Pro Photographers Needed
Images of the horrifying and disturbing scene of last Thursday’s apparent suicide by airplane into a building in North Austin reaffirms why we need a full staff of professionals and especially professional photographers in newsrooms. For hours on end, television news photographers documented the scene. The pictures were page one above the fold in the Austin American-Statesman three days in a row.
Yes, reporters could have shot some pictures. They probably did, but reporters have another job. Yes, the first pictures on television or the Internet may have been from folks with flip-cameras or cell phones—passersby. Those pictures are of marginal quality, but for first pictures, they’re OK. After a while, they began to all look the same, however.
One local TV station tried to show what was happening using broadband early on, but about all you could see was the dashboard of the news unit. Another local TV station stayed on sorry-looking broadband images far too long late Thursday morning. Perhaps they were just showing off. Perhaps they didn’t have a live shot set up. Whatever. Broadband live shots are great if they are the first live images from a scene before the professional photographers and live truck operators show up, but they cheat the audience after the fact.
Another scary detail reported in a newspaper story regarding the use of so-called social media in news quoted a KTBC-TV (Fox) assignment editor saying that he heard emergency radio scanner traffic regarding the incident and passed it along on Twitter. That is doubly dangerous. Emergency communications picked on a scanner are nothing more that the first indication, not verification, that something happened. Scanner traffic should never be reported as fact, even on Twitter. It’s totally unprofessional.
During a fluid “spot news” story, there is no substitute for a professional.
At the scene, there is no substitute for pro photogs. Ralph Barrera, Jay Janner, Rodolfo Gonzalez, and colleagues at the Austin American-Statesman shot hundreds of frames. They are in a “slide show” on the American-Statesman’s web site, www.statesman.com. Their wide angle photos of the scene were on the front page day after day.
Thursday was Thomas Costley’s birthday. Costley is a photographer and live truck/satellite truck operator for KXAN-TV (NBC). Costley was on the job, working his tail off all day. I’m betting that Thomas would have been fishing otherwise. Costley, however, is a pro.
Another multifaceted pro, mentioned here before, is KEYE-TV’s (CBS) chief photographer John Salazar. Once again, Salazar, gathering in all of the information and images in his mind, several times delivered the most complete, concise, and cogent descriptions of the events ON CAMERA. No telling what he was doing with his camera when he wasn’t live. Salazar’s live reports were better than any reporter. Once, the station pitched to him just as a news conference was beginning. KEYE did not have a live camera at that location, but, Salazar pushed his cell phone into the news conference as the TV station used other images. His day was long as well.
Sometimes, you are in the right place at the right time. Sometimes, you are not. KXAN was out of position for at least two news conferences. Probably, it was through no fault of their own. TV stations set up their live shots where they can get the best shot, but the news conferences may not be happening there.
All broadcast stations and News 8 did fairly well covering the story. KVUE and KEYE had something of an advantage because of their locations in north Austin, but it’s all about execution.
My philosophy was to be the first on the scene and the last to leave the scene. All stations resumed programming shortly after the noon hour, no one really wanting to be last.
The bottom line in TV spot news is pictures. It’s not reporters. It’s not anchors (There was entirely too much speculation from the anchor desks.) It’s not graphics. The bottom line is video—pictures. The best pictures come from professional news photographers.
When and if Austin has chiefly reporters shooting pictures and video—one-man-bands—we will have taken a giant step backwards.
© Jim McNabb, 2010