The 2011 Society for News Design conference will be in St. Louis; this is a promotional video for that conference. It was created by Brian Williamson, our Flash expert at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and all-around illustrative genius. The music was created by Christopher Ave, our political editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the official songwriter of journalism. (Remember “Copy Editor’s Lament (The Layoff Song)”? That’s his too.)

If you’re interested in SND (and specifically SND St. Louis, which I promise will have a little bit of something for everyone*), then there’s:
• Website: sndstl.com
• Twitter: @sndstl
• Facebook: fb.me/sndstl

And if you’re interested in things I’m working on or talking about, follow me on Twitter: @ericasmith.

* That promise is easier to keep if you’ll tell me what you want to see at SND STL. I have a ton of ideas, but really that’s just a conference for my amusement. So if you’ve got ideas, share them.

Budget meetings should be short. All decisions made by the editor are final.

There’s a difference between “editor” and “reporter.” Editors do more than read and edit stories — they also assign stories, help budget pages and make sure deadlines are met.

Pages can (and should) be designed before the stories and photos are in.

“Evergreen” stories are important.

There’s such a thing as news feature and sports feature stories.

All photographers should turn in wild art photos. Even if they don’t run in the paper, they’re good practice for student photographers. Many times a photo can tell a story better than words. Many times, a photographer will stumble upon something that the staff would not have otherwise known about.

Photographers should shoot horizontal and vertical photos. In the real world, you’re going to get assignments that require you to shoot a specific shape, whether you like it or not.

Crime stories are important. So are quirky feel-good stories.

It’s not enough to tell people something they already know.

Briefs and digest items are great for important but not-quite-a-full-story items.

You can reverse-publish stories from the web. (Although you’ll likely find you don’t need the same story for a daily website vs. a weekly paper.)

Newsrooms are remarkably paperless in their copy-flow system. You have to be comfortable editing on a computer.

Every paper should have a set style for graphics. And should not deviate from it.

Every paper should have a set design style, color palette, editorial-specific fonts (3 at the very most — no matter what happens) and templates. That does not mean every page will look exactly the same.

Photos or graphics behind text is never a good idea.

Very few feature stories actually need a full page. (And a one-story feature page or section short-changes your readers.)

Coaching and mentoring are important. Not just on stories, but professional development. You’ll never hear those fantastic off-the-wall ideas of people are not comfortable sharing them.

Cookies are the ultimate ice-breaker, and a great way to welcome someone new.

Deadlines must be met. If they’re not, the story/photo/graphic does not run.

Brainstorming is important. Don’t limit yourself or your staff to one section. Sports people have great ideas for news stories, and vice-versa.

Dry erase boards are a newsroom must-have. They’re great for budgeting, brainstorming and sketching.

Features stories and pages can be done in advance. There are very few on-deadline feature pages.

Know your strengths as a journalist and a publication. And cover them. And learn to fill in those weaknesses.

It’s possible to design 50 pages in one night, and meet deadline. Not that anyone wants that to be a regular occurrence.

Everyone jokes that you won’t get rich as a journalist. But seriously, there will be times when you wonder how you’ll pay rent.

A sense of humor will get you through a lot.

Apple, one of today’s greatest sources for design information and analysis, will continue his daily discussions of newspaper and media design. He’s off to a great start in his new home — he’s been a blogging fool all day. In his first post, Apple explained the reasons behind the move.

Apple’s new blog can be found at apple.copydesk.org; bookmark it and update your RSS reader.

In the last newsroom shuffle, I moved farther away from that editor. So thank goodness for Paper Hater.

Paper Hater a collection of comments from really angry readers, submitted by the newsroom folks who have to deal with them. I asked Queen of Reader Comments Maggie Jenkins a few questions about her new site:

What’s the premise behind Paper Hater?
The blog is intended to point out the irrationality and sometimes utter ignorance of newspaper readers and their often misplaced anger. It’s all at once funny and frustrating. People who work at newspapers enjoy it because they’ve been dealing with these responses for years. People who have never worked at a newspaper enjoy it because they are astounded by some of the things readers say.

What was the reader complaint that finally convinced you to start the site?
A friend sent me a voicemail he received from a man who was literally screaming about some small piece of information that was missing from that day’s paper. The rage in this man was unbelievable — both hilarious and disturbing. I forwarded it to a couple of friends and then thought, “You know what? Stuff like this needs a home. It needs to be shared with the world.” I only wish I’d started it sooner.

