| Ohio News Photographer |
| October 1998 |
The 1998 Airborne TV Seminar is poised for takeoff with stops in Columbus, Ohio on December 4th and 5th and Charlotte, North Carolina on Sunday, December 6th.
"Making the TeamWork" is the theme. Both photographers and reporters are encouraged to attend this program, offered by the National Press Photographers Foundation.
Headliners include: Jonathan Malat - NPPA Television Photographer of the Year from KARE-TV in Minneapolis; Inge Gill - NPPA Editor of the Year from KCNC-TV in Denver; Kim Riemland (Reporter/anchor KOMO-TV) and her husband Tim Griffis (photojournalist KOMO-TV; Boyd Huppert, Reporter, from KARE-TV in Minneapolis.
Online Registration is available at: http://sunsite.unc.edu/nppa/tv/air98/98%20Reg_form.htm
Steve Sweitzer, seminar chairman and past NPPA president writes: "TeamWork" is the name of the game in TV news today - photographers and reporters working together to make "GREAT TV."
The 1998 Airborne TV Seminar will offer something for everyone. There will be sessions for the Team, as well as break out sessions just for photographers and just for reporters. And we won't ignore the folks interested in working as "one person bands."
Among the highlights:
Bring your favorite reporter. Any reporter accompanied by a photographer who is an NPPA member will be charged the $35 NPPA membership registration rate. Also, stations sending more than five people to the workshop will only be charged $30 per person. Everyone's welcome. We offer the same deal to editors, news directors, producers or anyone else working in TV news.
This workshop is about keeping the commitment, making deadlines and moving up in excellence. Learn new tricks, get your batteries recharged and make new friends. Join us for a day to remember.
For more information contact the local chairman for the event, Tim Moushey at WBNS-TV in Columbus at (614) 460-3700.
Golf turned into a contact sport for several of our members this summer.
Lonnie Timmons III of The Plain Dealer was hit in the face with a pair of binoculars by a spectator at the World Series of Golf in Akron. Seems the golf fan wanted to see more of the action and less of Lonnieıs back.
Also on the hit list at the WSOG was Rueters photographer Ron Kuntz who incurred the wrath of Tiger Woodsı caddy Fluff when his camera malfunctioned. The caddy told Kuntz, ³If you donıt know how to shoot golf you shouldnıt be out here.²
The Vindicator's Aimee Obidzinski was physically assaulted by the tournament director at the LPGA Giant Eagle Classic held near Warren.
The altercation occurred while Obidzinski was waiting in the wings at the 18th green shadowing Se Ri Pak who had finished play. Pak won the tournament when Dottie Pepper missed a 3 foot putt on the final hole.
Obidzinski was pushed twice by the director and escorted from the green by police under orders from him. The incident is now under investigation by a local police department.
Michael Petrucci, photographer at WFMJ-TV in Youngstown was treated for injuries at a local hospital after being beaten in the parking lot outside the TV station. He was getting into a company vehicle when a man approached and asked if he worked for the station. When he said yes, the man pulled him from the vehicle and began punching him.
Three passers-by pulled the assailant off Petrucci. Michael Collins of Youngstown was charged with assault. Collins told police that, ³voices from the stationıs satellite dishes told him to do it.²
He was order to undergo a mental evaluation and has since been released from jail. Police now are unable to find Collins to pursue the matter.
Lisa Dutton of The Blade was recently detained while taking pictures of a local jail from the parking lot. An officer approached her and told Dutton, ³you could get shot for that.² She was detained before the situation was resolved. The newspaper is considering legal action.
Dutton had some anxious moments upon her arrival at the recent Ohio PSJ awards program at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
Seems there was some confusion over who was the winner of the organizationıs Best Photographer in Ohio competition.
Dutton was under the impression by SPJ that she was the winner. Upon arriving she saw a printed program for the evening with a picture taken by Bruce Crippen of The Cincinnati Post on the cover proclaiming him as the winner.
There really was no confusion. What Dutton didnıt know was that two winners are named. One for papers over 100,00 circulation which she did win and one for those under 100,000 won by Crippen.
Lots less confusion on the television side where Ali Ghambari of WJW-TV was named Best TV Videographer in Ohio by the organization.
