A traditional biz section design

Roger Hedges, assistant managing editor of business at the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in Little Rock, writes that the paper’s business & farm section typically takes a traditional design structure.

Hedges says, “We decided the top business story of the day on Jan. 18 was the macro-economic picture and put that story on Page 1A. (The story was that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers that an economic stimulus plan for averting recession should be temporary and quickly implemented.)

“For the Business section, we selected a wire story about a big drop in the stock market as the lead story. Centered below that was a story and photo about Acxiom Corp., which is one of the larger companies in Little Rock and was hiring a new CEO. The story was especially important because Acxiom had just experienced an aborted takeover attempt by two private equity firms and its 7,200 employees (2,900 in Arkansas) were nervous about the company’s future.

“Also on the cover were two stories about the earnings of major banks based in Arkansas. For one of these stories, we placed a graphic on the cover, while the other story’s graphic went on the jump page.

“We also had a story about a wind power conference that was significant because there had been a recent announcement that Little Rock would be the home of a new wind turbine blade factory that would employee 1,000 people.

“The page also featured a stand-alone photo showing the demolition of one of Little Rock’s major indoor shopping malls. A new ‘lifestyle’ retail center will be constructed on the site.

“As is our custom, down the left side of the page we had three news briefs, with the lowest one being about the day’s performance of our Arkansas 20 stock index. A chart of the stocks in that index always runs just below this brief.

“The design of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette news sections is generally traditional, with five or six stories on the cover pages. We seldom use large graphic elements that include a lot of empty air on the covers. The Jan. 18 layout was typical, although a common variation would be using a small photo or graphic with the top story, a larger center photo and a smaller art element or two at the bottom. The layout is up to our design department, although the designer follows a news budget that we create that outlines priorities. We never have ads on any news section cover at the Democrat-Gazette.”