Earlier this week, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez passed away after a long battle with cancer. A controversial political figure, Chavez has been idolized and hated, being called from “hero to the poor” to “tyrannical dictator”. The photographs used to illustrate the news of his passing in first pages of newspapers across the world reflect this multi-sided image of Chavez.
A tender approach was the use of pictures of him in farewell gestures. Ecuador’s Hoy and Peru’s Perú 21 showed Chavez in an introspective military salute, evocative of leadership and respect.
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Brazil’s O Estado de S. Paulo shows Chavez waving at a crowd, evoking his popularity. Spain’s Diario de Burgos chose the initial moment of a blowing kiss, showing an affectionate and familiar attitude.
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Colombia’s El Espectador went further, picturing a warm self-embrace, symbolizing a farewell embrace between Chavez and his nation. From Venezuela itself, El Nacional shows a joyful wave, followed by a picture of his people in despair.
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Pictures of desolated Venezuelans suggest that Chavez was a deeply beloved leader, who will be missed by his people. USA’s Hoy and La Opinión, Brazil’s O Globo and Argentina’s La Nación and Spain’s El Día pictured people crying, some holding posters with Chavez’s face.
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The use of posters with his face on it is evocative of his strong iconic figure. It shows Chavez, but indirectly, that is, the photograph of a photograph of him. He is therefore showed not as a person, but as an icon. Spain’s Granada Hoy shows a photograph of a vice-president Nicolas Maduro standing in front of a giant portrait of Chavez, while a man in uniform stares at Chavez ceremoniously.
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His iconic figure is also alluded to in photographs of him not facing the camera, but instead staring into the distance, such as in Colombia’s El Colombiano, Argentina’s Clarín, Spain’s El País and Brazil’s Zero Hora.
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Brazil’s Folha de S. Paulo shows a photograph of Chavez raising his fist to an unseen audience, with a picture of Che Guevarra behind him. The image suggests a connection between the two South-American leaders, transferring some of Che’s strongly symbolic power to Chavez.
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Brazil’s Estado de Minas pictures a silhouette of Chavez, which carries at least two strong messages: a) he is so iconic that one doesn’t even need to see his face to recognize him; and b) the black shape of his head represents the shadow of Chavez that Venezuela might have to deal with from now on.
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Portugal’s Público and Diário de Notícias and Italy’s La Stampa show the same photograph of Chavez fading into the darkness. It might allude to both the fading of the man, slowly consumed by cancer, and the darkness of his government, strongly criticized for its censorship measures against Venezuela’s press.
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Colombia’s Q’Hub decided to go for the shock value, depicting a bald Chavez and the headline “Cancer has beaten him” in big bold capital letters, making the page about the disease instead of the man.
United States’ president Barack Obama had his health care plan upheld by the US Supreme Court this week, and that made headlines in yesterday’s front pages all over the country.
The Iowa City Press-Citizen showed a lifeline image along with the headline “What’s Next?”, a symbol for tension and anxiety, emphasizing the feeling of uneasiness and doubt.
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The Home News Tribune focused on the partisanship of the issue, without any subtetly.
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A more subtle way to show it is through the images of Obama’s supporters and/or opponents. Some newspapers, like The Dallas Morning News, illustrated their front page with joyful Obama supporters, therefore putting a positive spin on the report; while others, like the Los Angeles Times chose to show Tea Party supporters in tears, with a more “bad news” approach.
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The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post used images of both groups. While The WSJ focused on the opposite reactions, showing separate pictures of both Obama’s suppoerters’ celebrations and Tea Party’s tears; the Post focused on the animosity between them, with a photograph of an argument in progress.
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Other newspapers used images of patients, shifting the focus from politics’ victory / loss to the possible effects of the bill in people’s lives. The Seattle Times showed a picture of a young child receiving a shot from his mother — an image that evokes the emotional and protective side of readers — with the possible reading “this bill will save this poor innocent child’s life”
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The San Francisco Chronicle depicted a middle-aged man in a medical office. The man has latin-american facial features, placing emphasis in the large hispanic population in the area, relating it to the consequences of the bill.
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In Alabama, a state where over 30% of the population is obese, The Decatur Daily showed a young female patient and a doctor in a doctor’s office, both clearly overweight. The image subtlety draws attention to the obesity epidemic that affects that country, and that has a massive impact on healthcare costs.
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The New York Post, as usual, has no love for subtlety. ;)
The red line he walks on makes the “rupture” in the headline even more dramatic.
