NYT Publishes Frontpage With Just Names of People Who Died Due to COVID-19 to Spread a Message

While people in Singapore are looking forward to the milestone of 2 June where we start (hopefully) entering better days, America is looking towards a different milestone:

“100,000 Deaths Due To Covid-19”

According to the John Hopkins University Covid-19 tracker, the United States currently has 1.6 million Covid-19 cases and over 97,000 deaths.

And it seems like they believe the death toll will reach a hundred thousand.

New York Times Runs Front Page That’s Never Been Seen Before

We all know how a newspaper’s front page should work.

It must be “breaking news” and has pictures to draw people’s attention to it.

But this time, they’re running an ‘All Type’ (read: all words) front page in a tribute to Americans who have lost their lives to the pandemic.

Image: New York Times

In his 40 years at The New York Times, the chief creative officer, Tom Bodkin, couldn’t remember a front page that has no photos.

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A Way Of Personalising The Tragedies

Assistant graphics editor Simone Landon, the woman behind the idea, said that the general reading public, as well as staff within the company, are now getting data fatigue from Covid-19.

So she and her colleagues wanted to do up a front page that’ll highlight that each and every death to the Covid-19 isn’t just a number on the paper, but someone who has lived a unique life.

The team compiled death notices and obituaries from around the country and compiled a list of almost 1,000 names from hundreds of newspapers.

“Alan Lund, 81, Washington, conductor with ‘the most amazing ear’…”

“Theresa Elloie, 63, New Orleans, renowned for her business making detailed pins and corsages … ”

“Florencio Almazo Morán, 65, New York City, one-man army … ”

They have an online version of this too, which you can check out here.

Users can scroll down to see the names, as well as a short sentence of the life they’ve lived, of those who unfortunately succumbed to the coronavirus.

Image: Giphy

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