Visual Reporting: An Interview with Denis Paquin

The choices of if, when, and how to publish violent news images have long been a foundational area of moral and ethical debate among professionals and gatekeepers in visual communication. Every once in a while, the arguments of how to handle such highly charged imagery are fueled by the appearance of a powerful news image, which energizes the discussion like a lightning rod. An indisputable example of such a photo is Turkey-based Associated Press (AP) staff photographer Burhan Özbilici’s (2017) tragic series of photos from 2016, which depicts the assassination of Russia’s Ambassador to Turkey, Andrey Karlov.

Özbilici captured the images near the end of his shift, when he stopped by an opening of a Russian photo exhibition in Ankara. Ambassador Karlov was making an appearance at the event and so Özbilici thought that Karlov’s availability there would be a good opportunity to get some “filers,” or archival headshots of notables and officials for use as file photos.

Russia’s aggressive involvement in the lengthy and deadly Syrian civil war had complicated relations between Turkey and Russia, so he thought photos of the senior diplomat might be useful to have ready for upcoming stories.

When Özbilici arrived, the Ambassador began a low-key speech about his homeland. Suddenly a Turkish police officer who was quietly standing behind him leaped forward screaming and repeatedly shot Karlov in the back, shouting, “Don’t forget Aleppo! Don’t forget Syria!” as the diplomat fell to the floor mortally wounded. While the rest of the shocked attendees took cover, and recoiled from the shocking spectacle and gunfire, Özbilici remained and continued to photograph the assassin as he waved his gun, and shouted slogans at the onlookers, continuing to fire bullets into Karlov’s motionless body on the floor. The gunman ordered everyone out of the room and was killed soon after, during the police response.

The riveting series of images of the grim and historic event captured the attention of the world and engrossed the photojournalism profession in discussions. Over time, the image of the shouting rogue policeman standing over the body in the gallery with his arm and gun pointed into the air was identified as a historic and iconic image. Also, it became symbolic of the risks and courageous duties incumbent on those in the profession (Özbilici, 2016).

“Photojournalism is a weird profession,” said photojournalist Robert Scheer (2016). The Indianapolis-based photojournalist wrote about the photos in a discussion of “Why Photojournalism Matters” and compared the work to iconic Pulitzer honored images and lauding Özbilici’s composure while under fire. “Some days it’s all ice cream socials and food shoots,” continued Scheer. “But those of us who do this for any length of time eventually find ourselves running toward explosions or tear gas to get close to the scenes that most people run from.”

A highly anticipated entry in the highest journalistic professional honors, Özbilici’s images took Photo of the Year in World Press, but was passed over in the Pulitzer Prize competition. Even in the World Press, the philosophical split among photojournalists was evident. Stuart Franklin (2017), a venerable and respected photojournalist who served as the chair of the judging panel, wrote a lengthy opinion piece for The Guardian critical of the winning images, voicing sentiments consistent with the categorical imperative and saying Özbilici’s photos, in effect, validated “the compact between martyrdom and publicity.” In counterpoint, Franklin’s peer and fellow judge Mary F. Calvert cited the ferociously honest nature of the images for their utilitarian value: “It was a very, very difficult decision, but in the end, we felt that the picture of the year was an explosive image that really spoke to the hatred of our times” (Khomami, 2017).

AP’s Acting Director of Photography Denis Paquin concurs with a largely utilitarian evaluation of Özbilici’s powerful images, taking polite but firm exception to Franklin’s perspective: “Really, I think [Franklin’s] forgotten what the award and what the contest stand for which is basically to honor the person who, you know, put him or herself in that kind of situation” (“Paquin appointed,” 2010). Paquin explained,

If you look at the entire sequence of the work he did. It wasn’t a one-photo, ‘that’s my moment’ and I ran away. He stayed there. You know, he basically was in the line of fire. The only thing he had to hide behind was a speaker stand. That’s it. He was fairly exposed … . If the gunman that decided that Burhan was next, it would have been so. So, it’s the presence of mind … of doing his job.

In a discussion of the image’s unique value and power, Paquin stressed other utilitarian perspectives, including the image’s value as a historical artifact.

It’s not just about today and tomorrow – it’s about the historical value of why we do what we do. And so, there was that aspect – how important it was to history … . The other aspect was how it really drove home yet again a great reminder of how powerful still photography remains, so it’s not fleeting the way video is.

“You know, you’re making constant judgments when you’re in those kinds of positions,” Paquin explained.

And, for seasoned veterans, very, very few are going to run because you’re doing your job anyway. So, that’s why the reaction from the chair was a little unfounded. Because again, we’re there to do a job. We’re not thinking of promoting violence. There’s always been these long discussions of ‘does it lead to a copycat?’ or ‘Do people do it because they want publicity?’ Those are not the kind of things that most photographers are thinking of when they’re doing their jobs.

Paquin noted that deliberations of ethics and consequences do happen among editors and gatekeepers when they are about to distribute images or publish.

You know it’s a discussion that we have frequently in the newsroom. We had a lot of these discussions when ISIS was releasing their [beheading] videos, and when it came to how frequently or when are we going to release parts of their video … .

Paquin discusses some choices as if they are adopting a golden mean approach, where they strive to accurately depict the event, but come short of shocking the reader as well as appear to be an agent for the terrorists or playing into their agenda. Paquin says such decisions are typically made “on a case by case basis.”

He continues about how AP forms their own publication standards:

We weren’t obviously going to do it every time, because then we would have looked like you know their mouthpiece – promoting their propaganda. And even when we did choose a still from it, it was usually a moment that was the furthest away from the horrific violence that ensued. So, there’s a lot of discussion that goes on in those kind of circumstances, because we know what is being handed to us, so we know that they want a certain amount of publicity for it.

In addition to the historical value, another important consideration for Paquin is “the impact that a photo has on the viewer.” The key to a powerful image is that it shows the necessary drama, and emotional content, but doesn’t go as far to move the viewer toward total aversion, revulsion or sheer disgust. Paquin explains, “If you shock people to the point where they don’t want to see an image, then you’re not doing your job. Because you want people to spend time studying that photo … looking at it … learning from it … .”

It’s like reading a part of history or reading a book that you want to remember and you want to go back and study … you know at first, you may not want to see it because you see it as a body on the ground. But you’re going to want to go back and study what’s in the photo itself. And that’s where it’s the information that you gather from it which is incredibly important.

Paquin drew comparisons to other historic and powerful images.

How many people finally looked at Nick Ut’s photo [of the children burned in an accidental napalm bombing during the Vietnam War]? So, you know, at first, it might have turned people off – and I’m certain it had nothing to do with nudity – but it had to do with the screaming face and how horrible it would have been … but then you go back, and you start going beyond that person, and studying the landscape, and what’s going on in that particular photo. You might even do research and find others because for me it’s information that anyone who’s curious wants to learn something from what we do.

And again, we’re at war, where there’s civil strife, and we shoot pictures of dead bodies all the time … and there’s ways to do it. Again, if you shock your audience that they’re so revolted that they’re not going to look at that photo, then you’re not doing your job. You really want to do it so that there’s enough information that people want to go back and study the moment that you’re trying to capture.

“I think it was a hell of a lot of front pages everywhere around the world,” said Paquin about Özbilici’s well-published images.

The amazing thing, too, is because he stayed, there were a variety of photos. If you didn’t want to use that now-historic moment of the gunman standing yelling over the body, there were other images that people could use. So, I suspect that just about every newspaper in the world used something of Burhan’s.

Paquin said that, if he were a photo editor at a news organization, he would have published the photo “definitely on the front page, as big as possible. Again – for maximum impact.”

Despite the minor debate about the World Press Award outcome, Paquin sees value and some utility in the discussions these occurrences may bring.

I think it’s a good discussion within our industry. And hopefully people don’t place so much importance on who wins and who doesn’t. I think you know it’s a morale booster. If it’s going to make people you know want to be out there. Winning awards isn’t something that motivates – being good at what we do, being consistent at what we do, is.

According to Paquin the key lesson to remember in these discussions happen

when the photographers themselves explain what the process is – I think that it’s valuable. You know, basically, whether ‘it took me a month to do this project’ and ‘what it took to do this project,’ or listening to Burhan and his emotions and what he was feeling when he shot those photos – I think those things are incredibly valuable.

Paquin reiterates, “I know I’m like a broken record when I’m talking about recording history, but it really is why you become a photojournalist.”

References

“Burhan Ozbilici.” (2017). World Press Photo. Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.worldpressphoto.org/people/burhan-ozbilici.

Franklin, S. (February 13, 2017). “This image of terror should not be photo of the year – I voted against it.” The Guardian. Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/13/world-press-photo-year-turkey-russian-assassination.

Khomami, N. (February 13, 2017). “Image of Turkish assassin wins 2017 World Press Photo award.” The Guardian. Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/13/world-press-photo-award-2017-turkish-assassin.

Ozbilici, B. (December 20, 2016). “Witness to an assassination: AP photographer captures attack.” AP News. Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.apnews.com/eadca282d5d341a79bb464bbadc4fa11.

“Paquin appointed AP deputy director of photography.” (March 23, 2010). Boston.com. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://archive.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/03/23/paquin_appointed_ap_deputy_director_of_photography/.

Scheer, R. (December 20, 2016). “Scheer: Why photojournalism matters.” IndyStar. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2016/12/20/scheer-photojournalism-matters/95666494/.

Documentary and Advocacy: Interviews with Nick Oza and Stephen Katz

The choice of whether to explicitly pursue advocacy through photojournalism continues to be a robust point of discussion and debate among professionals. Some photojournalists strive to avoid perceptions of advocacy in favor of the classic journalistic core values of objectivity and impartiality. Others choose to embrace advocacy boldly. And many professionals fall somewhere in the middle.

Nick Oza (n.d.) has been a staff photojournalist at the Arizona Republic since 2006, where he has been drawn to stories about social topics such as refugees, immigration, child welfare, women’s issues, mental health, and gang-related violence. Nick is a nationally and internationally recognized photojournalist, a four-time Arizona Photographer of the Year, and he was part of Knight-Ridder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning team in 2006 for work documenting the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

Oza sees a fine line between activism and journalism but maintains that those in journalism have to be careful not to cross that line, “but still be the voice of a community.” While Oza covers social issues with a sense of mission, he is careful to stay true to his espoused core values of journalistic objectivity.

One way to stay on the right side of that boundary is to be careful not to stray into any kind of participatory role with a subject. For instance, while doing a story on “Dreamers” – undocumented immigrants who came to the United States when they were minors – Oza was photographing a young woman who was stumped by the Byzantine task of filling out immigration paperwork for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). When she asked Oza for assistance with completing the forms, he needed to restrain himself from his inclination toward helping her. “She had no clues how to even fill out the paperwork, and she was asking me ‘Do you think I’ll be able to get the help?’” He replied, “I’m not a lawyer … And there are many of you like this, and that’s the story I want to tell. But you need an expert or a lawyer.”

Oza says because he’s careful with his boundaries, and honest about his process, people tend to trust him. When covering stories in Mexico and working with locals who were involved in drug or human trafficking, Oza has had to warn subjects of his photos about giving him their names. “People are trusting me and giving me their first name and last name.” Oza recollected, “I told them ‘There is a possibility your story can come out and your names in the story can jeopardize you. Are you going to be okay?’”

