Now, I've had enough

Just kidding.
Zoomify is up at VizEds. Take an ultra-close look at Orlando's redesign.

Former design editor named editor of Anniston Star

You have to dig pretty deep in this story to find it, but it says this about the Anniston (Ala.) Star's new editor Bob Davis:

Davis has served as The Star’s editorial page editor since December 2003. Before that he spent 11 years in Texas at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as a design editor and the Op-Ed/Sunday editor. Prior to that that he worked at two Georgia papers, the Cherokee Tribune and the Marietta Daily Journal as a news and sports editor. He is a 1987 graduate of the University of Alabama, with a degree in political science. He is a native of Aliceville.

Had enough yet?

Me either.

Newsdesigner has a whole slew of pages from the Orlando redesign with comments from Bonita Burton here. I find the new feature sections to be particularly interesting. Says Burton:

All of our features sections have been completely revamped. While we still have A&E coverage inside every day, the fronts are focused now on specific themes and designed as a magazine in a broadsheet format every day. We also rolled the previously free-standing Sunday Travel section and Wednesday Food section into Good Living on those days.

Sportsdesigner has the, uh, sports end covered here with comments from Deputy Sports Editor Roger Simmons creator of Sports Front Exchange.

First peek at Orlando

The OS posted before and after at NPD. They promise more to come and watch for a Zoomify exhibit at VizEds.

Orlando pod and video casts are up

at VizEds. Enjoy.

http://www.visualeditors.com/podcast/

The Golf Gazette

Robb Montgomery brings an update on The Golf Gazette in a podcast over at VizEds. The publication, which is currently only online, is still looking for investors and hopes to launch in March. The weekly newspaper would be produced live on Sundays and cover the past week's events as well as advance those coming up.

Robb put together the prototypes for the print version a couple of years ago. You can find them here.

Orlando Redesign

The video blogger in Orlando tonight is VizEds own Robb Montgomery. Bonita said she'll try and get some samples to me tonight, but obviously she'll be busy. Keep an eye on VizEds, though, to see what Robb's cooking up.

Good luck and smooth sailing to the Orlando crew!

Orlando Sentinel redesign debuts Sunday

Editor and Publisher reports:

On Page A1, the paper is offering a new "Speed Read" that will highlight the day's top stories from inside the paper. A new Page A2, called "Behind The News," will howcase unusual stories and photos, as well as celebrity news.

Read the whole story at the link above.
Also, see some early samples at this VizEds thread and at Newsdesigner.

Edited to correct hed to Sunday sted Monday. Also, Bonita Burton teases us with this news over at VizEds:

Stay tuned, a certain visual weblog CEO is in the house videocasting live from Orlando....

Following a tragedy

The Gainsville Sun had a nice page today about the crash a couple days ago that killed 7 foster siblings.

Rocky Mount (N.C.) Telegram on Colbert Report

From Editor and Publisher:

NEW YORK The Rocky Mount (N.C.) Telegram gained national exposure late Thursday night when Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central's "Colbert Report," cited his recent appearance in the daily, in a drawing by a local schoolgirl named Amy.

Sarasota rounds out "Learning Newsroom" project

Old news here, but I haven't seen this anywhere. From Dec. 12:

RESTON, VA—The Sarasota Herald-Tribune, an industry leader in newsroom convergence and innovation, rounds out the list of 10 participants in the Learning Newsroom Project. This unique training program, sponsored by the American Press Institute and the American Society of Newspaper Editors and funded through a $1 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, helps newspapers develop a more open and collaborative newsroom culture.

For more information you can check out the Website here.

Sarasota's Doug Jessmer says he's excited about the project: "The Learning Newsroom offers management training for the 'worker bees' of the operation -- and I think it's a great opportunity to bring positive change to the newsroom culture," he said.

Papers already particpating are: The Bakersfield Californian; The Citizen-Times in Asheville, N.C.; the Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times; The Hamilton Spectator in Ontario, Canada; The Herald-Times in Bloomington, Ind.; The Journal Star in Lincoln, Neb.; and The Telegraph in Nashua, N.H. The other two recently announced are the San Jose Mercury News and the Tacoma News Tribune in Washington state.

