Pointed pictures

St. Louis experiments with photo-editorials and finds they grab readers and sometimes prompt angry responses

By Rena Pederson

Can a photo make a point? If it’s a photograph on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial page, it can. Since Last April, editorial page editor Christine Bertelson has been featuring photos with a point of view on the newspaper opinion pages. So far, the photo-edits have generated a largely positive response.

“It grabs the reader’s attention to the commentary pages, which tend to be gray on most newspapers,” Bertelson says. “It’s also a great and unique vehicle for the photographers.”

Initially, she admits, the Post-Dispatch photographers had some reservations about the ethics of crossing the line between news and opinion. But after numerous discussions, a consensus was reached that they could take a different approach to the opinion page features than they could a straight news assignment. The photos are part of a clearly marked opinion package, so there should be no confusion with the “factual” representations on the news pages.

Each week staff photographers contribute photos that contain a point of view of some sort. The only requirement is that the photos be natural and not staged. The challenging issues depicted have ranged from the death penalty to abortion. As you might expect, some of the response has been angry — particularly over a photo of a gay couple sharing a smooch. But most readers have appreciated the thought-provoking images and Bertelson is considering an expansion of the feature so readers can submit their own photos.

“I’ll keep it going as long as there is good work to put there,” Bertelson told The American Editor. “For now, it is an arresting way to get readers involved.”

Rena Pederson, The Dallas Morning News