It seems former ONPA member Jason Cohn, now freelancing in the Pittsburgh area, had a rather unforgettable experience during a recent Steelers game at Three Rivers Stadium.
Someone closed the rest room door on Cohn in the pre-game photo room. Problem was, there is no knob on the inside to open the door.
He was not alone however and had the chance to spend some quality time with several members of the armed forces before being set free.
Ohio still photographers as making a turn-around in the NPPA Region 4 clip contest this year. No Ohio photographers placed in the top ten final standings last year.
As of this writing four of the top ten are ONPA members. They are led by Matt Detrich of The Beacon Journal in second, trailing leader J Kyle Keener by just 18 points. Scott Heckel of The Repository is in 6th while Marshall Gorby from The Springfield News-Sun and David Richard of The Morning Journal are tied for 10th.
The Ohio News Photographers Association board of directors met in the balcony of President Ed Subaıs theatre in Akron on September 27th. Officers attending were Bob DeMay, Suba and Kimberly Barth.
The bulk of the meeting involved rule changes for the annual television and still contests and the selection of ONPA merchandise that will be offered for sale.
There are rules changes in both the TV and still contest this year. Television contest chairman Josh White from WCMH-TV in Columbus submitted a written proposal of rules after consulting with TV Vice president Ron Strah.
Categories for this years contest include, spot news, general news, general sports, news feature, sports feature, in depth, personality profile, team entry, editing, photographer of the year and station of the year.
The open judging will be held at WCMH-TV in Columbus. Television members have requested that the judging be held in March so as not to conflict with the February sweeps. Every effort will be made to accommodate the members wishes. The exact date and rules will be published in the next newsletter.
Stricter compliance was suggested as the only way people would learn to follow the rules.
The still contest deadline will be January 30 and judging will probably take place February 12-13 in Columbus. In a change from previous years the portfolio category will now be part of the open judging and be the last category judged on Saturday.
The Ohio Understanding Award, picture usage and picture story categories will be a closed judging on Friday as done previously.
The board has urged Detrich to have the judges wired with microphones to make the contest judging as educational as possible for the membership.
This years contest will be the first for student members to compete for the title of Student Photographer of the Year. This portfolio competition will be judged separately from the general contest and the Larry Fullerton Photojournalism Scholarship.
Student portfolios must contain at least one picture story, one news picture, pictures from at east two other categories and be limited to ten entries. Students must also be members to enter the competition.
A quantity of each has been ordered with the hope of having at least a limited amount or merchandise available at the NPPA Flying Short Course. A full selection will be available at the Dayton convention next spring.
The two recently met with the management at the Fairborn Holiday Inn to look over the facilities. The hotel has just finished a major renovation and have excellent facilities to suit our needs. The hotel is offering convention goers a free shuttle to a near-by shopping mall.
The committee is still finalizing both television and still speakers for the convention which will be held April 9th & 10th.
The sale grossed approximately $20,000 which included the sale of an SUV owned Smallsreed. The remaining property will be sold at auction as soon as possible after which time Smallsreedıs Pickerington home will be listed with a real estate agent.
Attorney William Clark handling Smallsreedıs will estimates the estate should be settled in four to five months.
ONPA will receive the interest on the principal of the estate for 21 years after which time it will be turned over to ONPA.
This offer is for first time members and individuals who have not been a member for five years. This membership drive offer remains in effect only through December and includes student members.
Although no longer a photographer Strah says he will do his best to promote photography and the ONPA in his new position.
The board offers is congratulations to Ron in his new position and its thanks for his years of service to ONPA. The board will name a replacement to serve the remainder of Ronıs term at the next meeting.
The newspaper photojournalism assignment process magnifies the weakness of everyone involved. Reporters design photo coverage. Photographers must repair non-visual ideas. Information that should be shared is isolated
Every time a reporter and photographer spend an hour together in a car going to an assignment, they invent a new newspaper. Let's try some of these ideas. Don't skim this article. Read each point like you read assembly instructions packed with self-assemble toys or furniture. Read a point and reflect before going on.
The current definition of news and how it's covered worked when the initial dynamic came from the newsroom. That is, the newsroom decided, without outside prompting, what was important. That dynamic has left the newsroom.
