Today’s fallout

We got more than a few angry phone calls and emails for previous feature stories on the film “Brokeback Mountain,” so we were expecting a bit of reaction from today’s story showing that the film is doing quite well in “red” areas where pundits such as Bill O’Reilly had predicted it would flop. So far, though there’s been no phone calls or emails about the story. But the day is still young.

The box

Today’s page one graphic on Met Mortgage’s bankruptcy plan being approved was another attempt at “alternative” story formats. The idea was good, but editors had some problems with the execution. The graphic doesn’t look like a standalone piece, they said, and was difficult to read. Suggestions included some sort of icon or image, such as the old Met tower, to key people in to the topic at a glance, a bigger headline, or some sort of “at a glance” label to set it apart.

In a rare fit of regression, the Web team opted to convert the story into a text narrative.