Front Page Friday: Chicago RedEye

It is that time of the week again. It is time to look at my favorite newspaper front page of the week.

As always, I culled through the front pages shown at Newseum.org and picked my favorite.

So here it is:

Chicago RedEye

This is today's front page of the Chicago RedEye.

Today I chose a free-distribution, tabloid-style newspaper. It is called the Chicago RedEye.

I picked this front page for a couple reasons.

First, it is tackling a current topic that is getting a lot of attention — the Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien battle. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, first, crawl out from under the rock you live under, and then Google it.)

The treatment of using an illustration appeals to me, and I really like how they just used a recognizable silhouette of O’Brien instead of trying to draw a caricature of him, which would have hurt the cover. Also, the static-covered television serving as the background is a nice touch since today O’Brien’s last night as the host of “The Tonight Show” on NBC.

My only complaint is that, judging from the image and not a hard copy, is that some of the white text might be too small, but I can read it OK as it is.

The second reason I chose this cover is because I like the tabloid format. I think it can be more interesting graphically speaking. I like that a tabloid can use basically the entire cover for one story instead of overloading it with massive amounts of content and teasers as a broadsheet does.

I find myself often drawn to this tabloid paper in particular because of the RedEye logo. I really did the lowercase “i” used with the name fit inside the bounds of the letter. I think that’s cool, especially since they use that logo instead of a traditional newspaper flag.

RedEye is a Chicago Tribune publication. It is aimed at a younger audience.

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About toddvogts 833 Articles
Todd R. Vogts, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of media at Sterling College in Kansas. Previously, he taught yearbook, newspaper, newsmagazine, and online journalism in various Kansas high schools, and he ran a weekly newspaper in rural Kansas. He continues to freelance as a professional journalist from time to time. Also, Vogts is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the Journalism Education Association (JEA), and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), among others. He earned his Master Journalism Educator (MJE) certification from JEA in 2022. When he’s not teaching or writing, he runs his mobile disk jockey service and takes part in other entrepreneurial ventures. He can be reached at twitter.com/toddvogts or via his website at www.toddvogts.com.