“As a human being you have to explain,” Oza continued. “Those people have to live there – so we have to make them aware.” “I’m going to be able to walk out when I’m finished, but something bad can happen to them.” “These are the sensitive issues and you really have to be careful, as a journalist or a human being.”

The genuine interest that Oza has for these populations facilitates his subject’s sense of trust that they have in him. This, in turn, facilitates Oza’s ability to be more effective in ways that a more detached photojournalist might not be. Oza’s still connected with the marginalized populations that he reports on – and it helps facilitate his work through information, tips, and heads-up from the community that he’s immersed in. “People can help you if they know what kind of work you’re doing,” says Oza.

Stephen Katz (n.d.) is more explicit and unflinching about his role as an advocate. “It’s hard to avoid the word advocacy,” he says. Katz has been a photojournalist at The Virginian-Pilot since 2004, where he came from working at the Daily News in Bangor, Maine, and The Freelance Star in Fredericksburg, VA. He regularly contributes pro bono work for various non-profits and NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations). While he holds a Master’s degree in Journalism (Temple University), he evolved into his life in journalism from spending some time as a social worker after earning a degree in anthropology (Dickinson College). Katz has been named “Photographer of the Year” by the National Press Photographers Association (2008), Northern Short Course (2008), Southern Short Course (2007), among his other regional, national, and international honors.

His grounding in a strong prosocial perspective makes Katz a vigorous and unapologetic advocate about, well, being an advocate. “I think there is an element of advocacy from the get-go in what we do, and I don’t think that’s anything to be ashamed of.”

“Honestly, I think we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t think there is an element of advocacy in what we do as newspaper journalists,” Katz said. “You know, we pursue stories that in and of themselves are advocating for certain communities or neighborhoods.”

Katz gives an example on how local news organizations might cover local news:

You know when the local football team goes to a bowl game, and we send a photographer and reporter down at the pep rally and all … We are there for the team getting on the bus, and all the celebrations. But we don’t have a photographer over photographing the other team in the same way.

Katz observes, “So how ‘impartial’ is that?”

I think being an advocate doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t be objective. I don’t think advocacy is a synonym for being subjective. I think they are two different things. I think it’s a rich history of newspapers to be an advocate, frankly, for their community. The fourth estate is there to keep politicians, corporate executives, to keep the fat and powerful in check for the ordinary man on the street.

Not unlike Oza, Katz is unequivocal about the importance of establishing trust with those whose stories he tells.

Subjects are true and honest and open when you’re true and honest and open with them. That’s when you know you’re going to be telling the best stories or making the best images and you can’t do that if you come into their home and you’re completely mechanical.

Katz offered an example of some recent documentary work that focused on the victims and terrible legacy of Agent Orange. “You know I was teetering between being a photojournalist and being a champion for the cause,” Katz recalled. “I pushed that story as far as we could go. There was something that was personal to me. And you know I pursued it with all the energy that I possibly could.”

“And I’m not sorry for the way I worked that project,” Katz reasoned.

I think a lot of good came out of it. Nothing harmful came out of it. And you know, those people need a voice. That’s what we offer. We often offer the common person – the man on the street – a voice. A mayor, or a senator, or politician, or a celebrity, or a wealthy businessman can have a press conference, and can say things that’ll be picked up by media outlets. But there’s really nobody but the journalists that are there to tell the stories of the people who don’t have that privilege.

You know that I advocate for every subject that I cover. I mean, why wouldn’t I? I advocate. I advocate for my best images to run with each story. I advocate for as much space as we can on stories, so I’m clearly advocating for my own work. But that’s not a photo – that’s a person … and that’s a story that somebody has experienced. And so, again, for me photojournalism has very little to do with photography. Photojournalism is all about building a relationship with a subject. Witnessing what you know the aspect of their life that we’re covering. And then to share that, in an honest way, with people who consume our product. In some ways, it’s very businesslike.

A place where Oza and Katz do find strong alignment is the importance they place on empathy as a photojournalist, as well as a strong sense of obligation and commitment to those whose lives they are documenting. Says Katz, “If you don’t have empathy and compassion, I just I don’t think you’re going to make the same connection with readers as you could if you were a human first and a photographer second.”

Oza admits that the immersion into the social problems he documents takes a toll on him. “You’re a human being. With this type of subject matter, you really have to care about what you’re doing – otherwise you cannot really cover it.”

I think you know, ethics-wise, in terms of manipulating photographs … changing or moving your subjects around … or being libellous … or changing reality … or editing pixels or content or erasing things – all that kind of stuff is ethically wrong. But showing compassion and showing empathy to your subject – I don’t think that is a violation of any ethics policy.

Katz feels a strong sense of veneration to his stewardship role. “Always remember that it’s a responsibility and a privilege that people give us to tell their stories and to be respectful and to be open and honest is the most important thing.”

“Again, it’s not lost on me that it’s called ‘taking a photograph,’” Katz observes.

You know, we’re taking something – and so we have to be willing to give as much as we take. And that’s giving them the time … and them believing that I’m going to tell their story as honestly as I can… and that I’m sort of a conduit for getting their voice to be heard.

“I mean, it’s an enormous responsibility that somebody shares with you their voice, their ideas, their opinion … and then we’re responsible for sharing that with, you know, hundreds of thousands of people,” says Katz.

“And we better be on the mark.”

References

“Nick Oza website.” (n.d.). Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.nickoza.com/index.

“Stephen M. Katz website.” Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://stephenkatzphotography.com/splash.

Citizen Journalism: Interviews with Jim Collins and Emmanuelle Saliba

Jim Collins, Director of Photography at NBC News, and Emmanuelle Saliba, the Senior Editor for Social Newsgathering at NBC News, are two journalism professionals who have particular understanding of how citizen journalism and user-generated content (UGC) can contribute to storytelling. Collins (n.d.) had his origins in newspaper photo editing, and came to The Associated Press’s New York headquarters in 2000, where he worked as Photo Desk Manager. He has been Director of Photography at NBC News since 2013. Saliba (2017) oversees five reporters on a team that is responsible for finding, verifying, and acquiring user-generated content for all NBC News brands and platforms. She has been a senior editor at NBC since 2016, where she also started as a Social Media Reporter in 2014. Before NBC News, Saliba had worked as a reporter at Time and CBS News.

As a traditionally-grounded visual journalist and editor, Collins says the notion of being a citizen journalist gave him some pause.

There were those of us who are, you know, came up through traditional photojournalism and professional journalism, who were a little bit cautious about sort of opening up the gates. There’s a certain negative side of UGC, where there’s assumption that basically anybody could be a photojournalist.

And the ironic thing is that there is a bit of truth to that. Like anybody can be a journalist, if they’re in the right place, at the right time and, you know, they’re contributing to a news gathering effort. But it doesn’t mean that there’s any kind of expertise is automatically bestowed on people who just happen to be witnesses.

So, I think that’s gotten very confusing in the conversation in the last five to 10 years, where I think that there’s a larger question about whether the overall sort of the perception and reputation maybe of photojournalists has been in some ways brought down a bit. Because you have basically such a flood of amateurs, contributing to news reports.

But having said all of that, I’ve come around to the way of thinking that, in breaking news situations – and that this is how Emmanuelle operates – securing this material from witnesses on the scene in various places around the world is such a valuable contribution to our reporting, that it’s hard to imagine doing without it nowadays. And, you know, there are hazards that go along with gathering this material, but we have so many standards and checks in place, and that’s where Emmanuelle’s expertise comes in.

Emmanuelle Saliba went on to underscore the value of citizen journalism and UGC, especially in the opportunities it offers to shed light on events where the media hasn’t yet arrived. Saliba explained,

I think we’re getting information more quickly and we’re getting visual information more quickly because of citizen journalists. So, for example when you think of that Dakota Pipeline protest, most of the footage we were watching and using at the beginning were live streams from the ground from protesters. So, I think in that sense that’s a good example of information that’s coming to us that we wouldn’t get otherwise and also shedding light on an event that we maybe wouldn’t have had any visuals of in the past, or at least not right away.

Saliba and Collins went on to underscore an interesting nuance that, in the end, it’s not about the person making the content, it’s about the content.

It may sound like semantics – but I think there’s a distinction between UGC and citizen journalism. Citizen journalist describes a person. And we are not really concerned, as a news organization, with who that person is who captured the material, whether they’re amateur or professional. Our only concern is verification. The actual content is what’s important. So, whether it’s a photographer who is a professional who threw up a ‘hail Mary’ to get a lucky picture, or it’s an amateur who happened to be in the right place at the right time to compose, you know, one of the best news photographs of the year. It doesn’t matter to us. We’re focused on what they contribute to the report.

So, you know, in the early hours of a big breaking story, often, as you can imagine, we see the UGC first, right? It’s people who were on the scene. There’s no time for any photojournalists to arrive, naturally. And so, we see that material. At some point, we kind of sift through it, we use what we want, and at some point, when the wires start getting material – getting the pros in – we will switch over and look at that. But often, you know, the first on the scene still holds up as the best material. It’s just what fits into our overall reporting. And that’s why I’m actually very fortunate to sit in close proximity to Emmanuelle and her team. We actually sit right across from each other so in these breaking news situations, it’s kind of like a complement. We’re filling in the gaps of what we need, and what we don’t need, regardless to where it’s coming from.

A vital part of using UGC in a visual report is the verification and editing of the work. According to Saliba, the process of vetting “depends on the image.” Explained Saliba,

We have a pretty thorough set of standards. It really depends on what you’re looking at. So, if you’re talking about video from the ground in Syria that can take a different level of vetting than, for example, an amateur video of a big fire. So, it’s a different level of vetting and reporting that needs to be done.

Like for example yesterday, we do some simple things like use Google reverse image search of the news before if it’s old. We talk to the person who shot the content. If someone won’t get on the phone with you, that’s probably a pretty good indication that it’s probably not real. We go through a series of different questions that we ask ourselves to verify. But nothing gets used on our end at least we don’t approve anything that hasn’t been gone through the verification process.

Collins elaborated,

We verify it and check it just like any good reporter does with any kind of news gathering. You check things out. Does it hold up? Does it stand up? You know, a reporter who is just writing a story will check quotes and verifies in a story, it’s the same thing with this visual material that we’re gathering.

However, for the conventional photo editing for UGC – the cropping, toning, etc. – a light-handed approach works best for Collins.

Often I think we don’t do a whole lot to UGC. I think, from my viewpoint, part of the authenticity is sort of leaving it the way it is. That it’s coming from the phone or from, you know, somebody who’s not skilled and so, sometimes, if we’re going to use it in a display. It depends on its use too.

So, Emmanuelle’s team gathers material and clears it and contacts the user for permissions and for verification and then passes it on, or makes it known that it’s available to other teams, for broadcast or for web.

That raw and authentic nature of UGC can be an important factor in driving an audience’s sense of credence and trust in a news report. Says Saliba,

There are some studies that have shown that user-generated content is trusted more with Millennials [Knoblauch, 2017 and “Social influence,” 2017]. I think if I’m a viewer, you’re getting raw images unfiltered from someone that witnessed it so I think there’s some credibility to that.

