Month: October 2013

From the Oct. 27 edition of the Orange County Register:

This doubletruck in amazing:

Back in September, before the federal government shutdown, I wrote a post about how the Orange County Register was working hard to make sure the broccoli tasted pretty darn good. 

(Here’s a link to that post.)

Over the last few weeks, our government and politics team – led by editor Mark Matassa – along with lots of help and suggestions from the rest of our OCR crew, has continued to make a complex story very accessible.

Even interesting.

Today’s paper was a great example of what we’re trying to do with our coverage. Here are a few examples from Wednesday’s seven-section, 88-page paper.

Front page:

Here’s a closer look at the A1 timeline, which was the brainchild of Register A1 editor Marcia Prouse:

An explanation of what would happen if the U.S. government defaulted on its debt:

There were all sorts of great stories on our local cover, but come on, if you find an 18-foot fish, you play that sucker up:

Here’s a look at Fred Matamoros’ graphic for the package:

And here’s Taylor Hill’s story on the “sea serpent,” I mean oarfish:

Then check out this great food package on spicy cocktails, with fantastic photos from Kate Lucas:

The Orange County Register’s daily newspaper for Irvine is the Irvine World News. (I’ve written a lot about the transformation of our Irvine paper in previous posts, if you’re interested.)

Today’s paper was notable because it was the biggest edition of the Irvine World News since it became a daily – 40 pages! Unless you count the spadias. If you do that, it was a 46-page paper. 

But that’s not why I wanted to write something quick about today’s edition.

Please check out this centerpiece package by Michael Katz on youth sports injuries, with amazing design from Chris Lusk.

Irvine World News editors Paul Danison and Jeff Rowe – along with OCR community design editor Helayne Perry – are masters at telling stories using much more than just text and photos. This package shows this perfectly.

Here is the front page:

Here is the first page of the story:

And here are a few detail shots:

And here is the second page of the package:

And here is a detail shot from that page: