SND/Update

Join us for a Saturday of presentations AND conversations, Dec. 12, 2009 from 9:30 until 1:30 at the Hickory Daily Record, 1100 Park Place, Hickory, N.C. 28603. An optional, informal lunch will follow with plenty of time for more conversation, networking and Q&A.

If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to expand your print design skills to the Web, look no further. SND’s acclaimed, two-day introduction to the essential building blocks is coming to Columbia College in Chicago. In this weekend course we’ll demystify the Web 2.0 toolbox and help you build a compelling, news-driven package from scratch. We’ll focus on HTML/CSS (the foundation of the Web) and how to integrate widgets from Google, Twitter, Flickr and more. See the details, including hotel and travel information, here. Then register for theWeb Design Boot Camp — space is limited!

CANCELED: We’re sorry to report that the SND Quick Course scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 10 in East Lansing, Mich., at MSU, has been canceled. Pre-paid registrations will be refunded through the SND main office.

Quality design and independent and audacious journalism will continue to guarantee circulation and advertising revenue during a difficult era for newspapers. This is the conclusion of Joseph Dreier, co-organizer of the Annual Meeting of the Society for News Design, Region 16/DACH, on June 26/27 in Linz, Austria.

The Sunlight Foundation, in partnership with The Associated Press and the Associated Press Managing Editors, is providing help for news organizations seeking to more effectively investigate and report the millions of dollars being made available for local transportation projects through federal stimulus legislation. AP and Sunlight have prepared an easy-to-use Excel file of the final list of projects approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation for more than 5,853 projects nationwide.

Three remaining Webinars are planned this week to show reporters how to use the new information in reporting the local stimulus impact. There’s no charge to participate, but registration is required. Click on the URL next to a date and time below to sign up

Tuesday, July 21, noon EDT https://cc.readytalk.com/r/g970kweqk3g9

Wednesday, July 22, 3 p.m. EDT https://cc.readytalk.com/r/ew3cbpoh6bmx

Wednesday, July 22, 6 p.m. EDT https://cc.readytalk.com/r/clneaxfoilbo

The spreadsheet and Webinars are part of a long range database project to help news organizations gauge the effectiveness of the federal stimulus program in local communities — whether jobs are being created, how much of the nearly $800 billion is being disbursed at home and to whom those payments are going. The idea is to use federal data to fuel local stories. And if news organizations nationwide use old-fashioned gumshoe reporting to augment the many data sets released during the coming year, the collective efforts will bring meaningful perspective to one of the most important stories of our time.

The Associated Press already has reported that while the Obama administration’s stimulus plan was supposed to help needy communities in particular by doling out billions of dollars to rebuild highways and jump-start the economy, it hasn’t worked out that way. The rules required that states give priority to counties considered “economically distressed.” Yet less than half the federal highway money announced so far is directed toward those high-unemployment, low-income areas, according to an AP analysis of more than $16 billion in spending announced by the U.S. Transportation Department. What was supposed to be a way to steer money to hard-hit areas has turned into a coin flip: 53 percent of the money is going to counties that don’t meet the federal standard of economically distressed areas. The new findings echo those of an earlier AP analysis that found counties with the highest unemployment fare worst under the official state stimulus plans.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/19/AR2009071900488.html

The grants will help the students attend the 31st SND Annual Workshop & Exhibition, Sept. 24-26, 2009, in Buenos Aires.

Visual students worldwide were invited to apply for the grants and applications were received from 25 in the United States and 70 in South America. The students selected for grants have demonstrated leadership in visual journalism. Most are involved in student publications and in SND student-affiliate activities, and have secured internships, part-time jobs and other professional work.

We reported here last week on the Russian Newspaper Design Competition. Now see the 56 winners from the sixth annual competition and some of the pages.

After two years of research and development — focus groups and online communities with thousands of readers — the Atlanta Journal-Constitution launched the first part of its transformative redesign today. Not just a new look, the paper has reorganized the newsroom, reallocated resources and rethought how the print product should work for readers who love newspapers. The new AJC Sunday will debut on May 3.

The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press launched redesigns, e-editions and a new circulation strategy Monday in response to the torrent of changes buffeting newspapers these days.

The papers will still produce and distribute 7 days a week but the will be home-delivered only on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.

We caught up with the two papers’ visual leaders for a quick chat: