Late editions capture Obama victory

Well done to The Sun and The Times for changing their late edition front pages once the US election result was clear. There's a powerful image and understated headline on The Times ... on an all-black cover. The Sun tells it as it is with a trademark pun. Earlier some of the papers went with a holding story, recognising that the election would be the main story in the morning but the result would come in after deadline. It's always a tough call ... but they all handled it pretty well.

Others, below, decided that the best policy was to ignore it. Tell people something you've got, rather than something you haven't. 

The American newspapers are starting to come in now, below is an early shot of USA Today. 

Thanks as always to @suttonnick #tomorrowspaperstoday 

Heart campaign revisted by Echo

Many people I have worked for will know my colleague and friend Mike Brough. He is a first rate designer and graphic artist who I have known for more than 25 years. Together we have redesigned more than 80 newspapers and magazines and Mike regularly delivers sessions on our training courses. In the summer Mike had a heart attack while playing football at Darlington's Dolphin Centre. His life was saved because, having left the centre after the game, he had the presence of mind to return. The centre had a defibrillator and trained staff and within two hours Mike was sitting up in a hospital bed, stents fitted. Mike, 51, is now back at work and fully recovered. On the back of his experience The Northern Echo, where Mike and I first met, launches a campaign tomorrow for more life-saving defibrillators in gyms and in public places. A poll by the paper revealed that 80 per cent of private gyms do not have one. As part of the campaign the Echo has bought its own defibrillator and is training staff to use it. It is not the first time the paper has campaigned for better heart care. Twelve years ago, it launched its A Chance To Live campaign aimed at cutting the waiting times for heart bypass surgery. It followed the death at 38 of another friend and colleague, Ian Weir. Ian, the father of two young boys, was a brilliant photographer, (he took the pictures at my wedding) who died of a second heart attack after waiting nearly eight months for a triple bypass. The campaign helped persuade the Government to bring British waiting times in line with the rest of Europe. Well done to Echo editor Peter Barron for, once again, throwing his paper's weight behind the critical issue of improving heart care. And well done to Mike, who has just been given the all-clear to grace the five-a-side court again.

Why subs need dirty minds - again

Here's another headline to add to the 'why subs need dirty minds' collection. It certainly fulfills the guideline that headlines should "build a picture in the readers' minds." Just a picture I don't really need, thanks. Wonder if Meatloaf might sue.
HT @JonnyTelba and @EchoPeterBarron

Best view from a newsroom in Europe?

This is for those of you working in windowless newsrooms or offices in industrial estates this grim October Friday evening. It is the view from the new newsroom at the Times of Malta in Valletta and was kindly sent to me by journalist Waylon Johnson (@WayCourt). The newsroom at the Times used to be a windowless and cramped place, now it is open-plan with this vista for the journalists to gaze upon.

A couple of years ago, while at the Inverness Courier, I took this picture and asked if the view from the editor's office was the best in Britain? Now the question has gone international. Which is the best newsroom view in Europe or, indeed, the world? The good news is I will be taking in the Maltese view first hand (and hopefully a bit of sunshine) next month when I have a week back working at The Times. Having just returned from London in the pouring rain, I have to say I am quite looking forward to it. 

Final newsquiz: Ben wins the Champagne

Me (left) and colleagues Tony Johnston and Mike Watson (far right) with Telegraph trainees Rhiannon Williams, Ben Riley-Smith (with his Champagne), Olivia Goldhill, Theo Merz, Radhika Sanghani and Dan Johnson.

I said goodbye to the Telegraph trainees this week. Their final task, at the end of a seven-week training programme at PA in Howden, was to put together a project on how the Telegraph might cover the 2015 election. They created a new print supplement, a radically new online approach and put together an interactive working app. Yesterday they presented it all to Telegraph executives in Victoria. It was all very impressive. They now head off on secondment to regional newspapers or to the Press Association. They are a bright bunch and good characters. I wish them well. We finished, as ever, with the newsquiz followed by farewell drinks in the Brass Monkey. Ben Riley-Smith and Dan Johnson were joint winners, both scoring a less than average 10.5. They were steeped in their project this week, so didn't really get the chance to study the papers. Understandable but, as they know, not really an excuse. Ben collected the Champagne for being top over the seven weeks - 8.5 points ahead of second placed Dan. Anyway, there are 22 questions. Three have a bonus so there are 25 points up for grabs. See how you do. As the diploma season is over, this is the last of the weekly quizzes. Hope you enjoyed them.

1. The Culture Secretary wrote to the chairman of the BBC Trust to say the Jimmy Savile affair had raised 'very real concerns' about public confidence in the BBC. Who is the Culture Secretary and who is the chairman of the BBC Trust? One point for each.

