i scratch your back, you say get lost

I think said back-scratching must end, if they treat you that way.

 

i like that analogy.

 

I've told photogs at the rival paper ... ahh, better not go there.

 

Uh, 'scuse me here, but if you were sending a reporter to an event -- without a photog -- why wouldn't you send a camera with said reporter?

Even if another paper had promised me a photo, if I have someone going to that event, I expect both stories and photos from my person.

 

Here's something along the same lines that really burns my ass: Have a paper call ya, looking for someone on your staff to provide some stringer help. You give them a story ... and they give you nothing but grief when it comes to payment. Based on the lack of short-term memory, you know there has to be years of alcohol abuse affecting some of these SEs. And then they'll have the audacity to call up 6-8 months later and again ask for help.

My blacklist is short, but I've got a couple papers I wouldn't give cutline info to.

 

At no place I've been, even the 17K daily where I worked in high school, has this been an option. Just isn't done most places, any more than we'd want a photog writing a story.

I'd be lost. When we're on vacation and my wife wants me to snap a photo, she has to show me how. I seriously doubt any newspaper in America, including yours, would want to run a photo I took.

 

If I'm taking pictures, that means I'm sacrificing my stats. And I'm too anal about stats to do that.

This is indicative of a larger trend, though: smaller papers that get rid of the professional photogs and just hand all the reporters a digital camera. Fine for school board pics, horrible for sports or breaking news.

 

I, thankfully, learned how to keep stats, pbp, and take photos -- decent ones, at that.

I've always taken pride in that fact.

 

I took some kick-ass photos in my first job. My football ones weren't always the greatest, but were probably the best writing-staff-taken ones. My basketball and baseball ones were generally bad. Soccer? I took some awesome ones. Won an award for a swimming photo.

All while covering the event.

 

If you want me to shoot photos, you'd be better off giving the camera to a chimp.

 

I used to have to tell coaches of the home teams to run a few sweeps my way so I could get a couple of shots and then concentrate on my stats.
usually, they were pretty cooperative.
Ah, the good ol' days.
We routinely trade pics and stories with the nearest paper on our crossover games. Very few of our readers pick up both papers for their high school stuff, so I don't see it really as a problem.

 

writers taking photos? now that's a helluva concept.

maybe i'll start selling ads next week.