Has anyone ever sent a “you’re doing great” message? (Either to the site or in the history of newspapers.)
I’d estimate that one out of 100 newspaper reader responses is positive. And for that reason, no response is considered a good response. Once in a while, there will be “qualified praise,” like, “that was a great story … considering it came from you guys.” And sadly, sometimes when you’re putting together the newspaper, you have to answer this question to in order to make a decision: How many phone calls/emails will the editor get about this?

What do readers complain about the most?
In general, bias is the biggest complaint. “You guys like this team/school/candidate/restaurant/etc. better than this one.” And obviously, that we’re all bleeding-heart liberals. If I had a nickel …

Are the complaints mostly phone calls? E-mails? Hand-written letters? Haiku? Songs?
Nowadays, most of the complaints are emails or through online submission forms. It’s much easier for people to hide behind the crux of anonymity and a computer. But there are a lot of people who still call in. The strange thing is, once you let the angry caller vent for a little bit, then explain your views, they’re often placated. Like, they’re expecting you to just say, “Oh yeah? Well, I don’t care what you think!” and hang up, so they’re taken aback when you don’t do that. Mostly, they just want someone to yell at for a while. Once in a while you’ll still see a handwritten letter, and that’s when the real crazy starts coming out. I get giddy just thinking about those gems.

Is the site only for newspapers complaints?
Thus far, we’ve only received newspaper complaints, but we’d gladly accept reader responses from magazines or TV stations or online news outlets.

How long have you been dealing with reader complaints?
I worked in newspapers for more than seven years.

What section to readers complain about the most? Any theories on why that might be?
The sports section seems to get the most comments. People are just so passionate about sports. And when you start to factor in high school sports, then you’re dealing with their sports and their children. It makes for some heated responses.

How can victims of readers submit comments?
E-mail your reader comments to paperhaters@gmail.com. We will edit out the names of reporters, newspapers, cities, etc. And if you have the capabilities to send audio files, we’d love to get more voicemails. Again, reporter names, phone numbers, etc. will be edited out to protect the innocent journalists out there.

Find Paper Hater at paperhater.tumlbr.com. Jenkins has also set up a handy web form to submit those reader comments. Paper Hater is on Twitter (@PaperHater) and Facebook.

A couple of weeks ago, I researched and created an interactive timeline on the ownership history of the St. Louis Rams. A man from New York found that timeline and e-mailed me last week:

If you are the RAMS historian, I’ve got a question for you regarding the above time frame. I’m a New Yorker, saw my first game in the Polo Grounds, in NYC. RAMS came in to play the NY Giants, in an exhibition game, believe it was dubbed The Mayor’s Milk Fund Charity Game. A Rams player, I believe it was Deacon Dan Towler, gave me a chinstrap from his helmet, and I’ve been a Rams’ fan ever since. I was a most impressionable 9 yr. old at the time. Could you possibly tell me the date of the game I’m referring to, and the score, and any details you might be able to provide. I WOULD BE MOST APPRECIATIVE. Thanks in advance,
Joe

I’m not a Rams historian. I’m not even a Rams fan. So I sent the question off to three Rams experts in the Post-Dispatch sports department, wrote back to Joe and told him I hoped to have an answer for him this week.

On Monday, I hadn’t heard back from anyone in sports, so I decided to start the sleuthing. Or rather, after a rudimentary five-second Google search, I decided to ask my go-to sports expert, my brother, and go to an unrelated meeting.

But after that meeting, Adam and I figured out that 9-year-old Joe attended the Sept. 7, 1950, New York Herald-Tribune Fresh Air Fund Game at Polo Grounds. On that day, more than 37,000 people saw the New York Giants beat the Los Angeles Rams, 24-14. The New York Times has a recap of the game. The Fresh Air Fund Game was often a match-up between the Giants and college or military all-stars. Only two of the previous 11 games had been against professional teams. The Fresh Air Fund provides free summer vacations for low-income New York City children.

Joe was thrilled.

