PHOTOGRAPHY is one of the most underrated and underappreciated aspects of a newspaper.
Readers and even staff members at newspapers often forget or don't realize that photographers, like reporters, are journalists. Reporters try to get to the truth of an event or issue with words; photographers use their images instead.
I hate to drag up the football team's loss to Florida State on Oct. 16 -- especially after watching my alma mater lose to a highly ranked opponent this weekend -- but Monday's Sports section provided a great example of the power of photography in a newspaper. The Cavalier Daily ran two photographs by Eric Kelley that told the story of the game, as well as three articles, a column and a few graphics.
The first shot ran on the front page of the Sports section above the main story and under the headline, "Same old story: Cavs thrashed by FSU." It showed nose tackle Andrew Hoffman lying flat on his back with a penalty flag in the background. The other photo ran with associate editor Jeremy Root's article about the Cavaliers' struggles on special teams. In that picture, kick returner Marquis Weeks muffed a second-half kickoff.
The picture of Hoffman lying on the ground symbolized the way the Seminoles dominated the Cavaliers last week. Root and senior associate editor Joe Lemire wrote at length about how Florida State beat Virginia. But Kelley's photo made the result of the game painfully obvious to anyone who just glanced at Monday's newspaper.
Likewise, the shot of Weeks dropping the kickoff and the cutline that ran next to it neatly summarized the Cavaliers' special teams woes against the Seminoles. Root's article described the problems in the kicking game well, while the photo gave the visual evidence.
Good examples of photography supporting articles weren't confined to the Sports section last week. On Monday's News page, associate editor Lauren Todd Pappa wrote about two outdoor classrooms created by University architecture students. Pappa's article included a description of the rooms, but a photo taken by Heliodor Jalba actually let readers see what one of them looks like.
Staff writer Armenoush Aslanian-Persico wrote in Wednesday's paper about a national organization called Yes Bush Can that satirizes President Bush's policies. Aslanian-Persico described how the group drives around the country in a charter bus that billows smoke from its roof. A photograph taken by Alex Sonneborn made the writer's description come alive for readers.
Bad photographs can make a paper look amateurish and detract from its overall appearance. As these pictures showed last week, good photographs enhance a paper's look and add meaning to the articles they accompany.
Covering a loss
Speaking of the Virginia-Florida State game, covering a high-profile loss is not easy for a sportswriter at a college newspaper, something I learned personally after four years of writing about sports at North Carolina State University.
A college paper's sportswriters are usually some of the school's biggest fans. Like any other reporter, however, they bear a responsibility to report on games in an impartial way and not sugarcoat what happens when their team loses.
Root and Lemire, the two staff members who covered the game, wrote honestly in Monday's paper about Virginia's loss in Tallahassee, Fla. Root stuck to the facts of what happened in the main game story, using statistics and specific incidents to show how Florida State won. He briefly mentioned that tight end Heath Miller was "the only bright spot for the Virginia offense," but the reference came late in the article and didn't misrepresent the general direction of the game.
The two articles in the Football Extra section went into more depth on how Florida State knocked off Virginia. Lemire wrote about how the Seminole defense stopped the Cavalier running backs, and Root laid out Virginia's special teams mistakes.
Even Lemire's column, "Virginia still can't play with the big boys," which gave him more freedom to express his own views, didn't talk lightly about the Virginia loss. Lemire ended on an optimistic note, discussing the future of Cavalier football under head coach Al Groh, but the bulk of the column critically evaluated the team's breakdown against the Seminoles.
Impartial reporting is just as important on the Sports page as the News page, which Root and Lemire demonstrated Monday. Hopefully, they and the rest of the Sports staff will have better things to write about for the rest of the football season.
Jeremy Ashton can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.
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