Collins agrees. “I think that there’s sort of how the language of amateur imagery that’s kind of become commonplace now … and almost strengthening up and conveys an authenticity just by its rawness and it’s… ‘amateur-ness.’”

The sense of urgency and immediacy that is facilitated through using UGC is often seen as a valuable impression to give an audience.

I think that you see sometimes with news organizations where they Skype with a correspondent, when you know it’s not necessary for them to be doing that. There are other means but it conveys the sort of newsy, hurried, ‘we had to rush to air and get this out’ kind of feeling and that sensibility I think is just pretty widespread.

“But at the same time, you know, compelling professionally produced imagery is still something that’s valued,” Collins affirmed.

But I think that the language of imagery has been greatly affected by the massive scale of ability of amateur produced images through cellphones and other things. If you look at 9/11 and what we saw in 9/11. You know, I shot film that day and we’re only talking about 16 years ago. So, it’s really hard to believe.

Saliba interjected, “Imagine 9/11 today.”

“Right.” Collins continued.

Just the amount of content that would be flooding in from an event like that. At AP we were purchasing walk-ins from people who shot slide film. It really feels like another world. But it was not that long ago and it was really just later that decade when smartphones and the technology advance that it just exploded. And now nearly every event has had some kind of UGC. And it’s just amazing. It really is. It’s just totally altered the landscape.

An oft-expressed anxiety among visual communicators is that the prevalence of smartphone cameras and citizen journalists have somehow devalued the work of professional and trained photojournalists. Saliba doesn’t share in the concern that UGC will somehow replace or usurp the power of photojournalism.

I think it just complements it. Many times, when Jim and I work together, we’ve seen the first wave of information that comes through social media through user-generated content. And then, the second wave is going to be the professional photographers getting to the scene. Often those photos are going to be better and higher quality and better shot than the first wave. So, we’ll often swap it out. Unless it’s a piece of content like the Manchester video of the girls running out of the Manchester stadium, which is powerful on its own [“People running,” 2017]. You know, in terms of photography, what we use on the cover, none of it was user-generated content.

Collins continued to elaborate,

No – there was a professional photojournalist on the scene, pretty early on. That one picture from freelance photographer Joel Goodman (2017) of the girl with the ripped jeans was everywhere. It’s possible that somebody could have taken that with their phone, but there were a lot of difficult circumstances. First of all, he’s pretty far away. He’s using a long lens and you have all the street lamps and stuff like that so there’s challenging conditions. And so, a pro really needed to make that picture. It’s possible and somebody can get a ‘happy accident’ with a cell phone, but that you can see the skill there.

So, one of the pictures out of Manchester, was clearly a cell phone shot of people on the floor, with debris and smoke and very fuzzy and everything, but it’s a very important piece in the in the individual reporting, because it gave you a sense of what actually happened right at the blast. But the next day, when more photographers arrive for vigils and things like that. You have Emilio Morenatti from AP making this extraordinary picture of a woman with her hands covering her mouth, and everybody in the newsroom can recognize that’s a picture that takes a certain amount of artistry and professionalism [“Vigils across England,” 2017]. Even with the best cell phone that is not going to happen. That comes from years of experience and somebody who really is talented at storytelling.

These things work together. You need those witnesses who are on the ground to get the first wave just like you needed 50-years ago when there was a fire somebody arrived and a reporter just got a quote from somebody. And then, you need the professionals to put it in context and make the kind of impactful pictures that are summaries, in some ways, of the story.

Saliba also discussed the way that the initial UGC might inform newsroom editors and administrators about the nature and magnitude of a breaking story, to help them direct their coverage, logistical decisions, and resource management.

It really informs us if it’s a story or not. For example, with the Paris attacks, seeing that video immediately of someone on the ground as being able to verify that, and then you start making the decision to move people to Paris just because of that witness. And it’s not just images or videos that we’re gathering. We gather information from them. So, we’re talking to them and it’s going to inform where we put our journalists, and who we’re sending. So, we’re doing a lot of interviews. We interview every person that we gather content from.

The Hoboken train [crash] is a good example [Varela et al., 2016]. There was one very clear photo when the Hoboken train derailed. We just saw one image and it showed the train going through the station, and immediately without having to call the police or officials, we knew to deploy people on the scene immediately. We’re not waiting for officials anymore.

A number of ethical and legal considerations govern the communications between news content managers like Collins and Saliba and the citizen journalists who share their work with them. Explained Saliba,

We’re also very mindful on how we reach out to people especially during big breaking news and tragic stories. We always make sure that they are in a safe place and that they can talk. It’s our policy to never ask them to shoot for us to take photos or videos. We clear and we try to acquire that piece of content that they shot, but we never ask them to head to the scene of an explosion or fire.

Added Collins,

That’s a very key point … We do not direct these users. We collect their material and verify it. Directing them is a whole different arrangement. That’s basically commissioning somebody to work on our behalf. There are times when we’ve had people who we’ve discovered were on the scene and maybe were freelancers and then we can convert to working for us, but that’s a different arrangement.

We don’t tell the guy who is back in his hotel room after being down in the casino floor in the Philippines, ‘go back down and start getting us some more pictures’ because what he sent us wasn’t good enough [Johnson et al., 2017]. We never do that.

References

“Emmanuelle Saliba Twitter page.” (2017). Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://twitter.com/_esaliba?lang=en.

“Jim Collins LinkedIn page.” (n.d.). Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-collins-83885173/.

“Joel Goodman photography.” (May 22, 2017). Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://joelgoodman.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/22-05-2017-Manchester-Arena-Bombing/G0000IBk11yC61sw/I0000wXH8hfL1kks.

Johnson, A., Ortiz, E., and Bratu, B. (June 2, 2017). “Casino robbery ends with dozens dead at resort in Philippines.” NBC News. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/resorts-world-manila-gunfire-smoke-reported-casino-philippines-n767241.

Knoblauch, M. (April 9, 2014). “Millennials trust user-generated content 50% more than other media.” Mashable. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://mashable.com/2014/04/09/millennials-user-generated-media/#sQFK_xQ0YGqq.

“People running from bomb explosion Manchester Arena.” (May 22, 2017). YouTube. Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFR71zca69s.

“Social influence: Marketing’s new frontier.” (2017). Crowdtap. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://corp.crowdtap.com/socialinfluence.

Varela, J., Schuppe, J., Saliba, E., and Ortiz, E. (September 29, 2016). “Commuter train crashes into Hoboken, New Jersey, Station, Killing 1: Officials.” NBC News. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/commuter-train-crashes-hoboken-new-jersey-station-n656711.

“Vigils across England honor Manchester bombing victims.” (May 24, 2017). NBC News. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/manchester-vigils-take-place-across-england-n763886.

Advertising and Public Relations: An Interview with Lisa Lange

As a strategic communications professional, Lisa Lange knows something about the challenges of ethical persuasion. She is the Senior Vice President of Communications at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) (2017). Lange’s organization carries the word “ethical” in its name. PETA is also an organization that is synonymous with controversy and a counter-culture mission to persuade a society to drop its meat-consuming, fur-wearing, and circus-attending habits. It’s a messaging mission where images are key.

Lange discussed PETA’s approaches within the framework of the five TARES principles for ethical persuasion – that strategic messaging should be truthful, authentic, respectful, equitable, and socially responsible.

Truthful: Lange first spoke of truthful communications. “It is crucial that in everything we do we’re truthful about it. I mean we are and we’ve always been very dedicated to that,” Lange said.

People have to be able to trust us. We rely on the information we get in investigations, for example, to change the way people basically carry out their lives. If we do an undercover investigation, in a slaughterhouse for example, we present that to people through social media, through the mainstream media, and through our own website.

They need to know that what we say is happening. Especially when you consider that those who are hurting animals a lot are the Big Ag companies, fast food companies. Anyone across the board who profits from abusing animals and selling cut-up portions of their corpses, for example. They’re not going to be particularly forthcoming in information about how animals are treated, either before they end up on your plate, or how they’re treated under the big top in the circus. So, we kind of stand alone in that.

PETA presents the truthful information that allows people to make kind decisions. We, in everything we do and all of our investigations, for example, where there is a law that even minimally which most of them only minimally protect animals, we file complaints. And that can be either on a city level, state level, federal level depending on the law that we think has been broken by the abuse, and with the abuse. And as you know, that those authorities are going to rely on truthful information that you can back up with documentation. And so, everything that we do, we approach that way.

Part of the truthful messaging is to generate their own images for their messaging.

In general, we prefer to use our own [visuals] because we can go all the way back to when it was shot, or whoever created it. But we have used documentation from other groups. And we get as much information as possible on the veracity of something, Orcas in a tank at SeaWorld, for example, if someone else took the photo, we get all the documentation on where it was shot, who shot it, that kind of thing, and it’s key.

I mean, we are in such a visual world now but I, more than anything, we’re winning campaigns by showing people what’s going on behind the scenes. Video more than anything. Because video tells its own story. So, we can do an investigation that lasts eight months or four months or however long and the video that we end up presenting to the public is going to be cut down because you can’t show 24 hours’ worth of footage. No one’s going to sit through it. But the video footage that we give over to the authorities for investigation, we make all of our footage available to authorities, because they may want to look at all of it.

Too much truth especially if it’s raw, unfiltered, and graphic can risk offending, horrifying, or overloading the recipient of the message. So, there is a tension of how do you facilitate blunt truth in the messaging while still maintaining respect for the audience, which is one of the other TARES principles?

“That’s the million-dollar question,” said Lange. “And it kind of depends on who your audience is. So, if we were somewhere with children, we’re going to show something very different than we would to adults.”

It’s so interesting because I really have to hand it to people. In general, online, people have a high tolerance for graphic material. And sometimes, we’ll put together a video like the ‘Meet your Meat’ (2010) video. I think it’s 13 minutes long. It’s quite lengthy. And it is relentless. It is relentless in showing you what each animal goes through. And we go through each animal: fish, chicken, sheep, cows, pigs. And we show exactly what happened to them, from the time they’re babies through the factory farming process to when they’re killed. And that is an incredibly popular video. As is our China fur video that shows animals were still fully conscious and able to feel pain, being skinned. One animal is skinned all the way down her entire body and all that’s left of her are eyelashes and she’s still blinking which is a sign of consciousness. So, that ends up being one of our most popular videos, meaning the most viewed.

So, people have a very high tolerance for it. And maybe it’s because they’re popular on social media. And people can sit in the confines of their own homes or their offices when they’re not working, and probably should be, watching the videos. And it’s personal. And it’s not necessarily on a big screen. So maybe it’s easier to watch on a smaller screen [See Chapter 8].

But we’re also able to track it, so we can see if someone clicks on to our China fur video. How long are they staying on? And that’ll help inform how we make the next video. As far as getting too graphic, we don’t ever worry about showing too much, except if there are children there or if we’re having a very small, intimate fundraiser. Typically, people who are going to a sit-down dinner thing do not want to see animals being hacked apart. And we know that. And we also know that the reaction can sometimes be a little hostile. You don’t want to do that in an intimate fundraising setting for example. But our belief, and what we have found has paid off for us, is that give people all of the information. They can always turn it off. But typically, what they do is they pay attention, and they read. More importantly, on social media they share it. I think in some cases we have to put warning out for our videos. I’m not exactly sure and I know Facebook does that too. They’ll put warnings up. You have to be able to say you’re 18 years or older, or whatever, I think.

We want people to share, share, share. And it just doesn’t matter, you know, with whom they’re sharing. Because honestly what is usual is they share with friends on social media. They’re sharing it on Facebook or on Instagram and it goes out to all their followers. So, they conceivably know who’s following them.

In her approach to visuals, Lange acknowledged that there is probably no image that would be too graphic for use especially given the tools available in social media.

You know, I can’t think of anything. Again, we wouldn’t use a really, really graphic photo and, you know, in every venue. But, no, I mean, we know that when we pitch an ad for example, if we do a 30-second spot on vegetarianism or something and if it shows graphic footage, we know that by and large it is going to be rejected by most television stations. So, we may pull back there, only because strategically, we don’t want to waste our time putting something together that a station is going to reject anyway. But in terms of education and outreach I can’t think of anything that was too graphic.

If it was bad enough that they went through it, the least we can do is be a witness to it. And it’s hard. I mean trust me, and I’ve been with PETA for 25 years this year and it never gets easier. And, you know, I’ll watch this stuff and just think I can’t sit through another octopus video or I can’t sit there, but you know what? Something in me clicks and then I think, ‘No… no… no… This is the easy part’ having to watch what they went through and they’re going through it right now. And if I can watch it, and this is true for anybody who’s seeing our photos and videos online, that if I can watch it I’ll be a better ambassador. I’ll be able to at least describe what they went through, because certainly I don’t know what it feels like. But if I can empathize, if I can watch it, and I can describe what they went through, then maybe somebody else down the line is going to decide ‘You know what? It’s not worth it to me to eat them, because it’s too much pain!’

There are individual supporters of ours who don’t send me anything graphic and we have to respect that. But no I really can’t think of another example, only because you have the right to not click on something. You know, I’ll be on Facebook and I’ll see something come up. And boy they get you, because they have the automatic video running now. And so, someone will post something a friend of mine, who maybe works for another animal group, and it will start going, and I’m like I don’t need to see that right now, you know. And sometimes I move past it. Everybody has the ability to do that. It’s not like we’re chaining people in a room and making them watch something. So, it’s our job to get the information out there and show people what’s going on behind the scenes and it’s horrific and it’s gruesome and it’s not just what you see it’s what you hear, because most animals are very vocal. Sheep are not. I mean, that’s where they got the Silence of the Lambs thing. They would go through torture and not make a sound. A dog will. Most dogs will yell. A mother cow will bellow as her baby is literally being dragged away from her to turn it into a veal calf. And so, she can start continue to produce milk for human beings. She will run after her calf she will bellow and it’s crying. Orca mothers cry when their babies are taken from them. One of the most devastating scenes in the documentary Blackfish is when that mother swam back and forth after a baby was taken. She cried all night long over the loss of her baby.

So, especially when it’s a video, we are obligated to show that to people and they can turn it off. But typically, most don’t. And as a result, they make changes. And look at SeaWorld. I mean, look what happened with SeaWorld. Blackfish is an incredibly devastating documentary, but it’s also been years and years and years of us pounding away and showing people what goes on in video-form that has gotten people to say ‘You know what? I don’t want any part of that.’ And now, SeaWorld is on the run.

Authentic: Lange spoke of the challenges relating to authenticity – especially with regard to attacks on PETA’s character. Lange said,

You know, I think it’s important to understand, too, that we are held to a bit of a different standard than a lot of advocacy organizations are, or nonprofit organizations are. And I think it’s because one of the things that we do is we’re challenging people to act compassionately, without any real benefit for them. Now there are definitely benefits to being vegan for your health. But that’s not generally why we’re asking people to stop eating meat and eggs and dairy. We’re asking them to do it completely for the benefit of somebody else.

And so, people also don’t like to be told what to do. You know? And we’ve kind of grown up in this society that values animals, basically on how you can use them. How you can wear them. How you can eat them. How they can entertain you. How we can test cosmetics on them, et cetera. So that’s kind of where we come from. People view animals that way especially in America. And we’re challenging people’s long-held beliefs about the use of animals.

So, they’re always trying to pick us apart. They are always trying to find something that they might call inauthentic. Or they might challenge us on our sincerity on something. So, we’re ready for that. Because this comes from a very sincere place. This comes from a very authentic place. It’s a horror show out there for animals. And it’s our job to very strategically and truthfully and authentically present ‘What are the facts?’ And you can do with them what you will. But people rely on us to be authentic and sincere. And we simply have to be, because there’s just too much at stake.

As authenticity is so related to trust, Lange spoke on how PETA strives to develop a trustful strategic messaging. “You know, we’re 37 years old now,” Lange said.

So, I think, over the years, people have come to find that we are 100 percent trustworthy. And a lot of that comes from our success. So, when we come to people and say ‘we need your help. We need you to write your member of Congress. We need you to only buy products that aren’t tested by blinding rabbits or poisoning mice. We need you to stop wearing fur because this is what happens to those animals. We need you to write to such-and-such company to ask them to end some cruel process on animals.’ We win those campaigns.

When we did an undercover investigation into Angora farming in China, when we released the footage that we got from the time that we spent on Angora farms because China is the largest export of Angora fur in the world fur, seventy companies within a couple of weeks declared that they would stop selling Angora and some of them took it off the shelves (“Cruel truth,” 2017).

And these are major, major companies that were selling it. I think that speaks to the trust that people have that we dot every I, we cross every T. We have all of the information. We have all of the research done before we launch a campaign. We have been that way since day one. And, you know, with enough time behind us, people see that we are a group that can be relied on for that.

Respectful: As she moved on to discuss respect, Lange spoke of PETA’s blunt messaging with regard to stewardship and deference to their target audience.

That is where people may argue with us a little bit because with some of our ad campaigns, some people believe [the campaigns] cross the line (“Controversial ads,” 2017). And that’s where our goal is to absolutely show respect for the audience, but to also give people credit for being able to kind of think beyond the norm and to challenge people. You know, when we talked about ‘Meat is Holocaust on your plate,’ we had an entire display about that (Banescu, 2003). And we drew comparisons between how Jews and others persecuted and killed by the Nazis were treated in some of the very same ways that animals are treated today. And without getting into all the details, it’s pretty clear, it’s pretty evident. Isaac Bashevis Singer said it well before us.

Our project was funded by a Jewish woman, who also, very clearly, saw the comparison. As you can well imagine, this inflamed many in the Jewish community. But it didn’t make it less right. The comparisons were appropriate. Were they offensive? Not everybody thought so. Some people did think so. We still showed an enormous amount of respect for victims’ families and for those who were still alive. But sometimes those kinds of things, those kinds of appropriate comparisons where you compare the act and the actors, meaning those who are behind the cruelty, when you compare them, they are appropriate. It’s the same mindset, that thinks that, because this animal can’t speak out or because ‘I have the power to kill this person.’ It’s the same mindset. It’s an uncomfortable comparison for many people. You know, I completely understand that. But that’s the type of thing where we have found controversy. And some might say you’re not showing respect for, in this case, the Jewish community. Some of whom got upset about the Holocaust, using the word Holocaust.

Lange maintains that the target audience is not the only group of stakeholders that deserve respect. “Respect should cover other stakeholders and that’s really primarily what we’re all about,” said Lange.

We may not be like animals in many ways, in our needs, in our desires, but in the key ways we are very much like them. They feel love. They suffer pain. They suffer fear. They hunger. They thirst. They love being well cared for. And those are the things that we need to take into consideration, everything we do that affects them.

Equitable: In the TARES paradigm, equitable speaks to a sense of fairness and lack of deception in the presentation. In this context, Lange responded to critics who attacked PETA for use of manufactured replicas of victimized animals in their campaigns (Beers, 2015).

We will use models as in demonstrations to show people what animals go through. In this case, it was the Australian wool industry. We also use costumes which are so very obviously costumes – big giant Orcas or, you know, they’re like fluffy carpet anyway. So, we are tasked with trying to get the attention of as many people as we can, when everyone is being called on by social media, by all the cable stations, by all of the causes. There’s just so much trying to get people’s attention today, more than ever. And so, we’re tasked with figuring out the most clever, creative, colorful, visual ways of making people just stop and say ‘What’s this all about?’ So that’s our task. And we will use models to do that, sometimes.

Lange stressed that the very nature of their organization’s ethical mission would prohibit using real artifacts or victims of animal cruelty in the creative work.

We have shout-outs with real animals, when the circumstances are absolutely 100 percent comfortable for that animal. For example, Joaquin Phoenix just recently did an ad for us with a sheep (“Wool doesn’t suit,” n.d.). He went with us to a farm sanctuary, and there was one sheep on the premises who really liked to hang out with people. I mean, a number of them did. But this one actually sought out the companionship of people. And just liked standing near Joaquin. And so, he stood and he gave her treats and the photographer just kept taking pictures. And then we got that image that we wanted. That is the only circumstance where we will work with an animal to make our point, when the animals are comfortable. It’s a companion animal. They’re in a setting that is absolutely comfortable to them. So, you’ll see in some of our ads that promote spaying and neutering or not crating your dogs or cats, that we shoot those in someone’s home, it’s their companion animal. Like my cats would never work because they’re too skittish around people, so I would never try. My last dog: same way. But, if someone has a dog who just likes to be in the thick of it, then we’ll do that. But that one it always comes down to this: With us their concerns their desires their needs come first. And if it’s not comfortable for them then we won’t do it.

Socially Responsible: Lange finished the discussion of the TARES framework on how images drive the organizations focus of social responsibility. “Images are everything for us,” Lange said.

A good example would be the circus. We’ve done numerous investigations into how the circus treats elephants, and how they live in chains. How they are constantly beaten and threatened with the beatings by bullhooks, which are the fire-poker type rods with a sharp end, they hit the elephants on their ears, and between their toes, behind their knees, on their trunks. The most sensitive areas of an elephant’s body to make them perform tricks that are confusing to them and often very uncomfortable to them, because elephants in the circus, the number one killer is arthritis in their feet because they’re always living and performing on concrete. And so though, you know, showing the world exactly what goes on behind the scenes, year after year after year, ended up closing down Ringling Brothers this year. This was their last year 145 years in business, we’re seeing an end to the biggest circus in the world.

Our images are everything because, what we do is we present these images to people, and say it’s very easy to be socially responsible when it comes to animals. You can still volunteer your time with another cause that means something to you, or you cannot. If you have a family and you’ve got a huge job and you’ve got too much to do to be able to volunteer your time elsewhere. You can still be an animal rights activist from your kitchen and from your home, just by simply not letting them end up on your plate. Not buying fur. Just checking the labels of your shampoo to make sure that it is registered as a cruelty free product.

So, what we try to do is let people know how easy it is to be socially responsible for animals. And yeah, I mean that’s basically it. If you don’t pay attention then they suffer so drastically. But it is one of the easiest things you can do.

Lange spoke of how important PETA’s ethical foundations were to their function and role in social responsibility.