WOW, Erica, I can’t THANK YOU enough!! I believe I told you that this was the first game I ever saw, and the day I became a RAMS fan. Access to news of the team usually boiled down to a paragraph or two in the Wednes. edition of the Daily Mirror newspaper, long since gone. Thought the Charity was the Milk Fund , but your name sounds more than credible. I TRULY Thank You for your sterling efforts on my behalf. Joe

He wrote to me two more times Monday night. This is one of my favorite parts of my job. Not the (fantastically kind) e-mails, but figuring out obscure things. This one was almost as much fun as last week’s task to figure out what this letter said — specifically, the last word of the fifth line:

Last year, I worked on a comprehensive project to document Tuskegee Airmen who had been awarded a Purple Heart. The number was woefully under-reported at eight; so far we’ve found more than 50. In addition to research an multimedia projects related to the story, I took on the task of writing profiles on each of the Purple Heart recipients Post-Dispatch reporter Phil O’Connor and I found.

There are a lot of half-truths and myths reported as fact about the Tuskegee Airmen. It is often repeated, for example, that the group of black pilots and service members, which flew many bomber-escort missions, did not lose any bombers it was escorting. Military documents prove this is not true: At least 25 bombers were lost, which is still an amazing accomplishment. Members of Tuskegee Airmen Inc., a foundation that includes several Tuskegee Airmen, have tried to set the record straight on the bombers-lost issue, but the falsehood persists.

Alton (Ill.) Telegraph lifestyles editor/reporter Jill Moon recently wrote about a new Tuskegee Airmen exhibit coming to the Alton Museum of History and Art. The story, published on the Telegraph’s website on Feb. 11, includes many factual errors, and popped up in my Tuskegee Airmen alert.

Factual errors in stories have always bothered me, and after working on the Tuskegee Airmen project for so long, I’ve become a bit passionate about what’s right and what isn’t. So I wrote a short e-mail to Moon yesterday to try to correct those errors, assuming she did not know there were errors.

She knew. In her response, Moon said Tuskegee Airmen Inc. former public relations officer Ron Brewington had already written to her about the errors. (Brewington also caught one that I’d missed. I’ve talked to Brewington before — he has helped me track down information and correct errors in my Tuskegee Airmen stories.) Moon said she had apologized to Brewington for the errors, but “most of the info was taken from previous articles written by others in our newspaper, which never had been refuted.”

It’s not easy being a newspaper reporter. It’s not easy working for a newspaper. So I understand Moon might have been rushed when researching this story. But her excuse of not correcting those errors because they were not libelous is unacceptable.

Factual errors in Moon’s story:
• The Tuskegee Airmen did lose at bombers it was escorting — at least 25. Investigations into World War II records at the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., document these loses. (I worked with the AFHRA for the Post-Dispatch’s Tuskegee Airmen series.)
• The Tuskegee Airmen escorted planes over many cities in Germany, Italy and France — not just Berlin.
• George and Arnold Cisco were not the only brothers in the group. Rupert and Wilbert Johnson also were brothers, and there very likely were others.
• There is no “Tuskegee Airman Institute.” The pilots trained at Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, in Alabama.
• Not all Tuskegee Airmen were college graduates. Although that was the policy when the black pilots began training and the first squadron was formed, by the end of the war, a college degree was not required. Many pilots left college to join the Air Corps.

I was willing to let the matter drop until I saw the story was distributed by the Associated Press yesterday. Now it is on newspaper, radio and television websites throughout Illinois. I have contacted AP and asked that they kill the story, and have contact every media organization I can to kill the story. This is a disservice to all news organizations. It taints the reputation of the Alton Telegraph, Associated Press and any organization that picked up the story.

“Lemonade” is a documentary about 16 advertising professionals who were laid off, and discovered new dreams. It’s quite inspiring. Watch the whole thing here:

In other words, there’s no honor in being No. 1. (Or even No. 6, St. Louis.) Cities are ranked “drunkest” (most alcohol-related deaths and crimes) to most “sober” (fewest alcohol-related deaths and crimes); each city also is awarded a grade, A through F.

The list includes 100 cities. I wanted to look for geographic trends, so I created a quick-and-dirty color-coded map: Red = F; purple = D; blue = C; yellow = B; green = A

View ‘Drunkest’ cities in a larger map

Cities with good public transportation and taxi systems were more likely to receive A and B ratings (Boston, New York and Chicago, for example). There appears to be more alcohol-related crime and deaths west of the Mississippi River. California appears to be hit the hardest.

