RESEARCH < posted December 10, 2001 >


Write-Up of Notes from NECN (New England Cable News) Interviews 12.4.2001

People interviewed: Deb Ondo, Creative Director, Angela Bertalotto, Designer & David Wiinikka, Designer
(NOTE: NECN only has 2 full-time designers on staff and they were responsible for creating most of the graphics used by NECN in their coverage of the 11th.)

Although originally intended to be more formal question and answer interviews, these conversations ended up as more free-form discussions. As a result, I have written them up as the conversations unfolded, rather than trying to retro-fit into an interview format.


Notes from conversation with Deb Ondo, NECN Creative Director
Decisions about how to handle the news coverage of the events of 9.11.2001 were a collaborative effort, primarily between the news director and the station's management.

The first graphics that were created for the story were maps. That was the first priority, to put maps up showing where things were happening, what the area was that had been affected. The starting point for the maps used came from AP Graphics (a graphics archive that NECN subscribes to) and their own archive files.

Writing the titles that were used in reporting on the events of 9.11.2001 was a collaborative effort between the News Department and Creative Services. The first thought was that it was a localized incident, so at first it was being called "Attack on New York." Deb said that they tried to keep the title a "short, sweet slug." It needed to be catchy, but not sensationalistic.
(Deb Ondo described NECN's brand of news coverage as respectful, quality, objective news coverage that's not sensationalistic.)

The titles changed frequently throughout the day, especially the early part of the day. Once the Pentagon was hit, the main graphics priority at that point was to get a map of the Pentagon up to show where things were happening. It was also important to get together graphics showing the airplanes involved, where they were coming from, what type of aircraft they were, what airlines were involved, what the flight numbers were, how many people were on board—basically trying to illustrate whatever factual information was available at that point.

By that point in the coverage, there was no real design treatment/title treatment that had been created for the story, they were still using standard title treatments.

After the Pentagon was hit, they were essentially calling it the "New York/Washington Attack." It wasn't until the plane crashed in Pennsylvania that NECN expanded the title for the story to "Attack on America," a title also being used by many other news providers.

Because the coverage on the 11th was comprised of all live and breaking news stories without commercial interruption, there were no animated sequences used to segue between stories as there are during standard news broadcasts. As a result, those type of graphics weren't created until later on in the coverage. (Deb said that regular news opens were abandoned by NECN during the first 4-5 days of continuous news coverage and they didn't reappear until Saturday or Sunday, 9.15 or 9.16.)

When we were first talking about the titling of the story, and how it changed over time, Deb thought that by late in the day on the 11th, NECN had started calling the story "America's Mission." As we continued to talk, however, and as we spoke to the the other designers, she realized that the story was in fact titled "Attack on America" by NECN until that weekend, when the story was then titled "America's Mission."

When the decision was made at NECN to change the titling of the story to "America's Mission," a whole design was created to go along with it, including title treatments, backgrounds, animated openers, etc. Those graphics, as well as the one's used in the earlier "Attack on America" portion of NECN's coverage were designed to incorporate the American flag, although there was an effort not go too overboard in terms of using the flag and other patriotic symbolism. As Deb said, the graphics demanded a more "patriotic flare." Once coverage switched to using the "America's Mission" graphics, that design stayed essentially the same throughout its use.

Deb mentioned that "America's Mission was everything for weeks (in terms of news coverage and news graphics.)

When the identities of the people involved in the events of September 11th began to come out and be reported in the news, the hijackers and terrorists were shown on NECN's default gold background. The victims were placed on red, white & blue, flag backgrounds. As Deb described it, it didn't seem appropriate or tasteful to place the hijackers or terrorists pictures over the flag, but it did seem appropriate to use that sort of background imagery for the victims.

In terms of whether or not the events of 9.11.2001 have had a major impact on how her department handles graphic design for the news, Deb said no, that this was really more of a blip on the screen in terms of affecting the practices of her department. The two changes she did cite were the need for them to get additional mapping software/capabilities and she also said that NECN would almost certainly begin to use a news ticker in their broadcasts moving forward.

In terms of who decided when to make major programming changes, such as when to begin showing commercials again, that was the job of the News Director.

Just before Thanksgiving, there was a gradual return to NECN's standard graphics & design treatments, although the "America's Mission" graphics were used whenever news stories related to the events of 9.11 were broadcast.

Coverage of the Anthrax scares were also folded into the "America's Mission" graphics. Anthrax-related stories were not given their own unique design treatment.

Deb made a conscious decision not to use imagery such as the burning World Trade Center towers in the backgrounds used for NECN's coverage of the story. She felt that would have been too sensationalistic and it wouldn't have fit in with NECN's brand.

When I asked her how the graphics designed by her department related to the graphics used on NECN's web site, Deb responded that, "With regard to the website, ours is all streaming video, so we literally record the stories and put them ont the website.  So everything on-air translates directly to the website."

Notes from conversation with Deb Ondo, NECN Creative Director and Angela Bertalotto & David Wiinikka, both NECN Designers

Both Angela and David spoke about the fact that they didn't really have time to think about what was happening, or how they felt about what they were doing, while they tried to get graphics together for the news coverage on September 11th. They both talked about how difficult it was for them when they had to create graphics with pictures and infomation about the victims involved. Like many people I've spoken with about the events of September 11th, they both thought back to how they had found out about the events, and how they had dealt with the news—who they had called, etc. and those memories, along with the emotional toll of having to put together graphics with pictures and infomation about the victims was very much at the forefront of our discussion about what their experience at NECN had been like on that day.

Some of the other comments they made...
Angela mentioned that she felt there was very little need fo dramatic or "cinematic" graphics because the events themselves were so dramatic. She also talked about how fast and furious their day had been and how Deb and the Executive Producers were constantly requesting changes to be made in the graphics they were designing so there was very little time for thought on their part, they were just trying to keep up with all the work that needed to be done.

Both Angela and David's memories about what the titles had been and when they changed was also a bit fuzzy because it had changed so fast, especially on the 11th.

One other comment that Angela made that I found striking was the use of the term "package" to describe the final news story/product that a reporter goes on the air with. Some of the steps involved in getting to that final stage include the editing done to the video footage, the creation of graphics, the writing of the story, etc., so that the final version of a news story that ends up on the air is called a "package."