Well I mean it’s all kind of in our motto that animals are not ours to eat, wear, or to experiment on, use for entertainment purposes, or to abuse in any way. And so, everything we do, we just, you know, it’s a hardcore line – it’s an abolitionist line.

There are other animal groups out there that think that the end goal should be that animals are treated more humanely on their way to being used by human beings. We don’t subscribe to that. It isn’t for me to say, ‘if you give a chicken a little bit more living space, a laying hen a little more living space and then it’s okay to take her eggs and to eventually kill her once she is no longer able to produce.’ That’s not for me to say: that’s her life. It’s not for me to say about any other human being, and it’s not for me to say about any animal so that is that. That is our tenet. That is what we stick to and we try to do it in a number of creative and incredibly visual ways.

In the end, Lange is surprised at how optimistic she currently is.

I’m much more optimistic than I ever was really. Because of social media or just because of the change we’ve seen. I never thought, in my life, would I see the end of Ringling Brothers. I mean that came and, you know, we’re in for the fight. Going to probably perish under my desk, you know, and hopefully at a very, very old age. [laughs] But I mean, the growth of the vegan, I’m incredibly optimistic.

“When I started there was a lot of hostility. But we are a group that is as tenacious as anything. It comes from Ingrid Newkirk (n.d.), who founded PETA. Our biggest problems are apathy and silence.”

Lange loves the business of changing minds.

You know, Tucker Carlson, he kind of hates so much of what we do, but he loves dogs. And so, when we’ve investigated the Chinese dog industry and what’s going on there for their skins and for food that kind of thing, that riles him like nothing else. So, you do see that a lot. I’ve seen people change their minds. I’ve talked about going on Fox News and having been pounded on by Bill O’Reilly. You know, as the years went on he really mellowed out on the whole issue. Now he always came after me but he conceded that he was against bull fighting. I mean I know it seems like a no brainer [to be] against bullfighting. He really went for that low hanging fruit there but, he did … at least he did that.

So, I mean that kind of speaks for optimism as an organization like I will never give up. But for everyone there’s a door you can open. And sometimes it’s their kids. It’s like if they’re a little older they’re like, you know, ‘I’ve always done this where I don’t want to change now.’ And then, they raise a lovely vegan. And they start looking at things differently.

And so … we don’t give up on anybody.

References

Banescu, C. (February 28, 2003). “PETA’s ‘Holocaust on your plate’ campaign sinks to a new low.” The Voice. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://orthodoxnet.com/blog/2003/02/peta-holocaust-on-your-plate-campaign-sinks-to-a-new-low/.

Beers, L. (April 20, 2015). “Farmers furious at anti-cruelty ad showing man holding up a blood-drenched lamb with the slogan ‘here’s the rest of your wool coat’.” Daily Mail Australia. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3047244/Farmers-furious-PETA-ad-shows-man-holding-blood-drenched-lamb-slogan-s-rest-wool-coat.html.

“Controversial ads: 10 of PETA’s worst brain farts.” Who Approved This? Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://whoapprovedthis.com/controversial-ads-10-of-petas-worst-brain-farts/.

“Cruel truth of how angora rabbit’s fur is removed.” (2017). Daily Mail. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1074612/Cruel-truth-angora-rabbits-fur-removed.html.

“Ingrid Newkirk biography.” (n.d.). PETA. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.ingridnewkirk.com/.

“Meet your meat.” (November 22, 2010). YouTube. Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32IDVdgmzKA.

“People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals website.” (2017). Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.peta.org/.

“Wool doesn’t suit Joaquin Phoenix – compassion does.” PETA. Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.peta.org/features/joaquin-phoenix-beautifully-suited/.

Virtual Reality: An Interview with Sarah Hill

Sarah Hill, the founder and Chief Storyteller at StoryUp (2017), wants to be in your head (“How virtual reality will change us,” 2016).

Hill (2017) describes herself as a “journalist with a little j”. The Missouri-based immersive media entrepreneur had her professional origins well-established in more than two decades of broadcast experience. Nonetheless, the veteran journalist and lecturer self-describes as ‘little j’ because as a VR storytelling innovator, she is willing to push boundaries and conventions to explore the potentials of a new and rapidly evolving way of storytelling.

The experiences we make are creating meditative experiences and mindfulness experiences in VR, combined with story. When we do stories we don’t stage or tell individuals, you know, what to say or anything like that. But, we’re kind of a blend of filmmaking and nonfiction storytelling. So, ‘nonfiction storytelling’ is probably a better way to describe what we do.

All of the tenets of journalism still apply. This is just a different medium. You still need fairness, impartiality, humanity, and accountability. Nothing has changed except you are telling stories in an immersive environment. But VR is a bit like playing with fire.

For instance, we had a big debate in our shop about ‘should we clone-out tripods and rigging? That’s considered altering the image. And ultimately, we decided, in our shop that, ‘yes, we will clone’ because that’s a production value. We’re not altering anything in the shot. We are taking an existing image and covering up a tripod. And we don’t think it dramatically changes the story [However, if you drag down on the StoryUp picture on a beach, you will notice the tripod that held the camera].

Hill feels her variety of storytelling further strays from traditional journalism in the way it might affect, directly influence, or even manipulate responses from users.

We run an immersive media company in Columbia, Missouri and we do nonfiction storytelling, specifically to affect certain brainwave patterns. Our media platform is used for areas of acute stress: blood draws, chemotherapy clinics, corporate wellness, people in nursing homes and assisted living centers, and those who aren’t able to travel. We’re combining story with neuroscience and measuring what these stories do to the brain. We compound media much as you would compound a drug to try to make people feel a certain way.

Hill’s sense of exactly how exposure to VR storytelling affects people is better than just a guess. Partnering with Jeff Tarrant (2015), an Oregon-based psychologist, StoryUp uses the tools of brain monitoring technology and neuroimaging to see what areas of a user’s brain are activated and when in order to gain insight to their cognitive and (especially) emotional reactions.

The anterior cingulate is that emotional processing center in the brain [Decety and Jackson, 2004]. We know from measuring reactions to our stories on Zambia, in which a woman is crawling toward you on the ground because she lacks a wheelchair, the anterior cingulate lights up [is activated] in the brain. What does that say? That says that that individual is processing a sense of empathy for that person who is on the ground.

Flat medium affects the brain. Immersive media really affects the brain in a powerful way. We believe that media isn’t just for information and entertainment. It can actually be used as a therapeutic tool to help people. We’re creating these experiences in stories, in order to increase the alpha activity in the brain.

We’re also working with the gamma activity in the brain. For instance, we have a VR experience where we’re using BCI [brain computer interface] to assign values to brainwave patterns. There is something called the Muse head set. It’s a meditation headset that you wear. Whenever your brainwave pattern gets to a certain level, we assign that value to an asset in a unity software game environment. A user is able to essentially control a story with brainwaves and train the brain to behave a certain way. If your alpha activity increases: the sun shines brighter and you go up the mountain on this waterfall. So, there are all kinds of different ways that you can use brainwave patterns with stories to affect them in a certain way.

With her significant journalism background, Hill talked about how she had to shift her own thinking about the dynamics of this kind of storytelling.

We had to totally shift our approach, because in a flat world, the storyteller was in control. They had the ability to control the frame. The frame was how we directed attention. But inside these immersive environments, when the user has the ability to look all the way around, the storyteller is no longer in control. So, we have to use specific storytelling inputs, if you will, in order to control that frame that is moving inside the sphere.

You can use positional audio to get someone to turn their head – a clap or something in the back of the room – and you can use color, shading, and everyone in the room is looking in one certain direction. There’s also software called Liquid Cinema that allows you to reorient the sphere on the cutline so that you can make sure that they’re looking at that option and direction.

But from a storytelling perspective, you’ve totally given up that control and you have to place it in the hands of the user and trust that they will be able to see those certain things. Story has depth. It’s not necessarily linear, but you can go deeper into stories. It’s not just a flat environment.

Hill describes an almost gingerly and finessed approach to how she might subtly direct a viewer’s attention through a virtual environment.

It’s indirect. There’s a great ethical debate going on in the journalism community as well about should we even BE directing the audience’s attention. Is that somehow manipulating or being disingenuous to the user if we are showing them what they should be looking at more in a frame, as opposed to them just discovering it naturally?

To me I think we should absolutely be directing the audience’s attention, because ultimately people want to be led in stories. That’s how we’ve been lead in stories for generations and generations. We have experiences now or put the headset on and they will say ‘it’s great but I kind of felt like I didn’t know where I should be looking.’ And that’s an incredibly dissatisfying experience to the user. So, that’s one of the things that if there are any ways that you can direct attention in that sphere and make that audience feel comfortable that they are being led to that experience, it’s a greater piece of content.

Hill is excited about this nascent and rapidly evolving time in the development of the medium. Among other things, the rapid evolution has improved the quality of the product and made some parts of the production easier. “As VR becomes more democratized, the cameras are self-stitching. We know in a year we’ll be able to have an 8K self-stitching camera that comes out looking great right out of the camera with no post-production.”

We use a variety of cameras. My current camera crush is on the Z CAM S1 (2017). By far the best camera we work with has been the Jaunt camera (2017). It’s 24 different cameras set up on array with stereo pairs. We would love to use that all the time, but obviously taking those rigs to the top of a volcano, or in a foreign country, or something like that is not conducive. So that’s why we like the Z CAM. It’s portable. It has four cameras. We also have had good luck with GoPro rigs (n.d.), although they are a little bit more difficult to use than the Z CAM. They output very beautiful video, very crisp video.

Not only did Hill adjust to the rapidly changing technological environment, but her production approaches also needed to evolve, as VR and 360 users and consumers became acclimated to the immersive medium.

It’s already changing as the novelty wears off. For instance, when we first started we shot our first experience three years ago. It was very new and the etiquette – the editing etiquette, if you will, of the time – was using very slow and controlled shots. You didn’t use any quick edits, for anything.

And now of course that’s been turned on its head. You can do quick edits, but you do have to be careful about movement. Any kind of movement has the potential to make somebody sick in a headset, so you want to make sure that it’s slow and controlled. [A solution to sea sickness among viewers when a camera is moved is to attach a gimbal that minimizes the effect.]

When we show people VR for the first time, here in the Midwest, we still have to remind them that there’s other real estate in other places, so it’s good to look all the way around. As the user develops in their consumption of content, so too must the storyteller develop abilities to find new and unique ways to not only direct their attention, but to tap into their emotions.

The whole discussion of empathy is controversial in the journalism community as well because, should we even be trying to create empathy as journalists? Shouldn’t we just be telling the story and letting the audience decide whether or not that’s empathetic?

Hill continues,

VR is very different than in the flat world. And we know that from research, that it creates unique memories in the brain. So that’s why this platform is a valuable tool for empathy, because you can create those memories. So, after someone sees an empathetic experience, perhaps it’s more engaging than if they actually saw it in the flat world. We know this anecdotally and also through research that individuals who watch immersive media longer, they share it more and they like it more on social media.

It’s a different kind of media. To me it is the ultimate responsibility of our non-fiction storytellers. You noticed that I didn’t say journalists. They are non-fiction storytellers. In some of the content we evoke a sense of empathy. Because by trying to do that you have the potential to affect change. And that’s what we are trying to do with our stories. We want people not just to watch them but to actually feel them.

