Throughout the years, I have witnessed the visual evolution in newspapers. But today’s newsroom leaders will be among those who will lead the visual revolution. And I envy all of you that incredible opportunity.
Pictures, in many ways, are the purest form of journalism. They capture a scene in a fraction of a second, opening the door, in that instant, into the soul of the subject for others to see; images frozen in time forever.
Think back with me to a small sampling of the many historic moments captured in those iconic images that are seared in our memories.
FDR and Stalin and Churchill at the summit; people with tears in their eyes standing by the railroad tracks as the train carried the body of President Roosevelt from Georgia to Washington; the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima; General MacArthur wading in the water as he returns to the Philippines as promised; a sailor kissing a woman in Times Square on VJ Day; a naked child running from the napalm attack in Vietnam; a police chief shooting a man in the head, also in Vietnam; or the picture of people fighting to get on the last helicopter leaving that country.
Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table at the United Nations, or the shot of Adlai Stevenson sitting with his legs crossed showing a big hole in the sole of his shoe; Khrushchev and President Nixon in the kitchen; President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, or Lee Harvey Oswald being killed by Jack Ruby, or LBJ being sworn in on Air Force One with a bloodied Jacqueline Kennedy at his side; little John Kennedy saluting his father’s coffin; an Ambassador Hotel busboy kneeling over a fatally wounded Bobby Kennedy; Dr. King leading the march in Selma; Bull Connor turning the dogs loose against the marchers; the faces of four children killed in a Birmingham church; tens of thousands gathered in Washington to hear “I Have a Dream”; the fallen body of Dr. King at a Memphis motel; George Wallace standing in the door of an Alabama school.
Scenes of riots in Los Angeles and Detroit and Dayton and Chicago and Memphis and many other cities; a crying young woman kneeling over the dead body of a student at Kent State; a Vietnam War protester placing a flower in the barrel of a soldier’s rifle; President Nixon boarding a helicopter leaving the White House after his resignation; a dead soldier being dragged through the streets of Somalia; lines of hundreds waiting to vote in South Africa and in Iraq; a child being passed to her family through a barbed-wire fence in Kosovo; numerous images of the 1989 Northern California earthquake.
The assassination attempt on President Reagan; a child being carried by a fireman from a bombed federal building in Oklahoma City; burned bodies hanging from a bridge in Iraq; a battered Y.A. Tittle, the Giants’ quarterback, kneeling in pain on the turf; a jubilant Ali standing in triumph over the fallen Sonny Liston; a United States Olympic hockey team wrapped in an American flag celebrating a miracle victory over the Russians.
I could go on and on, but you get the picture.
Sometimes the music of great images brings us joy and sometimes tears, sometimes sadness and sometimes laughter, but it always touches our souls and opens a curtain to the world that exists behind the images.
It is your task, and the task of your counterparts across the land, to lead the visual revolution, to continue to bring us great images regardless of what platform we use to deliver them now and in the future.
But it’s also your duty to examine each image and ask the same tough questions you ask before you print stories that may cause harm. It’s not good enough to fall back on the old “we-are-just-mirrors-of-the-world” answer. Or the other most-often used reason that publication of tragedy-related pictures promotes safety and could save lives. You don’t have to be timid, just be thoughtful and sensitive and have respect for your audience.
A few months ago, a group of visual leaders came to Poynter to discuss the visual revolution and their roles in it. With wonderful teaching from leaders such as Mario Garcia (a Poynter National Advisory member), National Geographic editor Chris Johns, St. Petersburg Times publisher Marty Petty, The Virginian-Pilot‘s Denis Finley, Poynter’s Kenny Irby, Kelly McBride and Sara Quinn and others, we examined the strategies and decisions that will be needed as technology puts even more emphasis and importance on the visual side of journalism.
We discussed such subjects as the intersection between leadership and technology, the ethics of visual content, how visual leaders build trust, why good visual journalism is good business, lessons learned by a visual leader, and the challenges and opportunities in this changing environment.
I want to share some of the participants’ parting headlines:
- Visual journalists, get out of your silos.
- Remember, we can work together.
- Lead now, it’s the real deal.
- Don’t be timid, be a leader.
- Focus on the whys and not the hows.
- Start over again and ask what would you do tomorrow.
- It’s all about telling great stories.
- Challenge, question and communicate.
- Adapt or die.
- This revolution will be televised.
- Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
- Comfort is bad.
- It’s no time to rest.
- What we do is the best on the planet.
- Brand, promote and market better.
And one I really liked: “Leaders shall inherit the space.”
Or as another participant said, “Start the revolution.”