Dilma Roussef, Brazil’s President, appeared today on the O Globo website, one of Brazil,s biggest newspapers. The headline reads “Dilma installs Truth Commission, gets emotional and cries”, referring to the commission created to uncover information from the so-far secret files of Brazil’s military regime, that lasted from 1964 to 1985.
The picture that followed the headline shows Dilma pulling the tip of her nose, as if to stretch it. The reference to “growing nose” right under the headline about the Truth Commission may be read as contradictory.
And, a few hours after posting the image on its homepage, O Globo might have had noticed it too… Since they later changed it for a new image and a new headline for the article, in place of the Truth/Pinocchio one.
—thanks to Samara Tanaka for catching it and sending me this tip! ;)
Today, most newspapers around the world bring the same terrible news on their first pages: the tragedy in Japan. Never before has a natural disaster had so many quality pictures and footage, which provided for a stunning coverage.
Naturally, those amazing images were bound to end up on front pages around the globe, and the impact of such a tragic event calls for dramatic headlines to go along with shocking pictures.
below: Melbourne’s Herald Sun (Australia), Jaipur’s Rajasthan Patrika (India), New York’s New York Post (USA) and Berlin’s Bild (Germany).
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Some newspapers, on the other hand, chose to focus on facts others than casualties. Bogota’s La Republica (Colombia) showed a strong picture of devastation, but with no fire or desolated faces of victims. Here, the emphasis of the image is on the destructive power of nature, instead of on human suffering. The headline took the economic approach: “Tsunami in Japan made stoke exchanges of the world tremble. Losses are estimated in US$ 10,000 millions.”
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From Germany, comes a real piece of gold in minimalism. The always-elegant Frankfurter Allgemeine covered the tragedy using an image that shows the giant power of that earthquake, without showing any burning house, upiside-down ship or destroying wave. It shows a single picture on its front page: the register of the seismic waves from the earthquake on a seismometer.
A few notes on front covers that followed the USA midterm elections:
4th of November - Los Angeles Times
Pictures of California’s Governor elected Jerry Brown (Democrat) and US President Barack Obama facing oposite directions enhances the concept of the article (“Brown and his party have new power, but their visions differ.”)
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4th of November - Der Tagesspiegel and Frankfurter Allgemeine (Germany)
Both newspapers use the dynamic picture of Democrat Ed Perlmutter to illustrate the shift of power in the US House of Representatives from Democrats to Republicans. Der Tagesspiegel adds strenght to the concept with the headline “Obamas Demokraten fallen tief” (Obama’s Democrats fall deep)
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4th of November - Die Tageszeitung (Germany)
A picture of a leaking teabag represents the Tea Party and how it is “infiltrating” the power sphere. (Die neue Macht = The new power)
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3th of November - Chicago Tribune
An example of clever headline-photo combination. Instead of wins, takes, earns, gets or any other similar word, the headline “Kirk captures Senate seat” uses captures — a much stronger word (definition of capture: “catch and forcefully hold’). The picture of Republican Mark Kirk —shouting, finger up, determined eyes— enhances the concept suggested by the headline, giving Kirk an image of power.
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4th of November - DeVerdieping Trouw (Netherlands)
The opposition of headline and picture creates visual interest and irony. While the headline says there was no rejection (Obama voelt geen afwijzing = “Obama feels no rejection”), the picture shows US President Obama waving his hand and looking sad, in an expression of self-pity.
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3th of November - La Estrella (Panamá)
The headline reads “Voto Castigo a Barack Obama” (Punishment vote to Barack Obama) above a picture of Obama in a pout, like an annoyed child.
Above: The New York Times, from the United States, uses old-style design elements to convey an image of tradition. The Times keeps its overall look since its beginning, making only small changes from time to time. The last one, in 2003, implemented Cheltenham as the main typographic family. Tom Bodkin, assistant managing editor and design director of The Times, declared that their goal with the change was to “enhance legibility and bring a more orderly look to the pages while preserving the ability to convey a clear hierarchy of news values. We wanted to appear traditional but less old-fashioned.” (here)
Above: Portugal’s i takes the opposite approach. Instead of building its credibility through a traditional look, the Portuguese paper invests in modern-looking features for a digital-era audience. Peter Preston, who was editor of the Guardian for 20 years, called i the newspaper of the future, and “one of the world’s most innovative (and immediately successful) papers” (here)
Journalism is often attached to the words “facts” and “neutrality”, and one of the biggest assets a newspaper can have is credibility. Nevertheless, one fact can be told in many different ways. The selection of photographs, for instance, can establish unspoken connections between image and content. The overall arrangement places emphasis in certain parts of the story. Typography gives personality to content: authority, credibility, modernity, freshness, tradition.
