From the Heartland with Charles Apple

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By Charles Apple |

Charles Apple, Graphics Editor at The Des Moines Register and an API discussion leader, takes you inside the day-to-day operations of one of the leading newspapers in the midwest.

Next 2 >> of 27 Articles.

By Charles Apple | Sunday, April 20, 2003

It appears a Danbury, Connecticut-based company called Herobuilders has issued a series of action figures based on Iraqi war personalities. This is the same guy who sells an action figure of Osama bin Laden. In a pink dress.

By Charles Apple | Wednesday, April 16, 2003

I've not posted in a while. Part of me feels like I should apologize for that. On the other hand, I enjoyed very much taking the better part of a week off from work. I may have overdone it a bit for three weeks. I deserved a rest. And I'm grateful to my editors for giving me that time off.

During my downtime, I've kept up with the news. My wife got so tired of stopping every morning to buy me a New York Times that she finally consented to a home subscription.

By Charles Apple | Monday, April 07, 2003

I heard an interesting report this afternoon between the pledge breaks on Iowa Public Radio about a web site devoted to bringing information about U.S. marines to their mothers. The woman interviewed in the piece said that the USMC is great about disseminating information to the spouses of Marines but not so great about keeping their moms informed. Therefore, she started a site devoted to doing just that. This seems to be a treasure chest of links, info and other interesting stuff.

By Charles Apple | Sunday, April 06, 2003

I was shocked to hear this morning about the death of NBC's David Bloom. I had greatly admired the work he was doing on the "Bloomobile" in Iraq. He was fabulous. And he was a year younger than I.

By Charles Apple | Saturday, April 05, 2003

I'm at home tonight. For the first time in 20 nights, I'm not working.

By Charles Apple | Friday, April 04, 2003

So after working like a dog to remake my big map for Thursday's editions, our editor and managing editor suggested yesterday I remake the map AGAIN to show just the Baghdad metro area.

By Charles Apple | Thursday, April 03, 2003

As I was combing the wires last night, I found a few references to throngs of jubilant Iraqi citizens giving our troops a "thumbs-up" as they rolled though their towns. That sounded pretty nice. Until I got home, that is.

By Charles Apple | Wednesday, April 02, 2003

Was last night exciting, or what?

We have a thrilling rescue of an American P.O.W., announced right around the time an enormous battle -- two of them, actually -- is fought south and east of Baghdad.

By Charles Apple | Monday, March 31, 2003

Don't forget -- Daylight Saving Time starts at 3 a.m. Tuesday morning in Iraq. That's 7 p.m. Eastern Time, 6 p.m. Central Time and 5 p.m. Mountain Time and 4 p.m. Pacific Time here in the states.

By Charles Apple | Monday, March 31, 2003

Why did I wake up two or three times though the night with an odd song in my head? I couldn't figure it out at all. That is, until I got to work and turned on the TV. It's the MSNBC war coverage theme song.

By Charles Apple | Saturday, March 29, 2003

Thursday night, our totally excellent news editor, Mia Bush, asked me if I’d seen a pronunciation guide. Apparently one moved on the wires, but it was anemic. I told her I’d see what I could do.

By Charles Apple | Thursday, March 27, 2003

My boss took me to lunch yesterday and insisted I cut back my hours somewhat. The upside is that I'll still be able to compile our nightly map and direct our war graphics. The downside is that I had to take my daughter to school today -- and again tomorrow -- so I can't really sleep in until Saturday.

By Charles Apple | Monday, March 24, 2003

Man, am I beat. I need to learn how to sleep against cycle, I guess. I would have made a terrible war correspondant.

By Charles Apple | Monday, March 24, 2003

Whew. What a weekend!

For Sunday, I built a piece that recapped the entire war so far, with the events keyed to a large color map. Not wanting to leave out anything on an evening when a LOT of stuff was breaking late, I stayed to update the graphic for each edition. The results pleased me so much that I did the same thing again Sunday night for Monday.

By Charles Apple | Saturday, March 22, 2003

Friday was another busy day for us in Des Moines. We rushed out another extra edition -- our second in two days.

This extra, too, was twelve pages. Because of the way events transpired, we had quite a bit more news to cover this time around. We placed six separate infographics into the section, despite the fact that I had only one artist working Friday morning.

By Charles Apple | Thursday, March 20, 2003

Our coverage this morning was warmly received. Folks are buzzing about our giant doubletruck backgrounder. It didn't run in first edition -- the attack was simply too late in the evening. I'm not quite sure yet if we have plans to bring it around in Friday's state edition.

By Charles Apple | Thursday, March 20, 2003

Did I say we weren't putting out an extra today?

D'oh! Remind me not to file my blog entries so early.

By Charles Apple | Wednesday, March 19, 2003

I spent much of Wednesday tied up in meetings and was unable to finish my plans for working up a graphic on an electromagnetic pulse bomb. Then, to my relief, the Associated Press moved a story and graphic on that very subject. I'll have to call the AP "Wint-O-Green," because today, they were lifesavers.

By Charles Apple | Monday, March 17, 2003

We ran a fabulous story Sunday consisting of excerpts of a diary written by Iowa native Jess Horsley, a Marine sergeant in the Mideast ...

By Charles Apple | Friday, March 14, 2003

The other day I mentioned Major Hal Sellers of Des Moines. He's in the Mideast, second-in-command of a 700-man Marine battalion, despite the fact that his five-month-old son needed a heart transplant in order to survive. Sellers was given the opportunity to remain near his base in California, but he chose to stay with the men he had trained. Register columnist John Carlson wrote about the Sellers family in January. NBC's Today show ran a piece on them last week ...

By Charles Apple | Thursday, March 13, 2003

The Associated Press sent out a notice to managing editors Wednesday saying it was resending fresh copies of much of its Iraq-related background material. If you've not downloaded all the war graphics and stories from AP -- or from KRT or GNS or your other sources for wire graphics -- I hope you'll take the time to do it now ...

By Charles Apple | Monday, March 10, 2003

We published an interesting story Saturday about the Rock Island Arsenal, which is an island in the middle of the Mississippi River near the Quad Cities (along the Iowa/Illinois border). The arsenal, we reported, is home to more than 40 Department of Defense organizations including the Army Field Support Command. That group is responsible for supplying the U.S. troops in the Mideast. Register reporter Colleen Krantz's visit was the first by any journalist since 1990 ...

By Charles Apple | Friday, March 07, 2003

I'll have to revise my estimate of when war will begin. I figured bombing would begin late Sunday afternoon, March 16 -- That's when many newspaper graphics folks, including myself, will be tied up putting together their NCAA Tournament brackets ...

By Charles Apple | Wednesday, March 05, 2003

On my mind today is Generation X ...

By Charles Apple | Tuesday, March 04, 2003

It's easy to feel, here in Iowa, that we're a loooong way away from the potential battle front. We're also a long way away from where most of the preparations for a possible war are being made ...

Next 2 >> of 27 Articles.

charles.apple@pilotonline.com

Charles Apple, Graphics Director at The Virginian-Pilot is also an API discussion leader. Send e-mail to Apple