Reader made picture worth several words

Well here I am in my new Sunday spot.

My goal, as always, is the same. To give readers a peek into the

inner workings of the newsroom, and maybe explain why we make the

decisions we do.

What will change today is my focus, which I plan to keep much

narrower and honed.

So speaking of focus, let’s talk a little here about photographs.

To begin, I’d like to say that one of the things we are most proud

of here at the Daily Pilot is our photography. But in Thursday’s

edition, we had a little problem with a photograph that one reader

felt the need to protest.

The photograph accompanied a dining review of the Mariner’s Mile

restaurant, Billy’s at the Beach. It pictured a bartender in the

background and a Billy’s menu and bar glass in the foreground.

Problem was, the bar glass had a sketching that features the top

half of a woman’s bare chest.

I have to be honest, I didn’t notice that detail in the photo when

I first read the dining review that morning. But one reader did and

he followed with several phone calls to the paper and later a letter

that was published Saturday.

“The photograph ... demonstrates [in my opinion], very little

journalistic accountability,” wrote reader Steve Gooden.

Let me explain the process here.

After the photos are shot, they are sent to the photo editor, who

normally checks the quality of the image as well as journalistic

soundness. The photo editor then sends the photo through our digital

pagination system. From there, a desk editor grabs the photo and

places it on the page.

After it is placed on the page electronically, a hard-copy proof

of the page is produced and another editor proof reads the page,

looking at stories, photos and photo captions.

So how did this photo get through so many folks? I started first

with the photographer.

“He set up everything on how he wants his establishment

represented,” said photographer Sean Hiller, who took the shot. “I

was concentrating on him pouring the drink and I overlooked the

logo,” Hiller said.

The photo editor, Steve McCrank, who was busy producing

late-breaking sports shots that night said the same thing. And when

the desk editors and I looked at the black and white proof of the

page, we all acknowledged the detail of the glass was difficult to

make out.

So really, what looked, at least to one reader, like a purposeful

attempt on our part to push racy glassware pictures on the public was

really just a failure to pay close attention to details.

But as usual, it will ultimately serve as another lesson for us

here in the newsroom.

Finally, I can’t resist handing out birthday wishes to my little

ground hog, Kristen Elise, who turns 2 today. And of course I can’t

forget little Richard Nolan Dunn, son of Pilot sports writer Rich

Dunn, who also turns 2 today.

Happy Ground Hog birthday kids.