2. Exactly how much did comedian Frankie Boyle win in libel damages against The Mirror?

3. How long was soccer thug Aaron Cawley jailed for? For a bonus, which two teams were playing in the game when he assaulted goalkeeper Chris Kirkland?

4. In the latest Superman comic, Clark Kent quits his job as a reporter on the Daily Planet after a showdown with its publisher. Who is the publisher of the Daily Planet?

5. Who is the MP for North West Hampshire?

6. According to the Environment Secretary, bad weather and the Olympics are to blame for what?

7. Which store has defended its policy on restricting staff from displaying tattoos and piercings?

8. Trinity Mirror has merged its regional and daily titles. Who is the chief executive of Trinity Mirror?

9. Who visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy wearing a t-shirt that said 'I am Julian Assange'?

10. Barack Obama told supporters at a Florida rally that America had a choice between "reckless and wrong or ...... and ....... ". Fill in the two missing words. A half point for each.

11. Chief Constable Sir Norman Bettison resigned from which police force?

12. Why was Pauline Bailey in the headlines?

13. Ford is closing its factory in Southampton and moving the manufacture of all Transit vans to which country?

14. Former policeman Michael Upson contravened a 1981 Act. What did he do?

15. Pippa Middleton's book was published this week. What is it called?

16. Who rode Frankel in his final race?

17. What, in a Tweet, did David Cameron say 'was healing'?

18. The FSA has said what is a ticking time bomb?

19. Who had their Olympic medals stolen after attending an event at Buckingham Palace. One point each.

20. Name the Category 2 hurricane which is sweeping through the Caribbean?

21. Nike has sold a sports clothing brand which provided the shirts for England's 1966 World Cup win. What is the brand called?

22. Ceefax signed off this week. Which year did it start broadcasting?

Answers here

Couple of captions that caught the eye

Here's a couple of captions that caught the eye this week. The one above from my old friends at the Newark Advertiser is an excellent example of why subs need dirty minds - and good taste. Thanks to ‏@EdGrover for that one.

And this one from my other old friends at The Northern Echo, reporting on the delays to the badger cull, made me smile too ... albeit for different reasons. Hat tip to @johnestevens.

First year celebration at The Irish Post

Congratulations to the team at The Irish Post on its first anniversary. In August last year Thomas Crosbie Holdings, owners of the Irish Examiner, decided there was no future for the Post and closed it down. But the staff weren't taking that lying down and campaigned to get the paper reopened. Their saviour was Cork-born businessman Elgin Loane who brought the paper back from the dead last October. Since then the Post, which was started in 1970 by the late Breandán Mac Lua as a weekly paper for the Irish in Britain, has thrived. I was at its Barbican offices a couple of weeks ago, and met Elgin, MD Niamh Kelly and the small but dedicated news team. It was great to be back. I have been involved with the paper since the mid-1990s, have redesigned it twice, sat on the interview panel for assorted editors and trained the staff. My colleague and friend Brian Page is holding the fort as acting editor, something he also did in the 1990s, while the paper appoints a new full-time boss. What is abundantly clear is that the spirit, determination and hard work of the staff is one of the main reasons the paper has survived. It is a fantastic story ... how many other papers can you name that have closed down and been resurrected, particularly in the current climate? Well done to them all and here's to many successful years ahead.

No Savile victims found in Runcorn shock

Here is another non-story to add to those I have flagged up over the years. First, there was the dog that injured its nose in Ringwood. Then the woman who couldn't buy custard powder in Whitstable, which spawned the great Custard Shortage collection. One of the earliest was the mattress that fell off a lorry in Kidderminster, causing no chaos at all (although a car did have to stop). One of my favourites was 90-year-old Irma Gledhill finding a straight banana. It was the quotes that made it. "If I can't do anything else, I will eat it,"  she said. And still on the fruit trail, there was the man who stumbled on a rather large pear in Sutton. There was also the chap who called the police to report a suspicious package from Amazon on his doorstep. And then there was the splash in the Folkestone Herald that told the shocking story of a woman who bought a pasty that was three days past its sell-by date. Yes. Really. The splash. People were equally shocked in Haywards Heath when Boots the chemist opened a little later than usual one morning. But the latest Jimmy Savile story adds a new dimension. Just think of the potential ... no murders in town this week, Tom Cruise not buying a house in our patch, aliens didn't land in city park. The list is endless. Never again will the newsdesk struggle to fill the paper. Once upon a time there would have been a world-weary news editor explaining in no uncertain terms to some hapless reporter that it simply wasn't a story. Now these things slip in with regularity - and inevitably get more web hits that any of the worthy and serious coverage. Perhaps there is method in the madness. It will be the bizarre, the offbeat, the mistakes, the funnies and the downright bad that will get the biggest followings. As I have suggested before, we might have to write new guidelines into our training courses for young journalists. "When you go back to your newsrooms you will be expected to deliver three page leads, three quality shorts - and at least one non-story a day."