I have some other maps sitting around, so I did a little quick comparison. The “drunkest” cities (marked with red pins) seem to match up (not perfectly, of course) with the cities where 75 or more newspaper employees were laid off in 2009.

(Men’s Health may put together its own map. I found one for a previous year, but not a current version. Sadly, there is no date on the map that I did find.)

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon delivered his annual State of the State address on Jan. 20. About a week before, Flash genius Brian Williamson, political editor Christopher Ave and I brainstormed a few ideas to cover the State of the State and the State of the Union for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The biggest, grandest idea we came up with: A pop-up version of the speech, which would include facts and fun.

We were inspired by the Texas Tribune’s Stump interrupted project. But where the Tribune had a month to turn around its pop-up videos, we were trying for 12 hours.

Brian got to work on the behind-the-scenes programming. Christopher recruited top-notch political reporter Tony Messenger and researcher Matt Fernandes to help, and we started putting together a little background information. We knew the governor would be talking about jobs, autism, drunken driving and ethics, and began to put together basic information about each subject and a list of resources to find more information on deadline.

The day of the speech, we had three things working in our favor:
• First, the speech started at 7 p.m., but the text was released to the media two hours earlier. That gave us a jump-start on writing some of those pop-up blurbs.
• Second, night reporter Greg Jonsson was added to the team to help with on-the-spot research and, very important, to count the number of times and ways the governor pronounced the state’s name. (The governor is known for inconsistently pronouncing Missouri. For what it’s worth, my Missouri education says it should be MissourEE.)
• Third, videographer Huy Mach went to Jefferson City to broadcast the speech live on our website, which meant we also had our own video of the speech.

If I’d thought of it earlier, I would have sent a Google Wave invite to everyone on our State of the State team. Still, Brian and I were able to use it to map out pop-ups. (This was the first time I’ve found a good use for Wave. Being able to add the other team members would have made it a great tool.) Brian copied the text of the speech into a new Wave, I added my research, as well as the information from dozens of e-mails from Greg, Tony, Matt and Christopher, where we wanted them to pop up throughout the speech, and I kept building it until there were about 200 pop-ups. That organization helped a lot in the long-run, and helped point out some gaps.

By 11 p.m., Christopher had signed off on our plan and it was up to Brian and I to make it happen. We set out to create each pop-up bubble in Flash. When the 50-minute video arrived (it was delayed by an traffic accident) and compressed, it had to be timed so we knew, for example, when Nixon started talking about education or ethics. And then the timing had to be worked out when each pop-up would appear and how long it would remain visible, and where it would appear on the video. That took the most time.

The speech ended a few minutes before 8 p.m. We posted the first version of the pop-up video a few minutes after 11 a.m., and continued to fill in some gaps and add features (namely the “MissourEE” vs. “MissourAH” counter) for the next three hours.

Looking at it now, there are still a few gaps where pop-ups could be added, mostly toward the end. We had originally planned to add sound effects, but were worried about things getting too busy. Overall, though, it’s pretty remarkable. We’re already talking about other opportunities to roll out this new story-telling tool.

The early #whyistay tweets were bubble gum — sugary sweet and full of hot air. There wasn’t much substance, or reality. So I posed the question to a few journalists, promising anonymity to see if it would make a diffference, and curious to see what they’d say.

Why do you stay in journalism?
• Because I haven’t given up yet.
• Because I haven’t been forced to leave yet.
• Because I haven’t been laid off.
• Because I don’t want to do anything else.
• Because I’m not qualified for the new career I want, and can’t afford to take time off for training.
• Because I don’t want a master’s to go to waste.
• Because they won’t fill my position if I leave, and I won’t do that to my co-workers.
• Because no one else has hired me.
• Because I’m not sure my unique, job/employer-specific, experience and skillset will translate into another job.
• Because I don’t want to relocate at this time.
• Because I haven’t found a new job.
• Because who else will push the buttons?
• Because I don’t want to be bored.
• Because it’s bad … but not bad enough.

What’s the moral of this story? All of these people are devoted journalists. They believe in this industry, in the work they do and the work of their peers. But I think we’ve been faced with our industry’s mortality, so to speak. I’m not trying to add to the “journalism is dead” clatter, merely pointing out that we’ve been forced to see journalism as a business and our roles as jobs, not just an idealistic calling.