FLORIDA TODAY — December 9, 2016
Why it’s special: John Glenn was a Space Coast hero, but also a hero for me in my youth. As a child, I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up — even going to Space Camp at age 9 — and John Glenn was the astronaut that I looked up to most. So it was a sad day when I heard that he was in the hospital, and that he had died the following day. The quick turn of events prevented us from having much lead time on this four-page wrap; we mostly used the day beforehand to plan the section. I was also able to do some preliminary searching for a suitable cover image. I knew we would be looking for a poster on the front, but I wanted to give Florida Today a cover that would be different from every other paper in the country. I mostly avoided archived shots that were newsier in their time. I liked the color in this photo (bonus: it matched their orange nameplate), and I thought the pose was dignified for an in memoriam page.
As for the rest of the section: I knew that we had a large amount of content and not a large amount of space, so I tried to keep things as simple as I could, allowing the stories, quotes, timelines and photos to stand out.