Because the medium is so powerful in the way it affects people, Hill shares the ethical concerns of many, that immersive storytellers need be especially careful with regard to disturbing, violent, and graphic content used in a VR or 360-video environment.

I have a concern about that – not in the work that we do because the experiences that we offer do not place users in a war zone or not in a first-person shooter experience. However, there is research to show that trauma is passed down from generation to generation. And I guarantee you, if we were to do a brainwave assessment in the midst of some of these VR video games, you would see some traumatic experiences and ultimately, it kind of begs the question, ‘What is your media diet?’ and ‘Should you be placing someone in a situation where they feel like they’re getting shot?’ Because you can really inject trauma and drum up some post-traumatic stress. You could do some damage. So, as journalists, I think the journalism community needs to be cognizant of the fact that the same rules still apply with journalism.

Because the media is different, you need to be sensitive to what you’re placing on your viewers’ faces. And if it’s a traumatic experience, you absolutely need a warning. You need to be having [conversations] in an immersive environment because the potential to do harm could be greater because of how immersive media can make people feel.

There needs to be good quality content. I’ve seen some amazing killer stuff on all of these platforms. ‘Good content always bubbles to the top.’

References

Decety, J. and Jackson, P.L. (2004). “The functional architecture of human empathy.” Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, 3(2), 71–100.

“GoPro VR website.” (n.d.). Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://shop.gopro.com/virtualreality.

“How virtual reality will change us.” (May 17, 2016). TEDxCosmoPark. Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO--K7z-oxE.

“Jaunt website.” (2017). Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.jauntvr.com/jaunt-one/.

“Jeff Tarrant webpage.” (2015). Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://drjefftarrant.com/.

“Sarah Hill LinkedIn page.” (2017). Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahhill1/.

“StoryUp website.” (2017). Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.story-up.com/.

“Z Cam S1 website.” (2017). Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.z-cam.com/.

Editing Challenges: An Interview with Judith Walgren

Renowned photojournalist, visual artist, editor, producer, editorial director, and lecturer Judy Walgren is the editorial director at ViewFind.com (“Chronicle photography,” 2011 and “ViewFind webpage,” 2017). Walgren has a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Vermont College of Fine Art that she recently earned after she was the Director of Photography at the San Francisco Examiner and the SFGATE for more than five years. Before that, Walgren was behind the camera and/or editing for more than 23 years at such places as the Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, Dallas Morning News, and as part of her own busy freelance business.

Walgren considers herself a “digital first” photo editor, and approaches the editing workflow from that perspective since her time at newspapers.

We were always thinking digitally first because the image can appear in a number of different ways. The image could appear in a gallery that you click through – a gallery where the captions are turned on and off. So, a lot of times the audience is confronted with an image in an online setting with text around it and a caption. It gets to be quite complicated – but more times than not, you’re dealing with an audience that has a very short attention span. And the goal of photography – now more than ever, in the history of the world – is to be that element that grabs the audience in.

As a photo editor, especially now working for a start-up, and working for dying media organizations [laughs]… I would see my goal as capturing that audience. So, my initial response to an image is from aesthetics. I’m not just talking about designing graphic aesthetic qualities – I’m also looking for impact.

So, I’m an emotional editor and I’m an emotional photographer. My work is based on interaction – and moment – and expression – and in mood and impact. Okay? So, you have three kinds of photographers. One type of photographer is specifically looking for a light first … then they’re looking for composition … then they’re looking for moment. I’m the type of photographer traditionally who has always sought the moment and then thought about it in terms of the composition and the light. So, I tend to edit from that place too. First, I’m looking for impact. Is this photograph making me feel something? Whether it’s joy, anger, sadness, whatever emotion that’s the first thing I’m looking for in a photograph. Mood ….

And then I step back once I see the images collectively, I’ve got the ones that I’m really feeling. Then I step back and I consider the text. And I know this sounds backwards, but ultimately, that’s when I start thinking about the text and the story that the image will be accompanying … or not. So, is the image a standalone photograph? Which I tend to do a lot as well as an editor. Then, I’m specifically looking for semiotics [the study of signs and symbols]. I’m looking for what the photograph is going to visually transmit to the audience about the specificity of time, place, culture – how that image fits into visual culture – which is what the MFA has brought to me.

Along with her mission as a visual editor and leader, Walgren feels a social mission too that she incorporates into her decision path in photo editing.

A whole new emphasis of the work that I do as a photo editor is trying to disrupt visual culture … . Or disrupt how photography has shaped visual culture for the last hundred years and to try to consider breaking down, most importantly and most critically the stereotypes that have emerged through photography. I feel very strongly that photography has been the main component that can be aligned with the construct of race and gender and bigoted stereotypes. And so, now, that is literally the first thing I consider, along with the impact of the photograph.

So, a good example is right now I’m working on a piece for students and it will translate over into the ViewFind about street photography. I’m looking for images that I can include in a PowerPoint as well as probably in a blog entry that I’m going to write and curate. And when you search street photography on the internet, you find a long line of photographers: Bruce Gilden (2017), Garry Winogrand (2014), and Scott Strazzante (“Shooting from the Hip,” 2017), a great friend of mine. But they’re all coming from a certain level of privilege, of race and gender, and as I start searching further, I’m finding other photographers who are amazing. Vivian Meyer, a woman who we all know. And this one photographer who I’m totally enraptured with, Zun Lee (2015), an incredible street photographer. So, for me, instead of putting in the Garry Winogrand images right away, I’m going to think about Zun Lee instead who’s an Asian/African-American photographer who documents African-American fathers, et cetera. So that’s a second thing I consider.

Now if that photograph is going to accompany a story, I do consider the text from this story. I consider it, but I don’t edit off of the text. I am not one of those ‘linear’ photo editors, where the story dictates how I edit the photographs. What I tend to do is I’ll edit the photographs first and then I’ll see how they work their way into the text. Now I always read the story first, okay? Scan the photos, get my rough edit, and then I also read the captions. But I take all of that content into account when I’m putting a story together. So, something I do quite often with the photo editors or the photography editing interns that I work with is I try to break that. I try to break them from editing in a linear fashion because I think that being able to step back from that and consider the document of the photograph in the same gravity, with the same amount of impact as the text, is the way that we need to be approaching everything now. I really feel strongly, now more than ever: It’s an ‘image first’ world. And that is something that the startup that I’m working for now is supporting. Now, we’re not there … At all … And I’m finding that pretty much increasingly every day there’s a lot of work to do. But I think the conversation has to start right now.

As Walgren ponders the challenges in photo editing, she falls back on her own experiences as a photojournalist to guide her in what type of violent imagery can be published.

So, my background: I covered some pretty significant violent events in our world in the first part of my career, including Somalia in the war on famine in Somalia and Sudan. I was in Bosnia in the 90s and I physically cannot look at those photos anymore. For me it triggers PTSD. I never watched Saddam Hussein being executed. I can’t look at that stuff. So, for me, coming from that type of background, I don’t want to see it. I don’t think it necessarily moves the needle forward. Okay? We are talking about graphic, violent photographs. If people are not going to look at it, then it’s not going to do its job, basically. However, I completely disagree with Susan Sontag (2004) and her assertion that people are desensitized to those types of images [in her book, Regarding the Pain of Others].

Case in point is the photograph of the young boy who drowned and was lying on a beach – ‘Aylan’ was his name … . That was a situation of the Chronicle that was pretty powerful for me, because it happened as I was getting my MFA. And I found myself kind of caught in the middle of this discussion – the one at the newspaper and the one with the visual artist that I was working with at the time.

So, for me … A photograph has power. A photograph has power to change the world. And I know that is a very lofty thing to say, but it’s the only reason why I got into this profession. I believe that because of some very significant things that happened very early in my career and I knew when I saw that photograph, even though aesthetically maybe it wasn’t, you know, the most perfect image ever made or constructed. It wasn’t Paolo Pellegrin (2017) style, you know, a groovy photograph that you would necessarily see in The World Press, but damn it, it just had me on the floor when I saw it. And I could look at that photograph and take it in. It was shot in a way that was maybe slightly naïve, because the photographer was not like a highly trained and highly shaped quote unquote documentary photographer, but the lack of stylization, right? Just the clear document of that image for me moved me beyond words because in a sense it was as simple as having a child on a beach with a person kind of surveying the scene in a very slightly casual way.

The child was dead on the beach and this person is there who’s surveying the number of bodies that are there. Detached is the word I was looking for. I would say detached because I know that that’s how that person has to be to do that job well. And so, I ran that photo. I ran it big and I ran it with very, very little text on the first day (Walgren, 2015).

I came back and wrote a piece about it, about my feeling about the photograph, and about how I felt. And I was also reading Sontag’s book at the time, et cetera, et cetera … and about how that photograph, even though it did not, I mean there’s no excuse for that happening to anybody, whether it’s a child or an adult or anyone. And there’s no excuse for that to be happening right now. It opened doors. The doors of Europe were flung open after that image was taken. Now, is there a backlash to that. Absolutely. But at a time when people were desperately trying to get in, that photograph opened doors that day. It took less than 24 hours for things to change quite rapidly. I’ve seen that also on the other hand. I saw that happen with Kevin Carter’s photograph (“Starving child,” 1993).

A more recent example for me would be Paula Bronstein’s work on the casualties of war so diligently covered for the last 30 years especially in the Middle East and in Afghanistan in particular. The body of work that she produced was extremely emotionally devastating. And bloody at some points. She has a photograph of a hand of a person on a gurney. It’s spot-lit under the light from the surgeon. The blood is dripping from the fingers and I just cannot look away from it. You don’t want to look at it but you can’t not look at the photograph. It’s work like this that I want to put out there. I don’t want to have a photograph of a body blown apart lying on the ground. I don’t want to have a photograph of a leg sticking out of a bucket in an operating room with no context. It’s images like that that I just cannot, in my mind, ethically publish, because they don’t take me anywhere. So again, when I’m looking at the photographs and I’m trying to make a decision about whether to publish a graphic photograph or not, I’m thinking about it in terms of the emotional impact that that image is going to have, and whether or not it’s going to move the conversation forward. I would say but, yeah, I guess the first thing I really consider is whether or not people are going to actually take that image in because that’s what we do, we publish images to be seen not images that are gratuitously going to grace the digital or the printed page.

Other editing challenges, like photographing someone in profound grief or reeling from loss, Walgren is also informed about from her own personal moral compass.

So, I think this is really important too, and it comes from my history as a photojournalist and knowing people. And understanding that, more times than not, I’ve been thanked for being present rather than screamed at.

That’s because more often than not, the people in the places that I tended to go, and still am very passionate about, there aren’t a lot of people there. There aren’t a lot of journalists there. There aren’t a lot of people photographing there. There are not a lot of witnesses to other people’s pain, to their suffering, and to just the struggle it takes basically some days just to get water. Basically as you saw in not only Somalia that’s another level or Rwanda, but in Bosnia. Having to run across an alley just to get water; you can be killed. So every day thinking: ‘Water: Death. Water: Death.’ Growing up in a suburb of Dallas and then finding out how people lived in most of the rest of the world, was a huge call to action.

