COMMUNICATIONS

You may think that I spend an inordinate amount of time bitching about working conditions. Yeah, well, I suppose you are right. A Managing Editor once took me aside in the parking lot of The Garden City Bowl, at 3 AM after a late night of talking and drinking, and drinking and talking and drinking.

He said, "Kraus, I've known you for 15 years and you've always been a pain in my ass. (Now how's that for communication?) But, I have to admit that all of your griping was never personal. All you ever bitched about was how to get better pictures in the paper."

I took that as a high form of compliment. And along those lines, I submit this journal.

Communication. I don't have a dictionary handy, at the moment, but I know that this word means a method of expressing opinions and ideas. Communication. The very heart of our craft. Newspapers, magazines, TV, radio. In words, pictures and graphics, we communicate opinions and ideas to our readers, viewers and listeners. Why, then, do we have so many problems communicating among ourselves.

About fifteen years ago, Newsday was concerned about flagging morale at the paper. So, they contracted with a company that specializes in these things and a survey was performed in every department at the paper. Everyone who worked at Newsday, from editorial, clerical, back shop production to the cleaning crews had a survey form that was written out to probe each department's particular problems. It was very well done and it questioned how you felt about job security; did you feel that you were being trained adequately; how did you feel about your chances for advancement; were you satisfied with your supervisors, your pay, your working conditions?

The results of all of these inquiries were tabulated and each department was informed of the priorities of all their answers. Do you want to know what was at the top of the list in the Photo Dept? Inadequate information on photo assignments. That was fifteen years ago. There have been a lot of changes made; some good; some bad. But, photographers are still complaining about poorly written photo assignment requests. There is an electronic form in our computer system whereby reporters can submit photo requests to their editors who are supposed to read them and pass them on to the Photo Desk, where a Photo Editor is supposed to read them and file them to be assigned at the proper time and date.

And, with all of that, we still get assignments to cover a story that occurred yesterday, or will occur next week. Addresses are left off. We have asked to have cross streets or landmarks included where possible. That rarely happens. Many times all we get is a subject's name without any information as to the reason why he/she/they are being photographed. Sports will put in an assignment for a head shot of some high school student for their student athlete of the week column. They are pretty good about giving us the student's name. And they usually give us the name of the school. But, often they omit the name of the community. That's ok if it's Garden City High School. But where in the Hell is John C. Calhoun High School? Are we expected to know the location of every high school in two counties? Not hardly.

A couple of days ago, I had an assignment to cover a story for our Education Editor. I had to go to a couple of BOCES schools. (I don't know if the term BOCES is universally used. It stands for Board Of Cooperative Educational Services and it provides everything from special education for kids with disabilities to trade and career courses for students who can't comply with the requirements to go on to higher education.)

I will quote in part from the assignment sheet provided by the Education Editor.

"New state figures show that blacks are enrolled in BOCES special-education programs in far higher proportions than whites. Some educational leaders say this demonstrates bias in the way students are classified."

"We want pix of classes illustrating the situation. This can be done by taking pix of classes already visited by a reporter at these two BOCES centers."

The rest of the assignment detailed which classes the editor visited. OK. No problem, right? Then how come when I got to the first school and they took me to a physical education class, there were 8 students playing basketball and 5 of them were white? I took my photos without trying to skew the ratio, figuring that the next class might be more relevant to the story. But, the computer class that I went to next had one black student and five whites.

© 1999 Newsday Photo by Dick Kraus

I said to the Supt. of the BOCES district that these pictures weren't indicative of what the editor told me he saw. The Supt. asked me what I was expecting to find. Before I answered, I scanned the assignment sheet to see if there was any indication that this was some kind of an investigative piece. There was nothing written that would support that theory. So, I told him. He was surprised. He told me that he had spoken to this editor, in his office, for more than two hours, the day before. And the subject of a racial ratio never entered the conversation.

© 1999 Newsday Photo by Dick Kraus

© 1999 Newsday Photo by Dick Kraus

Now, I'm standing there, hung out to dry, trying to make excuses that aren't sounding very convincing. The Supt. takes me to another school, where I photograph two more classes with the same results. I questioned him as to why the class sizes were so small. He said that he had told the editor, the day before, that most of the students would be taking regents exams at their regular high school today. Jeez! Give me a break. Talk about stacking the deck against all possibility of getting the kind of picture that would illustrated the story.

I spoke to the editor about this assignment, yesterday. He blew up at me.

"Man, did you open a hornet's nest," he said. "The Supt. called me and read me the riot act about bringing racial issues into this story without having the decency to tell him what it was all about." He went on. "How could you tell him that was what I was doing? Didn't you think that this would be a sensitive subject that required you to keep quiet about our intentions?"

I waved the photo assignment sheet in his face, because I was getting pissed off at this point.

"Show me on this paper, any indication that this was a covert operation. You said that I was to photograph classes with a higher ratio of blacks to whites. When I didn't see that, wouldn't you think it would be proper for me to question why I wasn't seeing that? Unless, of course, there was something written on here about not discussing that aspect of the story with anyone, because it is an investigative piece. It's all a matter of communication. I can't read your ----ing mind!"

He mumbled a kind of apology and turned away.

Now, I have to remember to write complete and accurate captions. Especially for the Education Page. Well, that's part of communications, too.

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