The newsroom is now led by the nose by anyone with a cause or a product. Clever people have figured out what the newsroom is looking for. They write a script and allow journalists to find it. In May 1998, Jerry Springer is getting tons of free publicity by inventing a story a day about fights on his show. News has become a reaction to someone else's script. Lets Try Something Different
This article outlines a chance for a small group of journalists to write their own script, from concept to content. You may be ready to try it. A better system must go beyond tinkering. In the spirit of the modern organization, everyone involved should be in on photo assignments from the beginning. Everyone will widen their subject repertory beyond news and features.
The assignment system is weak because it's linear. Everyone contributes a part, but no one looks at the whole assignment, from concept to publication. Let's make it a circle with everyone involved in planning at the same time. We will form this small group to experimentally create assignments that integrate words and photos. An editor, reporter, photographer and display editor will get together. Each contributes their expertise, to add to but not detract from the others.
These people come together as equals searching for new ways. Beware, don't invent a new system if you are just going to bring old habits to it. Pretend you are inventing the very first story assignment. This is not a lock-step plan. It's a plan to complement each other's thinking. You each engage in multi-mode thinking.
Leave your ego back in the newsroom where it's a necessary body armor. Enter these meetings with less ego protection and follow through when you work your stories in the field. Find what's out there, not convenient coverage your ego invents. If journalism is getting easy, you may be forcing everything into a convenient pattern you repeat for each story.
This is not a touchy feely group, but if you trust each other, you can present ideas before they are fully formed. Ordinarily, meetings are boring because they alternate between bluster and target practice. Take a chance.
Throw Something Out BEFORE You Know All the Answers
Regular newsroom transactions should be genuine meetings of colleagues. In practice, they are defensive/critical confrontations. Discussions are masked with a polite veneer but the defensive/critical is obvious. If the story is invented mutually by this group, the defensive/critical phrase is avoided. Editors are usually looking for zingers in pictures. Life is not that simple.Here, you can show more and sell it because the group has invested in invested in the work of each member.
We started this article to plan better photo assignments, but that's divisive thinking. We've got to think beyond "news" and "features." You can snicker, but let's call them "cultural reports." They use words, pictures and graphic presentation. ("Package" would be a good word, but its false promise has brought it into dis favor.)
"We" and "they" are powerful and destructive words in the newsroom. We need equally powerful new words and new working methods to overcome this. Start the group activities with a discussion. Forget news, forget procedure.
Forget handy concepts, invent new ones. Allow yourself to do your own interior thinking while cooperating with the group. Introduce your interior thinking when the time is right. What do you find interesting or confounding in this world? Does the group share your curiosity?
Later, your participation will differentiate. Right now, you are equally exploring a fresh way to come up with content. Make it a rule that each must contribute to other's ideas and all must be receptive to any new ideas. As you invent new ways, you are adjusting your interpersonal and organizational relationships. Be open. Reflect and discuss. You are off the deadline clock.
Continue one of those reporter/photographer car conversations. Talk about subjects, people, places or concepts. Ask, what can we collectively add to understanding of these subjects? When do key reporter moments happen? When do photographer moments happen?
At some point, concentrate on likely options for stories. Don't just find another approach and work it to death. You will achieve a new synthesis based on your thinking and the particulars of the assignment you design. On the scene, you are inventing but you are applying ideas you collectively devised during preparation. Experiment with some new techniques as you tackle each new report.
I suggest everyone abandon some of their style, or do the opposite. If you carefully compose, shoot so quickly you can't compose. Both techniques are valid. Expand your repertory. Convince yourself temporarily that style is just a convenient way to gather clichés.
This is risk but it's a more humanistic, organic way, than shorthand-news gathering techniques. A style is predictability. You need style to fall back on, but you need less as the subject becomes important to you. Important because of discovered concepts, not important because thousands are already watching. It's easy to find the action at a football or baseball game. It's not easy to arrive at a concept that explains the popularity of two such opposite sports.
In this project, each person contributes, the group contributes. Take time to consider when individuals working alone contributes best and when group synergy takes over. These individual versus group dynamics have always affected journalists. It helps to bring them out, consider them and understand them. Have periodic meetings to exchange progress reports. Get feedback from the group.