On content of a sexual or racy nature, Walgren is informed about whether to publish by clear-mindedly thinking through the question: What is the point? Walgren explains,

So, I mean, ultimately for me there is a difference between pornography and eroticism. Right? Is a news organization an erotic platform? In my mind: No. It’s not. So again I have to think about the photograph from an ethical standpoint. It’s not about the sexuality or the erotic intention of the image or the subject matter. It’s about the ethics around creating the photograph. I am sick of looking at photo essays of people having sex on heroin. I’m sick of it. So, you’re with a heroin addict, doing your thing as a photojournalist, you’re documenting their lives. They’re high. They don’t know. They’re wacked. Are they hitting on all cylinders? No. More times than not, when I’m confronted with the image of people having sex, it’s coming from a situation of addiction or marginalization.

But, if it’s interesting and erotic… . Would I run Robert Mapplethorpe photographs? I would. Some of them. Would they be accepted by the paper? If I made an argument for it. So, that’s the thing. If I made an argument to run a photograph, nine times out of ten, they will run it. For example, San Francisco traditionally has been a place where people could walk around naked, no problem. We have this huge story about the new gentrification. There was a law going into the books about making nudity illegal. And the nudists went nuts. So, a lot of photos of full frontal nudity. A lot of protests. Lot of guys walking around with things hanging out, piercings here and there. I mean, ultimately, I’m not running penises. I don’t really feel like running women’s breasts, unless they’re somehow essential to the story. But it’s not coming out of any type of conservative feeling or by showing someone’s breasts it’s a sexual photo. It’s just, ultimately, is the photograph good enough without the breast in it to even be published? Nine times out of ten, it’s not. Nine times out of ten, the only thing about the photograph is that you got a bit or a part in there. And I don’t really see a need to publish sexually explicit photographs in the newspaper or magazine. I don’t think it’s that interesting. I think it ends up being pornography and there’s a whole legion of places to publish that.

Again, like what I am always trying to do is to consider the audience. And I think that, for the audience, they want to see a balance. Right? So, if you’re doing a story… let’s go back to Paula Bronstein’s (2016) book [Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear]. Her photographs have the amazing spectrum of imagery. Horrible photographs of people cut up in pieces on the gurney in Cabo, and then incredible photographs of women, even though they’ve been disfigured, in painful situations, experiencing a sense of joy. And I thought about Paula’s work and was trying to decide whether or not I wanted to look at the photographs or even publish them. I started to consider the way the audience would see it and the way I would want to see it.

Walgren admits that being a mother has guided her photo editing and consideration of the audience as well as being informed by her own experiences in the field.

I’ve had a lot of trauma in 30 years. I’ve seen too much. And I’m the first one that will acknowledge that. And I wish I could un-see years of my life, actually. But in the end, it also gives me a greater sensitivity when I am considering the audience that has never seen or experienced trauma like this.

I am also a mother of a 10-year-old. I think a lot about my son when I’m editing, and about how I want to introduce him to the trauma and the pain and suffering that is in the rest of the world. But how can I do that in a way that doesn’t leave him damaged? Did he see the photograph of the child dead on the beach? Absolutely. I made sure he saw it and I talked to him about it. Did he see the photographs that John Moore (2007) took of the assassination of Bhutto? No. Because it’s not going to do him any good. The context for him is just not there. So why is he even having to look at a leg lying detached on an asphalt street? It’s not going to help him. Has he seen the photograph of the man standing with the carnage around him, you know, looking to the sky? Yeah. He’s seen that. The way I’ve been operating the last few years is how would a 10-year-old receive this? I think ultimately, especially in this country, with this audience, even though digital can be worldwide, that’s probably the mentality of most of the people who are engaging with the work in America. They’re probably coming at it from the eyes of a 10-year-old. They haven’t gone through their visual adolescence yet.

Being able to thoughtfully discuss an image’s visual meaning is key to a photo editor’s skills.

Other than a visual literacy that a photo editor brings to the table, an expert eye in visuality and how that image fits into this idea of an archive and visual culture, being able to articulate why that photograph does those things is half the job. I think more often than not photo editors are not trained correctly in the ability to articulate.

For me, I’m passionate about photographs, about the power of visual communication, and the importance of visual storytelling. I very rarely am unable to passionately move the person who I am trying to advocate to. There have been a couple of times when that has happened. But in the end, I would say it didn’t work out well for the person that didn’t follow my recommendation, for the sole reason that I don’t pull that out of the hat unless it is important.

So, there is also this understanding of when do you do that and when do you just kind of go, ‘Okay, how important is this?’ I think really supporting photo editors and photographers to be able to understand within themselves the right to survey themselves and to feel confident that their intuition and then their expertise is going to guide them in the right direction when you pull that trigger. When I decide: ‘this is really important,’ I’m not going to lose that argument. It’s critical. You have to be able to know how to pull that handle when you need to.

As Walgren talks about how and when to make arguments on behalf of images, she advocates an “egoless photo editing” approach.

I mean, it’s always the greater good for me [a utilitarianism approach]. Would I be a great photo editor for Vogue? No. I would be a massive failure at Vogue for lots of reasons. For me, it’s the greater good and always has been. Pulling your ego down and really approaching your work from this idea of the greater good. What is going to impact a greater good? Now this is a different way of thinking than what I was taught. I was taught that the photos follow the words. I pushed that envelope literally since I was still in school, to be quite honest. I never really believed that. I’ve always believed that photos should lead the words. And actually, that’s how I worked best with writers. I worked with some of the most vividly eloquent writers in the world, including Chris Hedges, for many years. In any event, I really feel strongly that it’s not only the greater good for the subject, but it’s the greater good of the audience. How do I serve the audience the best way possible? Giving them a photograph that’s going to get them out of their chairs? Giving them a cool little video that’s going to make their day because some kid got to be Bat-kid for a day?

I’m always kind of thinking about the audience, the people, the world and how that content is going to be integrated into their life, and then into their visual history.

References

Bronstein, P. (2016). Afghanistan Between Hope and Fear. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

“Bruce Gilden webpage.” (2017). Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.brucegilden.com/.

“Chronicle photography: Judy Walgren, director of photography.” (March 4, 2011). SFGate. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Chronicle-Photography-Judy-Walgren-director-of-2379895.php.

“Garry Winogrand.” (2014). Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2014/garry-winogrand.

“John Moore.” (2007). World Press Photo. Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.worldpressphoto.org/collection/photo/2008/spot-news/john-moore.

“Paolo Pellegrin.” (2017). Magnum Photos. Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/paolo-pellegrin/.

“Shooting from the hip.” (2017). Scott Strazzante. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.shootingfromthehipbook.com/gallery.php.

Sontag, S. (2004). Regarding the pain of others. New York: Picador.

“Starving child and vulture 1993 Photograph by Kevin Carter.” (1993). Time. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://100photos.time.com/photos/kevin-carter-starving-child-vulture.

“ViewFind webpage.” (2017). Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://viewfind.com/frontpage.

Walgren, J. (September 3, 2015). “Can image of drowned Syrian refugee child save lives?” San Francisco Chronicle. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.sfchronicle.com/thetake/article/Can-image-of-drowned-Syrian-refugee-child-save-6484122.php.

“Zun Lee photography.” (2015). Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.zunlee.com/streetportraits.

Let Empathy Be Your Guide: An Interview with Kenny Irby

The notion that journalists should embrace empathy as a core professional value is nothing new to Reverend Kenny Irby (2010). He is a nationally known veteran journalist, editor, and newsroom leader, as well as a consultant and an affiliate at the Poynter Institute on topics including diversity, ethics, and visual journalism. From contributing to Pulitzer projects in the newsroom of Newsday, to being a juror on a Pulitzer committee in 2007, Irby in 2016 was appointed by the mayor of St. Petersburg to be a Community Intervention Director. From journalism to a police department, he creates solutions for young people who are at risk of ending up in jail, or worse.

Irby appreciates that the concept of empathy has gained some traction in recent times in the dialogue among journalists.

I think that a conversation about empathy has become a richer conversation and a more relevant conversation in contemporary times – particularly in journalism circles and social services circles. I think for journalists, the idea of empathy helps us get closer to truth-telling by way of accuracy.

Irby feels that there “has been a major disconnect between the journalists who are covering the news and transmitting that news with the audiences, and many of the communities that they are covering.”

Irby wholly rejects the notion that journalists can go too far or get carried away with empathy.

I don’t think we talk about it enough. I think you know the Zeitgeist that is being acknowledged here and the ‘buzzword’ is one that still is very much inside journalism, and maybe inside some halls of academia. Where we really need to expand that conversation is amongst the masses. And you do that through media, through social media, through traditional journalistic media, and the like.

According to Irby, the reluctance to engage in empathy has led to “great vulnerability in terms of its accuracy and its authenticity.” Irby elaborates:

There has been the lack of empathy, a lack of appreciation of diversity. So, there’s a direct corollary that I’ve taught through all my career and experience that when we are talking about finding truthfulness and reporting greater accuracy and validity to our coverage, it moves us in that place where it’s not just about a racial conversation in terms of black and white, or black and Hispanic, or Asian and Hispanic or whatever. It is about perspective worldview and ability to appreciate that ‘your opinion is no match with somebody else’s experience.’

Irby coined the quality of understanding in a journalist as an “empathy quotient,” and this should be considered key to any journalist’s success. “To be able to appreciate that because you have not experienced something,” Irby explains,

it doesn’t devalue the authenticity of that of the other person’s point of view, or life experience to be more intelligent about and more receptive to empathic engagement. It allows the journalist, the reporter, and the reader/viewer to have a better appreciation and understanding of really what that experience that you’re reporting about is. You know I think that the realities of empathic connections and sincere understanding of otherness is a good thing, and it helps us build bridges, gain perspective, and insight and to report factual information across disciplines, about complex subject matter and topics.

In his work in the municipal sector, Irby has embraced restorative practices, which is a social science movement that seeks to develop healthy communities and address social problems through use of increased social capital and pro-social action. He finds it refreshing that some journalists have discovered ways to do the same.

So, there’s a ‘restorative narrative’ push within journalism, writing circles, and communication circles. In order to move from penalty and punishment, we need to move to ideas about restoration and reconstruction and rejuvenation. And you can’t move in that direction without empathy. Sympathy is not enough. To be on the outside and just kind of looking in and having a cursory appreciation for someone’s sorrow, pain, or misfortune is not enough. It’s only when you move to the level of empathy where there’s more of a psychological appreciation for that pain, that harm, that disconnect or disrupting in one’s life, that you are really moved to conscious action.

Irby wants to see more of a conversation about restorative practices among journalists and in journalism schools.

I think it offers a practical framework that moves from the analytical side of journalism, where we’re observing issues and reporting on what we see to a restorative practice approach through the prism of empathy that moves us to a more conscious and a more effective form of solution-oriented coverage and journalism. And we need more solutions. It’s easy to identify the dilemma. It’s a much more difficult proposition to dive deep and to offer solutions and corrective practices to our many, many challenges in society. You won’t hear me argue against a solution-based approach.

Irby feels that this conversation about journalistic core values should be revolutionary in nature.

