When the nation observes a holiday, at least one reader is likely to complain that the newspaper hasn’t paid appropriate attention to the celebration on Page 1.
At one time, The Courant extended front-page greetings on some holidays. The practice was stopped a half-dozen years ago because editors rightly believed that the front page should be devoted to news. They also didn’t want to choose among holidays, especially religious holidays, and other holiday wishes for some and not others.
Still, holidays are times of communal celebration that, in the absence of more compelling events, should be acknowledged as news, including on the front page.
The problem is in the timing. Observances that occur on a holiday won’t appear in published photographs until the next day. Editors need to find other ways to invoke the celebration if the holiday is to receive coverage in a news or feature article or photograph.
Recently, some readers were distressed that much of the front page on Easter was devoted to a major investigative project on missing children while the top of Page 1 that day was devoted to an article on AIDS in South Africa.
“There are so many joyful things,” Joy O’Sullivan of Rocky Hill said at the time. She argued that the missing children articles could have been published “any other week of the year.” A few Easter-related articles were published in Saturday’s paper, and an Easter sunrise service was the subject of a front-page photo the next day (after Easter).
Editors had planned to publish a Page 1 article about the controversy caused by the B.C. comic strip that showed a Jewish candelabra turning into a Christian cross. However, as debate surfaced nationally, the article was published on Friday instead of Easter Sunday.
Its explanation and reporting of the reaction probably help avert much of the criticism other newspapers received for publishing the strip.
Two weekends ago, the local news pages listed dozens of Memorial Day parades and other holiday events. Photographers were dispatched to about 10. The photos were published Monday and Tuesday, primarily on the local news covers that are prepared or “zoned” for different parts of the state. A few readers complained that the holiday should have been noted more prominently, on Page 1.
On Memorial Day, a large stand-alone photo of a boy in a poncho at Hammonasset Beach State Park was published on Page 1 under a small headline “Pulling No Ponchos.” Editors chose the photo as a reflection of the weekend weather. But the caption neglected to mention that the boy, shown crossing a boardwalk, had been camping with his family at the beach for the holiday weekend.
Meanwhile, an article about dying World War II veterans, from the Baltimore Sun, also ran on the Monday front page but did not explicitly mention the holiday. A photo of a bugler, a World War II veteran, on The Nation page made a clearer statement of the holiday.
A moving Memorial Day photo finally appeared on the front page Tuesday, the day after the holiday. It showed the niece of a Persian Gulf war veteran walking through meandering vertical white gravestones that looked like picket fences bedecked with flags. Staff Photographer Brad Clift said that he waited hours in the cemetery – between other assignments – to capture the right person at the right moment in the right light. (He also photographed the boy and his family at the park the previous day but did not write the incomplete caption.)
The newspaper can’t create news or events nor convert religious holidays into universal communitywide celebrations. Still, there are moments that touch all the people of this country, including Thanksgiving, Fourth of July and Labor Day.
Holidays should be approached with proper perspective, says Editor Brian Toolan. “You’ve got to resist taking the obvious photo. The first priority is to make Page 1 as news-driven as possible,” he said. “You have to ask where [a holiday] fits in the priorities of the news for the day.”
There was minimal competition from breaking news events on Memorial Day weekend.
The instincts of Clift, the photographer who waited patiently in a Hartford cemetery, helped capture the national spirit of recognition of those who have died for their country.
Would that such a powerful photograph could have anticipated and greeted the Memorial Day holiday.
