The success of this page was dependent upon the contributions of many people, throughout the production day. In adjusting to life as a Free Press designer, one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is to respect the power of a newsroom as large as the Free Press’ — I’ve found that the greatest successes can come when I don’t try to do too much as a designer. Everyone on the team is committed to putting out the best product that we can, but this only happens when everyone is given the opportunity to make his/her contribution as an expert.
The inception
While it’s arguable that the Nassar investigations didn’t receive an appropriate amount of attention given the monstrosity of his actions, the sentencing hearing — in which hundreds of women who were assaulted shared their heartbreaking stories in the courtroom — saw the coverage amplified because of its social relevance. One of the hallmarks of the #MeToo movement is how women have broken a culture of silence; in this case, the scope of Nassar’s actions would have never been known if these brave women didn’t step forward. After days of courtroom drama, Detroit used Twitter as a medium to recognize and thank all of the women who stepped up to give their victim impact statements during the sentencing hearing. One by one, each name was tweeted out by the @freep account. At the end, the names were compiled into a social card with a simple message to the women: Thank You.
The print plan
Once I logged in for the day, Joe Cybulski (the newsroom’s primary contact with the studio) shared that social media card and indicated that they wanted to do something similar for the print presentation. Our goal for the page would be to make a statement: to say that this day is for the women who were violated by this monster. After having suffered in silence for so long, they each deserved recognition for their outstanding courage. This is important: the idea for this statement came from the newsroom. There was an institutional commitment/buy-in to the idea from the very beginning.
In the original plan, the list of women would be accompanied by a related story start (likely on the Michigan State board of trustees developing a succession plan for president Lou Anna Simon), as well as refers to the three pages of coverage inside. In order to make this statement as loudly and poignantly as possible, I felt that we needed to strip the page down to its essentials — the focus should be on the names of these women, so we needed to do everything we could to get rid of/downplay everything else.
The execution
The design process on this page was remarkably easy because of the groundwork we laid in the first few hours of the day. After coming up with the right plan of action, all that I had to do as designer was make sure we were accomplishing the goals that we set out to accomplish. I knew I didn’t want to include any photos on the page to dilute the impact of the names on the list, and I also wanted to make sure that white space was used to direct appropriate attention to those names. Each name is important, and I didn’t want to do anything that would cause them to fade together. I set up a simple grid structure on the page with wide gutters and as much leading as possible.
The commitment
In making a statement like this, it meant that we wouldn’t have great flexibility to accommodate breaking news. Traditionally, the Free Press favors a newsy page because Detroit is such a newsy market; however, when the sentencing ended, the news didn’t stop. Midway through the night, Michigan State University president Lou Anna Simon announced her intention to resign on Thursday (the following day). This was big news that needed to be represented on the page, but we had decided that if it was confirmed, the page would still work with an above-the-fold headline refer to the story inside. It also furthered the “statement” we were making with the page by doubling down on our news judgment.
But then — 10 minutes before the first edition deadline — the Detroit News broke that Simon had resigned. We rushed to make last-second adjustments to get off the floor with as much accuracy as we could, but knowing that we would be making changes for second edition to remove and/or update stories and columns that became obsolete. We had the opportunity to tear up the page between first and second to shift the focus to the resignation of Lou Anna Simon, but I was proud that we stuck with the statement page through the night and didn’t cave to Simon’s resignation.
The impact
When designing a page like this, I was acutely aware of the impact the statement we are making would have. But I was not prepared for just how much of an impact the page would have: it caught fire on social media, being retweeted over 9,000 times on Twitter and shared 1,400 times on Facebook. It showed up in the Columbia Journalism Review’s morning newsletter on Thursday (as well as here, here and here). It made appearances on cable TV channels (at least ESPN). Readers took to social media to share their emotional reactions to seeing the page on their phone or on newsstands. Even in a digital world, it’s amazing to see just how powerful a printed page can be.