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Royal wedding coverage on Friday's front page? These papers had it. Here's how they got it.
Readers of The Patriot Ledgter in Quincy, Mass., didn't have to get up extra early to see the dapper Prince William marry the lovely Kate Middleton. All readers had to to was pick up the Friday edition to see this front page:
Big dominant photo shows Kate in her beautiful dress and Prince William's bright red uniform, red italic headline matching his garb.
How did the Ledger do this on deadline? The page below offers a little hint.
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The staff finished the writing, editing and design of all the front page stories not related to the wedding. Doing this helped keep the staff focused on deadline.
Editor Chazy Dowaliby tells a little more of what went into its wedding coverage.
"Being one of the last of the afternoon dailies, we pushed production and circulation deadlines to the max and eked out 40 more minutes in order to give our readers first-on-the-street coverage of the Royal Wedding."
"We held pages 1, 2 and 3, lined up a local family to watch the ceremony, brought in an early reporter and photographer, and kept overnight copy desk folks a few extra hours to see the pages through.
"I did photo editing for our picture page and A-1, a news editor and copy desk handled local and wire text while our online editor monitored a live-chat on Facebook that had participants from as far afield as Scotland joining our wedding party.
"We even had a box of "Royal Wedding" donuts to help fuel the process. Quincy's own Dunkin' Donuts created iced, heart-shaped jelly-filled wonders just for the occasion."
The Patriot Ledger's wedding coverage spilled onto two inside pages as well.
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Super job with the expanded by the folks at The Patriot Ledger!
Now let's head north to upstate New York - Canandaigua, to be exact - where the staff of the Daily Messenger produced this local-focused centerpiece:
A shot of the royal couple was included here, but the main photo shows group of local young ladies who dressed for a viewing party.
Editor Kevin Frisch said this:
"Cheerio, Joe:"
"Knowing the ceremony itself would coincide with our morning deadline, we tracked down a local wedding-watching party.
"Our reporter, Julie Sherwood, did much of the interviewing and some of the writing of the story ahead of time. She then met with the girls at 4 a.m. today to gather additional color and fresh quotes as they watched the ceremony. She phoned in the updates to news editor Tracey Curry.
"Photographer Jack Haley was another early visitor - he stopped by to capture photos the party and uploaded them from the scene so page editor Steve Buchiere could put together the front-page package."
Great stuff, Kevin!
Lastly, we head west to Adrian, Mich. - still in the Eastern time zone - to the offices of The Daily Telegram. The skybox included live art of the wedding that teased to an inside page.
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Special projects editor Erik Gable reminded me that The Daily Telegram is an afternoon paper:
"We're an afternoon paper with a 9 a.m. page deadline, so we actually didn't have to mess with our schedule or deadlines at all."
About the skybox, Gable goes on to say:
"We just moved the flag and the usual refers a few inches down the page to create space, then dropped in the dark red box, the photo and the copy. The page the story ran on is nothing special, but here it is:"
Good stuff, Erik!
