Each day editors review dozens of local, national and world stories to choose five or six for the front page. Readers then get to decide if the choices are right or wrong and if the stories are worth reading. Are they the most important news of the day? Are they written in a compelling and clear fashion? Does the page offer a good mix of subjects? Do the charts and pictures help explain the news or do they eat up too much space? Is the design appealing?
Editors know there isn’t one right way to create Page One. They take into consideration prior stories. Have too many historical pieces run this week? Did the man acquitted of a murder get front-page play when he was charged? If so, to be fair, his acquittal deserves front page, too. Editors try to avoid an overload of politics or tragedy. And some slow summer days simply aren’t very newsy, but editors must find six stories for the front page.
How often should the page include a piece that’s likely to be well-read, or “water cooler fodder,” but that isn’t earth-shattering news? Within the mix, are there stories of interest to young and old readers, women and men, minorities and nonminorities? Is a bottom-of-the-page feature on popular ceramic cow sales worth a spot as a “relief” story or is it commercial and lightweight?
Front-page decisions are group efforts, but the group doesn’t change much day by day. Here’s your chance to suit up as editor for a day. Grab your green eyeshades (not that you’d find any here) and consider the brief descriptions of stories listed below that were offered for Thursday’s paper. Choose six (circle your choices) and designate one of the six as the “top” story (by marking it with a T). The editors aim for three staff-written stories for each front page. You face no such limits. Nor do you need to consider photos, charts or maps, but you may note which ones deserve them.
1.) Campaign-finance reform vote approaches in Congress.
2.) The U.S. Senate will consider limiting offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
3.) China awaits word on holding the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
4.) Paleontologists find bones of a 5.5 million-year-old creature that appears to be the oldest human ancestor discovered.
5.) Deadly forest fire in the Cascades kills four.
6.) Biggest police brutality settlement in New York history ($9 million) may go to a Haitian immigrant.
7.) NASA aims for a predawn launch of space shuttle Atlantis.
8.) California State University restricts alcohol ads and off-campus drinking.
9.) Key arms makers in the United States and Europe accept a voluntary program to mark and trace small arms to curb illegal trafficking.
10.) Bush rallies House Republicans to push his legislative agenda as Democrats in the Senate promote their own priorities.
11.) House votes to allow consumers to purchase prescription drugs from abroad by mail order.
12.) Police complete their search of Rep. Gary Condit’s apartment but refuse to divulge whether they found any clues in the disappearance of intern Chandra Levy.
13.) Pentagon schedules a weekend test of its national missile-defense program.
14.) The Education Department makes refunds to 114,000 people overcharged for collection fees on student loans.
15.) Attorney General John Ashcroft gives a Justice Department office responsibility for investigating problems in the FBI.
16.) KCP&L affiliate plans to build the region’s first new coal-fired plant in nearly two decades.
17.) Cerner Corp. breaks ground on its big Northland headquarters project.
18.) The Royals at midseason try to look ahead, not back.
19.) Study shows fewer people read books, magazines and newspapers.
20.) Remains of a Navy pilot killed in Laos during the Vietnam War finally are returning to his Prairie Village son.
Optional:
Name________________________
Address______________________
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Send your results by mail to Miriam Pepper, The Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, MO. 64108.
Or use an electronic reply form at www.kcstar.com in the Opinion section. I’ll report back in two weeks, which means I’ll need your replies no later than July 25.
