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.

The “age of fotog”

June 17th, 2008 at 11:32am Linda Grist Cunningham

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.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized

4 Comments Add your own

  • 1. redrover  |  June 18th, 2008 at 7:19 am

    Is aliteracy something to be thrilled about?

    Can critical thinking skills survive in a society that does not want to read and think about information in text format?

    Can genuine democracy and First Amendment civil liberties survive in a nation of mostly aliterate citizens who have not learned crtical thinking skills?

    I found this article on the topic, but gee whiz, it didn’t include any photos:

    The No-Book Report: Skim It and Weep
    More and More Americans Who Can Read Are Choosing Not To. Can We Afford to Write Them Off?
    By Linton Weeks
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Monday, May 14, 2001; Page C01
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23370-2001May13?language=printer

  • 2. Linda Grist Cunningham  |  June 18th, 2008 at 10:14 am

    Wasn’t suggesting that there be no text, nor that we abandon critical thinking skills. Quite the contrary. Merely making a point about the power of photos. And, for what it’s worth from this former English teacher, you probably meant illiterate, right?

  • 3. redrover  |  June 18th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

    “aliterate.”
    The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.

    http://www.answers.com/topic/aliterate

    a·lit·er·ate (?-l?t’?r-?t)
    adj.
    Able to read but not interested in reading.

    See Usage Note at literate.

    “An aliterate person, by contrast, is one who is capable of reading and writing but who has little interest in doing so, whether out of indifference to learning in general or from a preference for seeking information and entertainment by other means.”

    aliteracy a·lit’er·a·cy n.
    aliterate a·lit’er·ate n.

  • 4. Linda Grist Cunningham  |  June 18th, 2008 at 5:39 pm

    Oh, one of those words, huh…OK; gotcha.
    I knew alliteration: wild, wonderful West Virginia.

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