collection of local profiles, paired thematically with brief 9/11-related items and photos from around the country. By dropping our left-anchored "Newsmaker" rail (our plan all along for Wednesday's front) and running the skyline photo above our nameplate, we achieved several goals: We gave our page the reflective tone we were seeking, even achieving a subtle patriotic feel with the red-white-and-blue horizontal stripes that were naturally part of the photo; we gave our readers a moving 9/11 story about loss and love; and we still had space to start a brief story about Florida's primary above the fold.

Monica Moses Visual Journalism Faculty The Poynter Institute

The Tribune staff had the same competing priorities as the other Florida metros, but they still played up Sept. 11. A view across the Hudson River at the changed Manhattan skyline forms the top of the page. The picture helps set a quiet, deliberate tone for the page, and ample white space sprinkled skillfully reinforces that. The lead Sept. 11 package has only a so-so picture, but the conversational headline trumps the photo anyway. Rival gubernatorial candidates appear in matching mugshots. A grid organizes everything. This front could've looked a little newsier and more urgent. But it is a very focused, manageable page for readers - not junky or distracting.