Pictures

As a journalist, your responsibility is not limited to getting the words right. You also have an important role in making sure the newspaper has the right photographs.

This is an often overlooked but important part of the job. After all, a story with the right picture can have much more impact than just the text on its own. In fact, having the right image can make the difference between a story making the front of the paper and not.

Identifying Picture Opportunities

When you are writing a story, get into the habit of always thinking for possible pictures that would help to illustrate it.

This means arranging photographs that tell the reader the story. For example, if you are writing a story about a local boy who has been signed by a professional football club, you should not just take a picture of him. You need to include something that gets across that the story is about football. Perhaps he can be pictured with a football or with the shirt of the club he has signed for.

It is important to think creatively about pictures and get an image that will surprise people and be attractive to look at. To take the football example, an even better picture would be of the boy doing a trick with the football.

If you asked him to catch the football between his shoulder blades and then lie down on his front, you could get a picture of him with the grass in the foreground and the football appearing above his head. This would be much more visually interesting than just having a picture of him holding a football.

You should also try to make sure that, wherever possible, there are people in photographs. It is worth remembering that children generally make better subjects for pictures than adults, though make sure you follow the Press Complaints Commission's Code of Practice for getting permission.

Whatever you do, never order a picture of a cheque presentation. This is the worst possible example of a dreary and unimaginative picture and has come to represent everything bad about local journalism. Many newspapers rightly have an unofficial ban on running these photographs but some still get published, such as this offering from the North West Evening Mail.

Another dull picture that appears in lots of papers is of groups of residents looking miserable as they stand on the site of a proposed development they are campaigning against. This is not as bad as the cheque presentation, but avoid it if you can.

Using Old Photographs

Do not limit yourself to new photographs for your news stories as sometimes old images work even better.

For example, if you are doing a death knock you should always try to get pictures of the person who has died. A photograph of the person on their wedding day, for example, can heighten the story's emotional appeal.

Or if you are doing a story about a local headteacher who is retiring after working at the same school for 30 years, find out if they have a picture of themselves when they first started. Putting a picture of the headteacher of today next to an old image of them will make the article much more visually interesting.

Remember that these pictures will usually have lots of sentimental value to the people who own them. All too often, people's pictures get lost in the newsroom and if you are given the hard copy then make sure to look after them and return them to their owner as soon as the picture desk has scanned them in.

Working With Photographers

It is always worth building a good relationship with your newspaper's photographers as you will often have to rely on them to get the image your story needs.

This can be more difficult than it sounds. Many journalists find that photographers can be reluctant to take on new jobs and are too quick to tell you their diary is full. When they do take a picture for you, they can often act as if they are doing you a favour rather than just doing their job.

It is worth asking them for their advice about how you can make their job easier and being as nice to them as possible because they have the power to make your job much more difficult.

Also, give them direction about the sort of photograph you would like, but remember they are the professionals and they know (or at least they should know) better than you what will work on the page.

If you know how the picture is likely to fit onto the page, tell the photographer whether the shape is landscape or portrait. Where you do not yet know what shape is needed, it is worth making it clear that you need both a landscape and a portrait to choose from.

Taking Your Own Photographs

In practice many reporters end up taking their own photographs, particularly for things like headshots. If you want to take your own images, how useable they will be will depend on how good a photographer you are.

As a general rule, pictures that reporters take themselves are generally good enough for publication as long as they are not the main image on a page. But if you are a decent photographer, there is no reason why you cannot take pictures that are good enough to be a main image.

But bear in mind that reporters taking photographs is a contentious issue. At some papers it is accepted practice, but at others it can cause resentment among photographers who see it as taking part of their job away. It has been a particularly controversial issue for the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) over the last year. A recent NUJ ruling that reporters can carry cameras  was called a "sell out" by Editorial Photographers UK.

So if you do decide you want to take some of your own pictures - which can in practice be a lot less hassle than dealing with the picture desk - then proceed with caution and make sure you are not going to alienate people.

Picture Captions

Generally, it is the responsibility of the sub-editor or sometimes the photographer to write the picture caption and it is down to the photographer to find out the names of people in the pictures and the correct spelling for them.

If you are writing a contentious story, however, it is always worth checking with the sub-editor once the story is on the page to make sure the caption is right.

Particularly where you are publishing a photograph alongside an article making an allegation against someone, you need to be certain the picture is of the right person. With the pressure of deadlines, people do make mistakes. As well as opening your paper up to a libel action, this could have a serious effect on someone's reputation.

This can happen, such as when the Newbury Weekly News ran a story about a priest accused of distributing child pornography and mistakenly illustrated it with a picture of a different - and completely uninvolved - priest. Learn from their mistake and if you have even the slightest doubt then do not print it.