The photo assignment is a many part transaction. Communication specialists know it's difficult for two people to communicate very well, even face to face. The chances of a photo assignment holding its integrity through originator, editor, photographer, layout editor are nil. Each step tends to mutilate the previous step.
As the photojournalists in this experiment, try shooting more free form, with abandon. You can risk this because you did your thinking with the group. It's kind of like loading psychic energy into a flywheel. You draw upon it effortlessly when shooting. You will achieve a new synthesis between you and the subject, based on being creatively prepared.
This is mutually achieved creativity, not directed photography. It is a synthesis of you and the subject, rising out of the group. Creativity needs stimulus to accomplish. The group helps everyone. The group considers form, process and content in due course.
As a photojournalist, your new work will be given ample consideration beyond, "I like it," or "I need it," or "Go away." But, you can expect creative reversals. You are raising the bar beyond spitting out familiar examples of your style. Soon, your work will reach a higher style. Renew the cycle and start over. You don't have to renew your cliches, because you have a continuing source of new subjects and subject treatments.
You will end with the purist form of creativity, because imagination will become recognized as a legitimate news gathering tool. This doesn't have to be a leap. The group will quietly, in small ways, introduce new ideas. The newsroom can't accommodate leaps. Leaps wear out. Leapers get tired and give up. This is a small group, a mutual move.
It's a weakness of journalism that style and content are repeated endlessly. This new procedure depends on finding new content within the routine world, not with jazzing up personal style. As you work with the group, new style will evolve from synthesis of group discussion and new content. If you are lucky, you could invent a new style that may last a generation. The secret is to remain open to adding new elements and abandoning worn out elements of this new style.
The Old Way May Be Safe But Thereıs No Future In It.
Your group may draw some snide remarks. That's the mark of something new. Journalists cover controversy all the time, but they have little tolerance for it in newsroom procedures. It won't wreck the newsroom to have a little controversy on home turf. When you finally succeed, your job will be to train the rest of the newsroom.
Actually, the newsroom process filters out too much of the outside world. Newsrooms have missed the flowering of an entirely new management philosophy devised to meet the information economy. Newsroom management is fairly close to that of Caesar's army. Take heart, controversy is a prelude to genuine new thinking. Those who fight new ideas are the best prospects to implement them.
If you use this plan to form an elite group, you are missing its spirit. Help train others, even if it's for selfish reasons. If you persuade others, you will be a pioneer in a better way. If you become an elite group, others will figure out a way to destroy the group.
This new assignment system will essentially redefine the roles of participants. This may be traumatic, but these roles were designed long before today's information world. Present roles are an antiquated, unrealistic mesh with today's world.
The photojournalist's role was defined when newspaper photographers were not educated to news. They were mostly self-taught photographers, not photojournalists. They knew how to operate the camera like a mechanic knows tools. These early photographers needed direction on content. Today, photojournalists are college trained journalists. They are more than camera mechanics, they are journalists. They must be allowed to use their training.
Actually, the reporter's job and the photojournalist's job were defined at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when workers were ignorant farmers. Work was segmented, allowing a minimally trained person to function. Today, knowledge workers want to be involved in every phase. Journalists are crying for inclusion every time they cite "they" for ruining their stories or photos.
To paraphrase Pogo, let "they" become "us." It's the way the world is going. Journalists see this change when they roam their community. Neighborhood groups are part of the urban decision making process. Industrial workers work in small, democratic groups. Some journalists wonder, why doesn't this happen in the newsroom? It's ironic that the very entity that chronicles change is so resistant to non-technological change. İ Tom Hubbard, 1998
The Plain Dealer has filled three openings on the photography staff. New to the staff is John Kuntz who many may remember from his days working in the Cleveland area years ago with his father Ron at UPI.
Larry Hamel-Lambert will move from his position as night picture editor at the PD and return to the staff as a photographer.
Also on board is Marvin Fong who had been working at the Dayton Daily News.
Joining the staff in Dayton is Lisa Powell who had been working in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
NPPA Region 4 Director Greg Peters has left his position at The Columbus Dispatch to become Director of Photography at The State in Columbia, SC.
