Donald Trump is Shot at Rally

The call to the news desk from our U.S. Editor Caroline Graham coincided to the second with the first snap on PA: shots had been fired at Donald Trump during an election rally in Pennsylvania.

It was about 11.15pm, just 75 minutes before the absolutely non-negotiable 12.30am off stone deadline for the final edition.

As the first pictures started dropping into the system, it was soon clear that Trump had survived. It was also apparent that the best way to bring home the late-night drama to readers the following morning would be with a poster front page.

The MoS’s skeleton late-night team (night editor, late news editor, artist and two subs) quickly decided to clear the first five pages of the paper for a story and pictures that would obviously have a huge effect on the American election.

So out went our first edition curtain raiser splash for England’s Euro 24 final against Spain (‘One last push to finish the job’) and the front-page picture of Kate presenting the Wimbledon trophy to Carlos Alcaraz (‘The one Spaniard we don’t mind winning!’).

Then it was a race against time, while trying to get to grips with a constantly moving story. We quickly chose a dramatic picture for the front page, but within minutes three even more dramatic images had come in. And that was the shape of the next frantic hour – constantly changing pictures as the clock ran down while writing (and rewriting) headlines based on snippets of information being shouted across from the news desk as Caroline put together her brilliant splash copy in front of a TV in Los Angeles.

In the end, the front page was perhaps the easiest element: one big striking picture that summed up the story (and that would resonate for months to come) plus a simple headline and a come-on to what was inside. And it was all done by 12.32am – just two minutes late.

The story made 35 per cent of the print run, about 215,000 copies (more than the entire circulation of many of our Sunday rivals). Some of those rivals had the story in their final editions, but only managed short front-page reports with far less impact than the MoS’s five-page special.

And that’s why our July 14 front page, starkly simple but capturing all the drama of a frantic night, was flashed up on news channels all over the world – and why we believe it deserves to win front page of the year.