Editor’s Note
Back in the old days — that’s less than a decade and before there were such things as blogs and interactive conversations with readers — editors used to respond to their newspaper readers with an “editor’s note.” Sometimes it clarified a point made in a letter to the editor. Sometimes it offered a correction. Sometimes it was just a simple explanation. An editor’s note was a handful of sentences; maybe a four or five paragraphs. It was always a personal link between the editor and the reader. Only difference between it and today’s blog is the immediacy and the platform. Welcome to Editor’s Note.

Archive for June 17th, 2008

Kissing photos: News or cliche?

2 comments June 17th, 2008

I vote cliche. Whether it’s a political candidate kissing the proverbial babies, grandma bussing grandpa at the 100th birthday party or a newly married gay couple, the kiss photo is just so passe. But, it’s got the world a twittering as newspapers discuss, then decide, whether they will or won’t use a photo of a gay couple kissing. OK, I’m not so ingenuous as to pretend there aren’t those who will find that photo distressing; there will be. And, the same distressed folks won’t be the slightest concerned that there was live footage on the Web site or on television. It’s all about being distressed because it was in print in the daily newspaper. So, what about here in the News Tower? Pretty simple.

Print good photos. Tell the story. Kiss photos beat kill photos any day in my book. So, if the kiss tells the story, go for it. But, I’m pretty convinced there are better photos than anyone kissing anyone (or thing….).
Want to read more? Check the discussion at this journalism Web site: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=67&aid=145412

The “age of fotog”

4 comments June 17th, 2008

Humans like to look at themselves. In mirrors, in still water reflections, in photographs. We moan and groan about having our pictures taken, but we’re first in line to see if we are IN the photo, and, of course, whether we look good. We like photos, too, because they show — not tell — us what’s really going on. It is that cliche in live action: A photo is worth a thousand words. (Want to know where it came from? Check this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_picture_is_worth_a_thousand_words).

Back to photos and the fotogs who take them. I’ll venture this prediction: As print newspapers transform themselves into deep, broad information centers, we’ll see the evolution of photographers from “support staff” to “main staff.” Word journalists have always been the big names in newsrooms; the visual journalists, like photographers and graphics artists, always took a secondary seat at the table. Not so much anymore. It won’t be long before it’s all about the “multimedia journalist,” not the reporter.

Over the past year, as we have added video and photo galleries to www.rrstar.com, one thing is dead certain: Pictures drive Web traffic. Sure, the text remains important, but our photo galleries trump every text story. Check out the galleries of the flooding in the Rock River Valley and around the Midwest.