It’s not often that I get to climb off my high horse but here goes, and I hope I manage it with some aplomb. Yesterday I had a frothy about a lack of personality at the Independent’s three morning newspapers (The Star, Cape Times and The Mercury) that all took the same line in their front-page stories on the big Bafana game.
All three papers’ headlines were along the lines of “Out but not down”. I was very dismayed about this as I had perused IOL’s front pages to see how the various editors played the game as it was a tricky one. On the one hand, we were out of the World Cup and soccer experts were saying that Bafana’s performance was not good enough. On the other hand, the team did lift its game and beat France so many South Africans were disappointed but still proud of the boys.
I complained that that it appeared from the front pages of The Star, Mercury and Cape Times that the editors had gone home and left the decisions on this important story to the subsroom — which at the Independent is in the process of being centralised — thereby letting down the readers who look to their newspapers to stamp their own personality on big national events.
Now new information — as they say — has come to light. An Independent Newspapers executive told me that all three editors were in fact in the newsroom on Tuesday night for the game. Because the Independent’s newspaper have a shared IT system, it appears that one of the three papers came up with the “Out but not down” theme for the front-page headline and the others editors liked it and borrowed it. The three papers all have their own night editors and content editors, the executive told me, so it’s not quite as dire at the Indy as I made it out to be yesterday.
So there we have it, friends, not so dismaying but there is still a lesson here in shared newsrooms possibly resulting in editors second guessing themselves.
Now here’s an interesting gallery below for you media luvvies to peruse. After my rant of yesterday, I contacted a clutch of the other morning papers to ask for their front pages of Wednesday morning to see how they played the Bafana game. Have a look and tell me what you think — I’d be especially interested if the designers, chief subs and editors I mailed would share with us (in the comments below) what they were thinking when they did these front pages.
Of interest, I think, is that:
1. Business Day only used a picture of the game on the front. That’s curious… I know the paper’s readers look to the paper for serious financial and political news but they would have been as transfixed by Bafana’s fortunes as everybody else. Surely?
2. The Star, in fact, did a number of editions (you can see two here).
3. Take a look at that cool Cape Times poster.
4. Beeld did a very lekker inside page on Maradona — “Die dans van Diego” — which I think is Ab Fab. Maradona is definitely becoming the big personality of this World Cup.
5. I’m not sure about The Witness’ “Au revoir” — I think playing with the French language is a tad trite for such a big event.
6. Personally, I fancy Beeld (“Trotse einde”) with its simple, bold headline in capital letters and I love that picture — lots of pathos. I also like Die Burger (“Bravo, Bafana’) and the Dispatch’s front page (“Thanks for the dream”). I think they all hit exactly the right note and captured the sentiment in South Africa.
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