Aimee Obidzinski, has left her position at The Vindicator and has moved to Middletown and is currently freelancing. She rejoins her husband David Colabine who had recently left WYTV-TV in Youngstown to join the staff at WKRC-TV in Cincinnati.
Julie Venetti joins the staff at The Repository in Canton. She had been working at The News Journal in Mansfield. Jim Zemko, who had been working as an intern in Mansfield, has been hired as a staff photographer at The Star Beacon in Ashtabula.
Bob Christy has been promoted to the position of photo editor at The Times Reporter in New Philadelphia. Christy replaces Jon Conklin who left the paper to work as a commercial photographer. Pat Burk has been promoted to a full time staff position at the paper after stringing for the paper for several years.
Mark Rogers is now Photo Editor at The (Pottstown, PA) Mercury News leaving his position at The Independent in Massillon.
ONPA Television vice president Ron Strah is now the operations manager at WKYC-TV in Cleveland. Strah had worked the last six years as a photographer at WJW-TV in Cleveland.
After spending the past ten years at WCMH-TV in Columbus, Tim Moushey has moved across town to WBNS-TV.
Connie Jones, photographer at WFMJ-TV in Youngstown has left the station to become Project Manager for the Business & Media Archives of the Mahoning Valley. Also leaving the station are Rochelle Wysinger who has moved to WPGH-TV in Pittsburgh and Eric Zurchur who has moved to cross town rival WYTV-TV.
The pursuit of recording history kept many very busy, made others lots of money and had still others breathing a sigh of relief.
On the busy side was Amy Sancetta of the Associated Press. She was one of six members of the AP team that followed McGwire for ten games and witnessed homers 58-62 and 66-70.
As Sancetta tells it, "Every time the guy came to the plate, you absolutely knew he was going to hit a home run. It was really a rush."
Her position was between the bag at third and the left field wall. "It made for a good picture of his swing and follow through since he almost always hit his home runs to left field. Even when he didn't hit a homer, he seemed to give us good pictures," Sancetta said.
Her favorite moment was McGwire's joyous run around the bases after breaking Maris' record by hitting number 62 on Sept. 8.
"I love that he was so caught up in the moment that he missed first base and had to be pointed back to it by the first base coach-it as a moment we see again and again in Little League or t-ball games when the coach grabs the exuberant hitter by the sleeve and makes him touch first on the way around the bases," said Sancetta
"In professional sports today with all the money and sponsors and yuck,we rarely see such moments of pure, unadulterated joy. I will never forget the feeling," she added.
On the making lots of money side of the home run chase, the big winner was the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. When McGwire hit number 62, he broke a record and handed a $1 million bonus to the paper.
"I feel like he hit the ball, and we caught it," said Post-Dispatch vice president and general manager Terrance Egger. McGwire's feat helped the paper capture more than $300,000 in ad revenue and $600,000 circulation revenue and poster sales within the span of a few days from special sections, extras and soaring single-copy sales. The profit was not without planning but also required lots of last-minute improvisation.
Initial plans called for special coverage of each homer after McGwire got to 50 and a special edition if he reached 62. As interest built, another edition was added for homer number 61.
On Labor Day when McGwire hit number 61 in the first inning, there was plenty of time for the Post-Dispatch to get a special edition to the stadium before the game ended, because much of the material was already in the can.
By the day of the record breaker, plans for the special were being revised upward every several hours.
"The scene at the stadium was such that we could not get the papers off of the vans to the hawkers," said Egger. "We sold them right out of the vans. Then it was like a fire following fuel. The crowds followed us right downtown to the paper, and we found ourselves selling directly out of the lobby."
The sighs of relief came from the media in Cincinnati who were glad that the scene in St Louis did not play out in their town which was McGwireıs next stop in pursuit of history.
"Itıs one thing to plan for a playoff series that you know is coming," said Cincinnati Enquirer photographer Mike Snyder, "but having the record dropped on your doorstep is totally different ball game," he added.
The Enquirer planned from the start of the season when Pete Rose broke Ty Cobbıs all time hit record. That was a luxury they didnıt have this time around although plans were in place for both special and live sections should the record be broken in Cincinnati.
"We never will know how good our plan was this time around," said Snyder, who seemed quite happy not to know the answer.