Also, I've been playing around with something as a daily feature. Here's a page with the Top 50 (or so) circulation U.S. front pages from today.

Oh, StarTribune.com! Why must you make my eyes bleed?

The Merc’s Michael Bazeley tells us why not only is this a visual disaster, but bad business as well.

Update: Boston.com did it today, as well, Heidi points out. Lovely.

>StarTribune goes over the top [Media Grunt: Michael Bazeley]

Great juxtaposition on Denver newsstands today (provided you can get to Denver newsstands today). Interesting that in defiance of stereotype, it’s the tabloid that’s more understated.

In Seattle, they’re still reeling from last week’s big storm. Thousands are still without electricity and six people have died from carbon monoxide poisoning as the result of using charcoal or generators inside. More than 100 have been hospitalized. The Seattle Times responded to that today by devoting the top half of their front page to a public service message in six languages.

Poynter’s Al Tompkins talked with Times executive editor David Boardman, and Jeremy Gilbert talked to Heidi de Laubenfels, the Times AME for visuals and technology, about how it came together.

Q. What has the response been?

A. It has been overwhelmingly positive. One reader said it is one of the most valuable and socially responsible things the Times has ever done. The director of Public Health Seattle & King County said, “I want to personally express my deep appreciation for the top of The Seattle Times front page dedication to warnings about carbon monoxide poisoning. You can be assured that your support during this time has helped prevent tragedy. I know that your staff are proud of your commitment and leadership, and we feel very fortunate to have you as a public health partner.”

The Seattle Times and Post-Intelligencer couldn’t print today (except for about 13,000 early copies of the Times) because of a power outage caused by a powerful storm that slammed into the Pacific Northwest Thursday night. Saturday editions might be in jeopardy, as well. Both the Times and the P-I allowed free access today to electronic editions of the print version. Interesting, and certainly an easy thing for the papers to do, considering they already produce the electronic editions and merely had to open up free access to them. But one wonders how useful it really is. You can click on a link at the top of the home page to see 12- to 18-hour-old news in a clunky, difficult-to-navigate interface, or you can go further down the page and find fresh news that’s constantly updated, easy to read and at least has the potential for community interaction.

I’d be curious to know how successful these “E-editions” or things like PressDisplay are. As a newspaper designer, I find them useful as a way to see other papers’ print design, but I can’t imagine actually reading one on a regular basis. They just seem like a very mid-90s, print-centric, “let’s put the newspaper on the Web” kind of solution.

The New York Times has a story (and video) today on Turkish artist Serkan Ozkaya, who creates faithful, line-by-line copies of newspaper pages. He created the illustration for the Times page (above) on which the story about him appears.

“A newspaper is history, one-a-day history,” he said. “It’s our memory of what happened. So to make a drawing of it, to make a simulation of it, is what art always does: to mimic life, to mimic what is real.” Though in his case, of course, it’s a drawing of a copy of a version of what happened, holding a mirror up to nature with a refraction or two in between.

Adobe's says they're releasing the much rumored public beta of Photoshop CS3 today. Supposedly will be available at Adobe Labs "in the early hours Pacific Standard Time on December 15." It's a bit past that by my Pacific Standard Time clock and no sign of it yet.

Update: Looks like it's here (registration required).

Godspeed to all my friends in San Jose, many of whom will sit by the phone this morning to find out if they’ve still got a job. MediaNews is cutting 27.5 guild FTEs today, down from the 69 that was planned before yesterday’s deal.

The Wall Street Journal, shrinking its page size by three inches on Jan. 2, will unveil the Mario Garcia redesigned version today in New York. The move to a 12-inch-wide front page brings the Journal in line with most American broadsheets (except The New York Times, which makes the switch next August April) and is expected to save Dow Jones $18 million a year.

Executives and advertisers are happy, but some Journal journalists aren’t. “Lopping a column off the paper is not a quality move,” reporter E. S. Browning told The New York Times. “It will be harder to do long-form journalism when there is less space on Page One.” Editors say to compensate for the lost space, the number of pages will be increased, some statistical information will be cut, and the paper will be more tightly edited.

Garcia told the Times the narrower format presented a challenge. “It was like dressing Kate Moss.”

Update: PR Week has a Q&A with Journal Managing Editor Paul Steiger.

Did the redesign that you did in 2002 not go far enough? Many of the themes seem to be the same - such as navigation?

Steiger: You can't do everything at once. Remember, when we made those changes, our readers had been used to black and white, tombstone vertical layout on page one. What we gave them was an additional section three days a week, plus color on all of the section fronts, and I just didn't want to produce too many coronaries out there. It worked; readers liked it. But [in the] meantime, time is moving very, very fast in the news space, and the acceleration of the use of the web, including our own Web site, for readers to stay in touch with news, meant that it was time to go into the well again.

The rejigged Journal will also brim with summaries of all sorts. The paper plans to digest news from other news sources in one column, summarize "the key news by industry and news topic" in another, and even condense the paper's long features to "draw out the key meaning." Sounds like they'll be paying royalties to USA Today, doesn't it?

Previous coverage:
>Shrinking the Journal (Oct. 11, 2005)
>“Reimagining” the Wall Street Journal (Feb. 20, 2006)
>WSJ 3.0 (June 2, 2006)