A Little News

1) Be an educator rather than a complainer.
The very best way to alienate yourself from the copy editors who lay out the pages is to continually complain about how they are doing it. Bad assignments, bad crops, bad photo edits and poor play in the paper just happen. They happen to everyone. I remember hearing a story about W. Eugene Smith’s Country Doctor photo essay in Life Magazine. A full page ad featuring aspirin was positioned opposite a photo of the fatigued doctor. Smith was so mad he quit the magazine. I for one, don’t have the option to walk out on a job. Even if I did that would be a bad choice. So, how do you handle the bad, whatever, that happened to you today.

Photo copyright The Decatur Daily, 2007

The best option, especially when you have a problem with crops, play and things related to the use of your photos is to wait until a time when no one is under deadline pressure and talk to the “offender.” Use the moment to try and explain what you were trying to do with the photo and why the way it was run changed the message or flat out ruined the image. Here is a cool tip for trying to help editors pick the dominate photo. Tell them to imagine a lead paragraph based on nothing but the photo. If they are able to write a dynamic, descriptive paragraph in their minds then there is a good chance they have their dominate art. If the mental paragraph reads something like, “Johnny got an award from the XYZ club Monday,” the they might want to rethink the choice.

Photo Copyright The Decatur Daily, 2007

The two photos in this post are good examples of photos that could get lost in the shuffle during the editing process. Both were from the Downtown Criterium where we shot hundreds of photos. Neither one of these photos ran in the printed edition but both made it in an online slide show from the race. Because these photos are not “straight” images, editors may tend to overlook them. They were two of my favorite images from the race. We as photographers understand the techniques used in both photos but our “word” colleagues may not. Someone may ask, “Why should we use this photo. It is all blurry? Or, why did you stick that bicycle tire in the picture?” Many times, especially in smaller newspapers, “word” editors will be making the visual choices. If you can win over the “word” people by speaking their language and not freaking out over their edits you may be able to open a line of communication that will help cut down on the stuff that drives you nuts. Even if you don’t win the battle this time, you have given your editors the idea that you are a reasonable, well prepared and thoughtful journalist. That opens all kinds of possibilities for the future.

The opinions expressed in this blog are mine and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Decatur Daily.