I am so impressed with the work The Seattle Times — and its Web site — did in time of emergency. This is an idea that you should store in your idea drawer.
As you know, the Seattle area has been soaked by rain and hit by 100 mph winds in some wicked weather. More storms raked the Northwest last night and others are expected to hit this morning. Thousands — 160,000 as of Wednesday evening — are without power and many will be until Christmas. Some folks have started using grills and generators to keep warm. Six people have died and more than 100 have been hospitalized for carbon monoxide poisoning.
Many of the victims were recent immigrants. Four members of a Vietnamese family died of carbon monoxide poisoning. A fifth member of that family is still seriously ill.
Taking all of this into consideration, the Times published a health and safety warning in six languages — across the entire top half of the front page. The paper published the warnings in Vietnamese, Spanish, Russian, Somali, Chinese and English. The Web site ran the same information at the top of its main page.
Times executive editor David Boardman told me that while the page may be among the “ugliest we’ve ever published — it is one of which I’m most proud.”
For more on the design implications of the Times‘ multilingual front page, see this piece from Poynter design editor Jeremy Gilbert.
I interviewed Boardman by e-mail.
How did this idea of publishing warnings in multiple languages come about? What were you trying to accomplish?
As you know, the Seattle area has been devastated by a massive power outage that, at its peak, had more than a million households and businesses in the dark. Even now, a week later, more than 150,000 customers remain without power.
Along the way, more than 100 people were hospitalized for carbon monoxide poisoning caused by using electrical generators or charcoal grills indoors. On Monday, a family of four Vietnamese immigrants had died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator they had placed in their garage so as not to disturb neighbors with its noise.
I went to bed Monday night troubled by all of that and pondering how we might address it. The idea for this page came to me, believe it or not, in my sleep. Well, almost. My subconscious was clearly working on it, because I woke up Tuesday morning with the idea nearly fully formed: We should publish a warning, in five or six languages, not to use generators or grills indoors. And we should use the top of the front page — the only space that has a chance of attracting the attention of these non-English speakers — to do it.
I threw it out to some folks here first thing in the morning, and by 8 a.m. we were hard at work on it. Turns out it was a lot more difficult and complicated than I anticipated, as we didn’t get it wrapped up until almost 7 p.m. But a group of very creative and energetic people here pulled it off beautifully.
What obstacles did you have to overcome?
First, we needed to choose which languages to include.
Western Washington has many different immigrant groups. We consulted with Public Health — Seattle & King County on which would be most appropriate. We settled on these: Chinese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Russian and Somali. And English, of course.
We then had to decide exactly what we would say in just a few words that would get the attention of the target audiences and convey a clear message.
Assistant metro editor Ian Ith spent the day working with Public Health — Seattle & King County, which used a contractor to translate the warning into the five languages.
A real issue was ensuring that the translations were legitimate and would actually communicate with the various immigrant communities in a meaningful way — without embarrassing the paper by using incorrect grammar. Or worse, making a terrible mistake of syntax that might insult the community or show us to be out of touch.
For the county health people, that meant enlisting translators through a private contractor, who performed translations of the text we provided in an extremely accelerated schedule. Many of the translators did not have any power themselves and were working with light from generators. One of them ran out of gasoline and finished in the nick of time. This service, the county reported, normally had a turnaround time of up to a week, and they pressured — and paid for — the work to be done in hours to meet our deadlines.
But then, for us, it meant taking the translated text and “peer reviewing” it by taking it out into the various communities — by telephone and e-mail on an extremely tight deadline — to make sure the syntax and grammar were correct. We found native speakers who were enthusiastic about the idea and jumped to help. […]
Worth noting is an obstacle we DIDN’T have: the business side of our company. We gave circulation, advertising and our publisher, Frank Blethen, a heads-up midday [Tuesday] that this [was] the direction we were headed. Although there was a clear risk that this would cut into single-copy sales right in the middle of the Christmas buying season, they were universally supportive.
What has the public reaction been?
It has been voluminous and overwhelmingly positive.
The director of Public Health — Seattle & King County wrote us: “I want to personally express my deep appreciation for the top of The Seattle Times front page dedication to warnings about carbon monoxide poisoning. You can be assured that your support during this time has helped prevent tragedy. I know that your staff are proud of your commitment and leadership, and we feel very fortunate to have you as a public health partner.”
And we’ve received many reader letters like this one: “Thank you so much for your wonderful front page today. Instead of just reporting the grim news of carbon monoxide poisoning you chose to use your space to make an effort to prevent more death and injury.”
I should add, however, that we have heard from several readers who are angry that we would publish in a language other than English. I just took a call from one reader who cancelled his subscription, saying that if these people can’t read English, tough.
Also, we’re apparently being raked over the coals at the moment by conservative talk radio.
