The blizzard in Colorado dominated the front pages of many papers, but The Denver Post's front page was the best. Almost all newspapers used the same photo of a snow-bound jetliner. But that photo really missed the point: No one cares about a blizzard's impact on airplanes; people only care about weather's impact on people. And this is how the Post's front page really shined – with a powerful, story-telling picture which showed the storm's impact on the people trapped at Denver International Airport. The Post went further by leading off their page with an emotional headline that summed up the feeling that everyone must have shared.

The Post devoted their entire front page to the story of the storm – as well they should have. Former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill is famous for saying that “all politics is local.” Like a savvy pol, savvy editors know that all news is local, and no story could compare to the storm for readers in Colorado. Note the Post's treatment of the “8 Marines charged” at the bottom the page. Many papers led with this story, and on another day it may have led in Denver, but not on a day like this one.

Room for improvement: The color-coded headlines beneath the main headline provide some sense of the questions the Post's coverage will answer, but none of them direct you by page number to the answers. Most of the text elements on the page were labeled (i.e. SNOWY REPORT, DISPARITY IN SNOWPLOWS, etc.) but these labels needed to stand out more with size or color to be effective signposts.

• The overall layout of the page was modular (each element squared off) but some elements appeared to be “shoe-horned” onto the page, producing a somewhat jumbled appearance.

• The above-the-nameplate promo to useful online content appears to be separate from the storm coverage, when in fact it is an important part of it.



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