Speaking in tongues

Newspapers work to develop a common language so photographers and editors can discuss photojournalism

By Warren Watson

News editors and photographers have long been uneasy allies in U.S. newsrooms. M M The problem: While most editors and visual staffers today realize the importance of whole journalism — words and images working together for maximum reader impact — the lack of a common language or framework leaves frustration and hard feelings.

You’ve been there before.

The photographer returns from an assignment. He hands a finished print or scanned copy to a news editor. Deadline nears.

“This all you got?” says the news editor to the photographer, never looking up from his terminal.

“It’s the best image,” the photographer shoots back. “It’ll work.”

“You have more stuff?” the editor replies, shaking his head, looking for more choices.

“What you have will work. Trust me,” says the photographer.

The editor grunts, puts the image aside, and the photographer walks away. And the two staffers go their separate ways, never really communicating.

“Moving from photographer to editor was the worst experience of my life,” says Joe Elbert, assistant managing editor for photo at The Washington Post. “I was confronted with word people wanting to know why I was recommending a certain picture.”

Elbert told of the difficulty that presented.

Most photographers intuitively work through photo requests and don’t think about how the picture is made let alone articulate the process.

In many environments, a picture editor deals with this problem in a sort of accepted “work around” by brokering between the desk and the shooting staff. But not every newspaper can afford that luxury.

And while picture editors perform an important function at these larger papers, desk editors don’t fully learn what distinguishes good photography from ordinary photography nor how to articulate their views to the visual side.

Similarly, the photographer is relieved of the responsibility of learning to communicate to the desk.

These issues were explored by a panel discussion during November’s annual meeting of the Associated Press Managing Editors in San Antonio.

So, the issue remains. How can you bring the desk and the visual staffs closer together in a spirit of teamwork and quality?

One answer: Develop a language of excellence that each side can use in day-to-day dealings.

The photo energy index project

When I was managing editor of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram in the early 1990s, our staff, as part of a news improvement program called Editorial Directions, set out to better understand why some news photographs are more effective than others.

It had grown out of a similar project to identify how to energize the local writing and the news report.

One of the first steps was to develop a photo energy index — words that described the best photos in the newspaper, which the staff called photos with energy. Later, editors and photographers identified the ability to be in the right place at the right time as an important factor.

The project produced a list of words and phrases that describe what good news photography does. The phrase begins: “A photo with energy...”

A sample:

A photo with energy...

• shows human emotion
• fans the heart
• provides a window to the soul
• tells the full story
• can make you laugh
• can make you cry
• stimulates action
• takes your breath away
• sticks in your memory
• reaches the emotional truth.

The photo project required photographers to better verbalize their creative work. When photographers went part-way to start dialogue, editors found that deskers were willing to go part way as well.

The Washington Post approach

Elbert, of The Washington Post, approaches the issue from a different angle.

After a couple of years in the newsroom, says Joe, “it occurred to me that some photographers understand photojournalism and some don’t. This gave me the idea of turning around what I learned in the newsroom to translate, in photo speak, to the photographers.”

Elbert divides Post pictures into four categories:

• Informational
• Graphically appealing
• Emotionally appealing
• Intimate

The right combination of these categories in a single image translates into an award-winner, he says.

Informational: This is the lowest standard. It is the overall view of a news event. Elbert calls these pictures “real estate photos.”

Graphically appealing: These images are intellectually appealing, but do not tap the heart. Composition, in this category, attempts to carry the situation. This kind of image includes photos with attractive lines and angles, dramatic dimension and depth.

Emotionally appealing: This is the next highest form. These photos can bare the soul, by capturing the right moment — the survivor of a fire looking back at a horrific scene, the teacher beaming at the accomplishment of a small child, David Cone sinking to his knees after pitching a perfect game for the Yankees in 1999.

Intimate: This is the highest form. “I can’t give you a description of an intimate picture, but you can feel it,” Elbert.

You could add another category to this exercise — technically sound news pictures that combine the informational and graphically appealing.

For example: a great sports shot of a tumbling athlete. These are pictures that rise above both categories yet lack the emotional appeal of the other categories. So, a fifth category!

Any photo staff could develop its own language using these ideas. Have some fun: Come up with your categories. In the end, the only goal is to develop that language of excellence!

Thinking pictures

Photo ideas, like story proposals, should be evaluated for their potential before they’re assigned. Ideas for photos to run with stories come from photographers, reporters, editors and formal/informal news meetings.

• Does the photo have news value?
• Will it have a visual impact?
• Do other assignments take priority, given resources?

Karl Kuntz, who heads visuals at The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, suggests other questions editors and photographers should keep in mind when looking at photos:

• Does the photo communicate more quickly, strongly, or more eloquently than a simple sentence?
• Does the photo have visual content, or stop short of elevating the story?
• Does the photo go beyond the trite or the obvious?
• Does the photo have enough impact to move the reader?
• Is the photo mindless documentation?
• Does the photo communicate effectively? A good photo should either move, excite, entertain, inform or help the reader understand the story.

Picture editing checklist

In Portland, as part of a total quality initiative, we also developed a checklist to use in guiding our photo decisions:

• Is a photo the appropriate way to illustrate the story?
• Does the photo accurately illustrate the story?
• Have the best images been drawn from the photographer’s negatives?
• Does the photo convey information?
• Is it aesthetically appealing?
• Is the photo good technically?
• Is the subject a sensitive one? Does it require consultation?
• Does one photo say enough or are multiple images needed?
• What is the absolute minimum size? Best size?
• How should it be cropped? Should it be cropped?
• How can it best be used with words (headlines, story, captions) and in layout?
• How does it relate to other news on the page? Is it good enough to be the center of visual impact?
• Has the photographer provided a complete caption?

APME musings

At the San Antonio panel, John Rumbach, editor of The Herald in Jasper, Ind., said that it has taken years to lay a framework between photographers and the word side.

“But it starts at the top with the managing editor stressing good writing and good photography,” says Rumbach.

Panelists Jim Dooley, director of photo at Newsday, Elbert, Rumbach and Scott Sines, a managing editor at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., stressed that respect — or the lack of it — is at the core of the issue.

“I always thought the difference between the best storytellers and the best photographers was just a couple of writing classes,” says Elbert, noting that the partisans have the same goal — to serve the reader.

A major theme of the discussion was the need for photographers, editors and reporters to be working together from the earliest point possible in an assignment. That early collaboration, the panelists agreed, leads to respect.

“You wouldn’t expect a writer to simply leave his rough draft on the editor’s desk, and be done with it,” says Sines. “We should not expect the same from a photographer.”

Watson is director of extended learing at the American Press Institute.