ICTVC presentation

7/28/2019 ICTVC presentation

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Transformer with

a daily deadline

Jasso Lamberg

4th ICTVC, 17 June 2010

How graphics lend grace to news


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Graphics lending grace to news

Hard news writing style employes the

inverted pyramid and Five Ws and

one H:

Who?

What?

Where?

When?

Why?

How?

Must have -information.Five Ws and one H.

Additional but notcrucial information.

Least importantinformation.

HEADLINE


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New York Herald, April 15, 1865

is evening at about 9:30 p.m. at Ford's

eatre, the President, while sitting in his

private box with Mrs. Lincoln, Mrs. Harris

and Major Rathburn, was shot by an assassin,

who suddenly entered the box and approached

behind the President.


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Graphics lending grace to news

Hard news writing style employes the

inverted pyramid and Five Ws and

one H:

Who?

What?

Where?

When?

Why?

How?

If the graphics can answer some ofthese questions, it frees the written

text.e story can then take, for

example, a more human-interest angle.

Must have -information.Five Ws and one H.

Additional but notcrucial information.

Least importantinformation.

photograph

diagram / illustration

map

timeline

fact box

diagram / illustration

HEADLINE


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C

OPY

RIGHTHELSINGIN

SANOMAT.ALL

RIGHTSRESERVED.


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COPYRIGHT HELSINGIN SANOMAT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.


7/23C

OPY

RIGHTHELSINGIN

SANOMAT.ALL

RIGHTSRESERVED.


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COPYRIGHT HELSINGIN SANOMAT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.


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Michael Macdonald-Ross & Robert Waller 1976/2000

the transformer:

Skilled professional

communicator whomediates between the

expert and the reader.


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experts public

transformer

team ofspecialists

What totell? How totell it?


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experts public

photo-

grapher

graphicartistwriter

editor photo-

editor


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Negotiating with the expert

When negotiating directly with the

expert the graphic artist must have

a journalistic mindset.

You cant trust the expertsjust because they are experts.

You have to filter out importantinformation from public relations jargon,

personal agendas etc.

Naturally politicians are the worst cases

but scientists are not immune topartiality either. (For example, think

about the evolution vs. ID debate in the

USA, or Climategate.)


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Negotiating with the writer

Writers often lack the knowledge of how graphics

are produced. Many of them tend to see it as a

lower level skill as their own work. Also, their

computer skills might not be very advanced.

is might lead to awkward situations.

Typical problems:

Not understanding how much timemaking a graphic takes.

Asking graphics just to fill space.

Writers might forget their own rules for

impartiality when it comes to graphics.

On the other hand the collaboration can also

be extremely efficient and rewarding if the

chemistry works between people.


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Time constraints

Big or complex graphics ~ 35 days

Large graphics ~ 1 day

Basic maps, charts, diagrams ~ 30 min 3 hours

Different sections have different deadlines.

Usually culture & feature sections close around 67 pm.

First hard news pages close around 8 pm.

Last couple of hard news pages, front page,and the main sports pages close around 10 pm.

So if the news occurs late in the evening,youre in trouble.

At that point its not design. Its just shovelling.


15/23C

OP

YRIGHTHELSINGIN

SANOMAT.ALL

RIGHTSRESERVED.


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Because of

time constraints

human resource constraints

conflicting information sources and the pressure to create NEWS to every edition...

Jan Schwochow

Never trust an infographicthe first day after the event.


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Complex or simple graphics?

Should information graphics be complex

with large data sets or simple?

Complex data sets can be useful to

statisticians, scientists etc.

e audience is prepared to spend

time with the graphic.

In a newspaper, on the other hand, the

readers are not willing to spend much

time with the graphic.

Varies on different sections. Featuresections might have more illustrative,

more complex graphics.


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Edward Tufte, Visual Display of

Quantitative Information, 2001 [1992]

Data graphics should often be based on a large

rather than small data matrices and have a high

rather than low data density. More information

is better than less information [].e simple

things belong in tables or in the text; graphics

can give a sense of large and complex data sets

that cannot be managed in any other way.


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Peter Sullivan, Newspaper Graphics, 1987

[] the message needs to be presented in

a simple way with clear explanations of any

abbreviations or symbols. [] Graphs and

charts that do not quickly reveal the message

are best forgotten.


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So, sometimes this is justifiable

smallREALLY BIG


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News graphics areoften about doing

simple graphics fornormal people.


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Thank you

[email protected]

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