New digs in Sarasota

Doug Jessmer of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune posted this news about the paper's new building over at VizEds. He tells me the design is based on the Ringling school of architecture, inspired by the home of John and Mable Ringling, not the actual school. And yes, they're the circus people. Perhaps that explains the tent-ish-ness of the design. I'm also stealing the photo that Doug apparently stole from his own paper:

At long last, we all got to set foot in our new newsroom Wednesday. The new Downtown building replaces a dark dungeon of a building. At last -- windows! And they go all the way to the roof (which doubles as the newsroom ceiling). It's light, spacious and modern, with a lighting system that combines the window shades with the lights (computer-controlled) to maintain consistent lighting. Pretty cool. The building has virtually no first floor, save for a lobby and conference room. Arquitectonica of Miami designed the facility. The Herald-Tribune is a New York Times newspaper, with a circulation that peaks this time of year at around 170,000. The new building includes our web site, our 24-hour cable news channel and the paper itself. We move in in mid-February. Big doings down here. It means I'll have to clean my desk. (My new -- and bigger -- desk is on the side of the building you see in the picture, about halfway back.) I hope the Powers That Be will put some interior shots on the Interweb somewhere... it really is a nice building.

P.S. This is EXACTLY the kind of news you should be sending me. (Shame on you, Doug!)

Judging and Flash

Snd.org is giving us a bit of a preview of what to expect from the judging this year and in the future.

Judging for the 27th annual Best of Newspaper Design Creative Competition will be Feb. 11-20 at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in Syracuse, N.Y.

SND.org will be your source for live news from the judging.

Here's a look at some things we are working on for the coverage.
Nothing is official – we're still ironing out details on all of this – but the goal is to add new things this year.

• Live, streaming video from the ballroom. There would be no audio, but users might be able to direct the camera online to some extent. The university currently runs a live campus cam here.
• A blog, much like the popular SND Houston blog.
• News articles and interviews where possible.
• Quicktime video that you can download.
• An announcement of the World's Best winners once the judging is complete on Monday, Feb. 20.
• An announcement of Gold Winners and Best of Show winners shortly after the competition judging and data entry is complete. Sorry, we can't set a firm date on this.
• Bad karaoke photos.

All of these ideas are ambitious and may only come to fruition in future years.
The most important thing, of course, is running a smooth competition, which is job No. 1.

Personally, I'd like to see good photos of bad karaoke, but I'll take what I can get, I suppose.

And don't forget this weekend's Flash Quick Course in Chapel Hill, N.C. If you're attending and have handouts and/or links send 'em my way and I'll post 'em. In case you missed this one, there's another in February at Ball State.

One day, two mergers

Yesterday the WB merged with UPN and Disney got together with Pixar. Here's how two papers in our region covered the news:

Bluffton Today launches high school paper

Ernie Smith passes this on at VizEds:

These high schoolers really did a great job coming up with some awesome stories and ideas and it was really awesome to see this process unfold. See all the breakout, short-form content? All from them. Our goal is to eventually hand the design reins over to them. Design queen Becky Fletcher did a great job helming the first issue.

Read the story at Bluffton Today.

Savannah's Stocks

Learned this from Francie Krantz over at VizEds:

Don't know if the industry was aware, but we've dropped our stock pages. We've replaced them with something called "Reader's Choice." We solicited readers to give us the stocks they wanted us to follow. People can also set up their portfolio at our Web site, http://www.savannahnow.com./ We also do a daily tally of 50 stocks we call the Savannah 50," which are 50 key businesses in our region. Plus, we do a stock market summary.

She also reveals this nugget of info:

We're still formatting how we design this thing, and it will change again when we redesign next month. Stay tuned...

News from Syracuse

It seems only fitting that the first piece of news I get isn't actually from the region, but it's worth sharing anyway. Marshall Matlock passes this on:

As I'm sure you know we at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications are busy doing the entry audit before judges arrive beginning Feb. 10. This will be The School's 18th year of cosponsoring the international competition.We hope to add streaming video to this year's judgings. Also the S.I Newhouse is constructing building III to the present complex. It's scheduled to open the fall of 2007. You can get more information from http://newhouse.syr.edu . The URL for the new building is located at http://newhouse.syr.edu/nh3/ .

Help for the Times-Picayune

I'm stealing this straight from Charles Apple's post at VizEds (he got the info from Romenesko):

Susan Feeney, one of four Times-Picayune alums who started a relief fund to help families at the New Orleans paper, writes: "[T-P staffers] are deeply grateful to have jobs. But many have little else. They live in lousy, overpriced rental properties or trailers. They drive their kids to far-away, overcrowded schools. ...The Picayune staff surely will win many of journalism's top honors this year. And they deserve them. But what they need right now is cash."

Here's how to donate: http://www.friendsofthetimespicayune.com/

Welcome!

Dear members near and far,

I'd like to introduce myself as the new director for region 3. I'm Nicole Bogdas and I'm a designer at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Region 3 covers a lot states in the southeastern United States. A map of the regions can be found here. This is my first go at any sort of blog, so bear with me in the beginning. If anyone has any ideas to improve what's happening here please drop me a note and I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, please send me email at nicole.bogdas@gmail.com so I can post any news from your paper. That includes redesigns, upgrades, member moves, job openings and anything else you want us to know about.

Take care!