 Image via Wikipedia |
| A U.S. Navy photographer captured this image on Sept. 13, 2001. |
For Staff Photographer Thomas E. Franklin of The Record, it wasn't enough to beat all of his competitors by capturing a unique image of hope amid the despair of 9/11.
Today, in an inspiring Page 1 story on 9/11 photographers, Franklin eloquently describes the flag-raising photo he made on Sept. 11, 2001:
"Three resolute firemen on the edge of a battlefield, hoisting a tattered flag -- more than 300 of their fallen brethren buried in the debris behind them."
"Buried" is also a good word to describe what happened to Franklin's photo nearly a decade ago as The Record's Hackensack newsroom raced to put out the first edition.
Any editor worth his salt would have torn apart the front page for Franklin's image -- instead of settling for a paper with the same, old image of the smoking Twin Towers, the A-1 photo nearly everybody else used on the day after the attack on America.
He's no prize
But Editor Francis Scandale isn't any editor. He brought to the job a deeply flawed news judgment and an inability to stand up to the bean counters.
Franklin's photo ended up on a back page on Sept. 12, 2001 -- so the iconic image's appearance on the front page today is nearly 10 years overdue.
No one can say whether burying Franklin's unique 9/11 photo meant the difference to the jury that awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography to The New York Times.
Instead of hanging his head in shame, Scandale continues to stonewall and deny readers the inside story of why Franklin's photo was treated so shabbily on 9/11.
And his news judgment hasn't improved.
As recently as this past Jan. 9, Scandale squeezed the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona under a one-column headline on the front page of a Sunday edition to make room for the large photo of a Jets football player.
Today's story by Franklin is moving and well-written, but his video on northjersey.com is especially powerful: "Witness to History"
Fixing a boo-boo
A correction on A-2 today acknowledges a news copy editor working for Editor Liz Houlton was hallucinating when he wrote "4.5 million" unemployed people, instead of "4.5" unemployed people, in a headline on Monday. LOL.
Red-light district
Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes seems determined to use the Local section to chronicle every red-light camera (L-3), just as she has been running stories on every solar panel put up on schools, town halls or businesses.
Her assignment minions still are unaware of a deep drop in the price paid for so-called solar certificates, which are earned by homeowners who have installed solar power.
On L-5, a major story on the "new face" of the heroin trade -- focusing on a Fort Lee home -- is from The Associated Press, not the paper's local staff.
Business news is squeezed into less than a half-page of L-7 today.
Bravo, Victor
ReplyDeleteWell said.
Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI worked on 9/11, called into the newsroom early to put out an Extra.
From my seat on the news copy desk, I could see out a window that framed the column of smoke from the collapsed World Trade Center, and would look up occasionally at it until it turned dark out.
The newsroom was filled with the usual sounds of putting out the paper, plus editors, reporters and photographers were walking around and talking to each other -- the message system was too slow as we tried to cover the biggest stories of our lives.
Besides what happened to Tom Franklin's photo, the photo caption on Page 1 of the Extra incorrectly identified the South Tower and the North Tower.
When a decision was made to reprint thousands of copies of the Extra, the news copy desk was told the error on Page 1 of the original would stand, because it would cost too much to fix it.
Did you really misspell Thomas E. Franklin's name?
ReplyDeleteNot intentionally. Guess I was confusing him with Tomas Padilla, head of the Hackensack Police Department.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Liz Houlton could use you on her dysfunctional news copy desk. LOL.