Back in the day, like a lot of cub reporters working for small newspapers, I’d haul along a camera and take shots of whatever fluffy event I might happen to be covering (real news photography was handled by the single staff photographer). Here’s some of my artwork from half my life ago, courtesy of one of my many former employers, The Southeast Missourian of Cape Girardeau, Mo.
Is that milk? Great shot.
Nope — that was actual, honest-to-God cheap champagne. I remember the day well. That railroad line was hopelessly damaged and it made me nervous to see a train engine navigating its way on it. Check out those cross-ties.
In those days, when I took shots, I also was expected to develop the film, make a contact sheet, pick out a shot or two, print them up (touching them up if needed), then crop them for layout size and write cutlines. Did I mention I was working for an afternoon newspaper, meaning I usually was on a brutal deadline for actually writing the story? See — this was training for what was to come.
I think that’s a good, oft-forgotten point: Doing all sorts of tasks with all sorts of steps to get the news out isn’t a new expectation for journalism. Can we blame the late ’80s and ’90s for that task/step mentality disappearing? What happened in between that point in time and the we-must-be-trained-and-are-overwhelmed newsroom protests of today?
Well, even then, if you were a do-all reporter, it was a sure sign you worked for a little newspaper. What this also meant is that I wrote some crappy stories and did some crappy darkroom work to make deadlines — although that always made me crazy.
My favorite do-all event came when I was sent out to cover a towboat fire. The boat had been pulled into shore along the Mississippi River and tied up so the fire could burn out. The nearest parking area was about half a mile away, and then I had to hike up some railroad tracks and along the riverbank to get to the burning boat.
As I neared the boat, I suddenly stepped into a mud hole and immediately sank up to my waist (thank God it was not quicksand). My gear was still in a bag over my shoulder, so it was fine and I tossed it aside. It still took me perhaps 10 minutes to extricate myself from the pit. My pants were covered with a lovely layer of mud.
I took a few shots and hiked it back to the car — and deadline was approaching. As a result, I had to go back to the newsroom — mud-caked pants and all — and go through the whole developing/printing/cropping/cutline-writing/story-writing exercise. I left mud all over the place. It was a great day.