I think we’re long overdue for a change. There is a balance to everything. There’s a season and there’s a time and place and the need for analysis. I was in a breakfast conversation today with some senior editors discussing the value of editorials and commentaries in the realm of traditional journalism. And I think the whole idea of watchdog journalism holding the powerful accountable and then the examination of solutions is what has been lacking. That’s why so many in this society have disconnected I think from journalism because mainstream media, for the most part, have disconnected from what the problem is. The problem is when people who are in need feel that the role of journalism needs to be more involved within a democratic society. ‘Democracy dies in the darkness.’ If we don’t shine a light on the issues that need to drive that day and what the solutions are, then democracy dies. And as democracy goes, so goes the American culture and what it’s about. So, yes, I think journalists should be more actively celebrating the solutions.

Irby outlines the challenges which include business models, political polarization, and a general reluctance to be led by empirical knowledge.

Our challenge is the traditional model of journalism that a financial or an economic underpinning does not really allow that anymore. We’ve had so many people cut out of the process. The demands for clicks and responses on digital devices have had an adverse effect on the ability to do what I would just simply call a higher quality. Higher quality journalism is where we need to have investments. The big challenge for media leaders is the question, how do you find that balance? How do you cover the basic nuts and bolts of the day?

And you also have a higher quality of doing that now with The New York Times and its coverage of major issues. For some reason, there seems to be an attitude in America that only the ‘liberal media’ covers the pressing issues of the masses. It’s so politicized, instead of just evaluating responsiveness, and the primary issues of the day.

I look at coverage that the Washington Post has done – not only on the political front, but some of the coverage that has been done on global warming. Coverage that the Tampa Bay Times has done on education and the education gap and their ‘Failure Factory’ series in this place [the Gulf Coast of Florida] where I engage and live. I’ve seen a lot more impact on the infrastructure – whether it’s education or local government – and on dialogue. The Times just did a series called “Hot Wheels” and it’s an exploration of auto theft in west central Florida. It took about a year to do that report and investigation. They presented it as a way to explore what is one of the central issues that involves teens involved in illegal activity. It’s a level of new nuisance crime to have your car stolen. It’s a pain to have your car broken into. I’ve had my car broken into on our driveway. So those kinds of things are real and relevant to people. At the end of the day, it’s also a personal responsibility, because in upwards of 87 percent of the auto thefts in our county it’s been because the cars are left unlocked and many times the keys are in the ignition. This is a call to action for personal responsibility by citizens in the community, so we all examine what the solutions are to a growing problem. I say we look at that kind of coverage at a local level. Then more citizens will be more inclined to support and to have greater appreciation or regard for local media. It’s purely through that empathic prism that we’re talking about.

Irby thinks that the road to a higher empathy quotient starts with a strong effort in reflective thought, self-examination, and an effort to burst out of one’s protective bubble.

You know, I think the biggest impediment to empathy is a lack of relationship and a lack of connectedness. We don’t know our neighbors anymore. We don’t recognize that America is a nation founded on – and not to politicize this in anyway – it’s just a truism that we are a nation of immigrants. We are a nation where people are valued because of who they were, not from where they came from. Now we’ve become so disconnected in our relationships. We drive into our communities. We go into our homes. We spend time in those homes and rarely discuss with our neighbors or people who have any level of difference from us. Because of digitization, we go online and we’re more inclined to seek affirmation to our point of view, as opposed to being open to this great serendipity of learning from other perspectives, other worldviews, and other intellectual articulations about the issues.

And so, we need to find for ourselves an appreciation for us all being, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, ‘inextricably connected by a single garment of destiny,’ so that destiny that we pursue is not pursued in isolation. We have neighbors. We have family members. We have colleagues that we should seek to be open to human relationships. That’s what makes us special in the cosmos, many of us believe. But I think moving beyond isolation is the only way that we really turn the corner on this. I think we have the capacity and the potential. The real issue is: Do we have the will? Or another way of saying: Do we have the desire to move beyond our comfort zone?

Ultimately, Irby maintains that the road to empathy begins with a look inward – an “examination of self.” Then, he adds, look at “the manifestations of one’s self or one’s occupation of one’s heart and then, in that examination, have an honest willingness to evaluate.” To that point, Irby sees a key component to this kind of self-examination is to examine our own words and language within journalism. Visual communication professionals should think about the jargon they use every day to talk about what they do. Irby has long exhorted photojournalists to think about what it means when they say they “shoot” pictures, subjects, or assignments.

I’ve been engaged in this dialogue around the vernacular, etymology and nomenclature in journalism for 35 years or more. I became responsive to this as a freshman in 1979 at Boston University when I had Professor Harris Smith who sent me out to go ‘shoot some photos.’ And that was not a term that I was accustomed to hearing because my first photojournalism teacher in junior high school, when I first got the bug, always talked about ‘making pictures,’ and ‘let’s go make some pictures.’ And so, it was a place where I intellectually had to start an engagement with myself about how I’d describe what it was that I did. You know, I made photographs … I didn’t just take photographs, because – and maybe it was because of my spiritual upbringing – I thought to take something was synonymous with stealing something, that you didn’t have a right to do.

But nonetheless, as I pursued through the photojournalism track at Boston University, I was always engaged in this. Even at a very young age, as an African-American, I was sensitive. And this was just me, personally. So, this is an unpacking of my own experience, which is fairly impacting for me to have this conversation with my adversity towards ‘shooting.’ And I completely own it.

Because – just a slight digression in the conversation – yesterday my aunt sent me a series of photographs from November 1968 when my first real non-family mentor was murdered. He was her boyfriend, a police officer, who I had grown very attached to, who was working an undercover assignment, and was mistakenly killed on a drug raid. And I remember all the conversation about him being shot. So, I’ve had a negative association with ‘shooting.’ And so of course as a city boy I hadn’t been around a lot of guns without a negative association. And so, when it came to journalism, and me developing in my early career as a journalist I couldn’t quite understand why so many photographers were referred to as ‘shooters’ and talked about what they did as ‘shooting.’

And then the second layer on that was an appreciation for war photography and what David Hume Kennerly (2017) and others were engaging in Vietnam. And they were seeing themselves as ‘shooters.’ There was a book (1979) that was published around that time, in the 1970s about shooting. It glorified these photographers who were alongside soldiers who were shooting with bullets to take lives and these photographers who were in the same proximity and had the same attentiveness and passion about what they were doing. But they were then associated as ‘shooting’ photographs that would inform the world about what would happen.

So, in Pontiac Michigan and Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia at the Philadelphia Daily News, at the newspapers where I started out, I would always engage the professionals and senior photographers and for the reasoning for this dialogue. And it was always almost not a thoughtful response: ‘That’s just always the way it’s been.’

I always saw a negative association with my writing colleagues around that – that it was fairly mindless activity. As we grew into the 80s, and we saw lots of gang activity and violence, where it was in association with the negative things that were happening in the community, and what the photographers on the staff did. The photojournalists did ‘drive-bys.’ They did ‘quick shoots …’ and it never had a really positive impact on the thinking about colleagues and the relationships that were trying to be developed, by some of the legendary newsroom leaders like Bob Lynn (2016) and J. Bruce Baughman (2011), and all the folks who in that era were like the iconic picture editors and leaders. But it was Jim Dooley (“Q&A,” 2014) who was really receptive to my ideas as a young photographer and my pushback. In 1988, this really started for me: I showed up and I was not a shooter. I kind of ceremoniously declared, that, you know, ‘I’m a photojournalist.’ So here I am, the youngest new guy on the staff, espousing a different attitude and outlook about what I did. And it caused some tension in some places. However, in more cases than that, it created an opportunity for dialogue, where folks said, ‘Tell me more about that. Why do you feel so passionately about that?’

Fast forward to 1995 when I got to Poynter and I was challenged with the responsibility of creating a new tradition for photojournalists in this historically writer’s retreat and oasis. It allowed me to sit with some major voices in journalism like Roy Peter Clark (2017), great writing coaches like Don Fry (2010) and Mario García (2017), and to begin to have a new dialogue about what photojournalists did, and how they did it, and why they did it and where the similarities were and where the differences were. I initially made a decree that I was representing a group of individuals who, in the world of both broadcast and print reporting, were equal members of the news gathering teams. They were equal reporters – yet they were reporters with cameras. And I committed to obliterating the language around ‘shooting’ and redirecting the view about what was done in concert with, and in similarity, and maybe even empathically with what journalism was all about, and those journalists who were doing that work.

And so, with heartfelt intentionality, I have pursued a language that was more relevant of the news gathering experience, as reporters/photojournalists are capturing and documenting and even more directly photographing – instead of a shorthand language – that within journalism circles, built greater credibility and connectedness with what the broader newsroom was all about.

That’s internally. Externally, that argument has been an easy sell. Because within broader society we begin to live in a much more violent world in America, which was not just only in Vietnam where there was conflict but these conflict zones where people were always shooting and attacking and taking the lives of each other whether that’s in Africa or in the Middle East or in Yugoslavia, in South America in Colombia. Places where crime was happening and crime is always associated with gun violence, and therefore were great discussions about shooting at home here in America. The idea of shooting and gun violence became a much bigger issue. And again, there was a need to differentiate and disconnect from that violence. And then, by extension, to celebrate the noble and honorable works that these individual photojournalists that were always rushing towards the epicenter of the drama and trauma of life with the great honorable intent of being the eyes of a community not to take light or to shoot or to harm.

Irby’s hope is that, among other things, the road to empathy might lead to a greater understanding and appreciation of diversity and its value in solving social problems. He shared his thoughts after a recent visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington (2017).

A real struggle is for us to grow beyond this stalemate we seem to find ourselves, where there’s more of a ‘divide and conquer’ mentality …

I think this is really important for us to understand that diversity is a rich asset – not a liability – in the pursuit of solutions. We need to understand that every human being has the capacity to contribute and what we need to do is be a part of a culture and a society and a world that celebrates those differences as we move to higher levels of efficiency in our country and a higher level of acceptance in our world. Because we all have the capacity to contribute. It’s just a matter of creating a climate where we all are allowed to continue. And we’re all able to be educated, to be valued in diverse opinions and views and that only happens through two positive relationships and through dialogue.

It’s through dialogue that you build relationships not diatribe.

References

“Bob Lynn website.” (2016). Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://boblynnvisioncourageandheart.com/.

“David Hume Kennerly.” (2017). Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://kennerly.com/.

“Donald Fry.” (2010). Poynter. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://about.poynter.org/about-us/our-people/donald-fry.

“J. Bruce Baughman.” (2011). Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://mediaschool.indiana.edu/ijhf/j-bruce-baumann.

Kennerly, D.H. (1979). Shooter. New York: Newsweek Books.

“Kenny Irby.” (2010). Poynter. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://about.poynter.org/about-us/our-people/kenny-irby.

“Mario García website.” (2017). Garcíamedia. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://garciamedia.com/.

“Posts by Roy Peter Clark.” (2017). Poynter. Accessed June 30, 2017 from http://www.poynter.org/author/rclark/.

“Q&A with James Dooley, The Alexia Foundation.” (June 23, 2014). The Brownbill Effect. Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.thebrownbilleffect.com/blog/qa-with-james-dooley-the-alexia-foundation/.

“United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.” (2017). Accessed June 30, 2017 from https://www.ushmm.org/.