H
Harpoon
Oh no, someone got bored again.... 
I've got a few pet peeves. People who don't know the rules of the road is one that comes off the top of my head. Another are mothers who smoke, and this is of course extended to expectant mothers.
If you're paying attention, you may remember me recalling an incident when I left Cleveland Clinic after my valve surgery, seeing the mother of a child who was a resident only feet from where my bed was in the Children's Hospital, a child who had spent most of her life in that hospital waiting for a heart transplant, a transplant that happened two weeks before I got to go home. There was mommie, standing on the curb in a light snow/drizzle, puffing away on a cigarette.
Yeah, that's a pet peeve.
So anyways. I was surfing the web killing time while waiting for Sports to give me photos to set up for Sunday's paper and I came across the image file attached to this post. It's obviously scanned from a newspaper, I reduced it some for slower computers but beyond that it's untouched.
It caused quite a furor apparently and the author of the article the photo was for wrote a column in response to the attention the image generated"
Criticism doesn't bother smoker
By Joe Kennedy
THE ROANOKE TIMES
Mellissa Williamson came to her door smoking a cigarette Thursday morning. It was a sign that the Southeast Roanoke woman didn't know or didn't care about the furor her photograph had ignited since it appeared in The Roanoke Times on Sept. 20.
The photo showed her seven months pregnant and smoking a cigarette. It accompanied a story about unpopular "traffic-calming" measures under way on Bullitt Avenue, where she lives. The caption said she worries about the effect of jackhammer noise on her unborn child. She couldn't have touched off a controversy more quickly if she'd called President Bush an Islamic extremist.
Dozens of calls and e-mails came to The Roanoke Times impugning her reputation and criticizing the paper for printing the photo. It glamorized or promoted smoking while pregnant, some people said. At least one syndicated talk radio host mentioned it, and the picture proliferated on Web sites, with the caption and some wise remark like, "Yeah, the noise is what the baby needs to fear."
That's life
We'll deal with these issues one at a time.
First, the furor: Yes, Mellissa Williamson, 35, violates sound medical behavior every time she takes a puff. Yes, she deserves censure.
Second, the weighing in of egomaniacal talk-radio hosts: Yes, they're correct in saying Williamson's unborn child - a boy named Emmitt, after her "old man," who also smokes - can be damaged by her smoking.
But egomaniacal talk-radio hosts should be viewed with antipathy because they troll for people to demean. "Mercy" is not in their vocabularies. Their favorite word begins and ends with "I."
Third, the newspaper's decision to publish the picture: My view? That's journalism.
My bosses' view? The same.
"A good newspaper depicts reality, for good or ill," Times Editor Mike Riley said, "and sometimes people don't like what they see on our pages. ... We're not promoting smoking or pregnancy; we're simply documenting one person's viewpoint on an issue."
Managing Editor Rich Martin concurred: "Our photographers are out there to show what's really going on - not to stage or edit a scene just so we can photograph someone in a more favorable light."
Staging and editing scenes constitute filmmaking, advertising or propaganda, but not journalism.
When you write in your journal, do you present the truth as you lived it or a purified account that makes you look good?
Never mind.
A target market
Thursday morning, Williamson said she knows smoking is bad because people have criticized her since she took up the practice 20 years ago.
"I really don't pay that much attention to it," she said. "If people don't like it, that's their opinion. They've got theirs and I've got mine."
She has tried every way to quit without success, she said.
As for smoking while pregnant, she said her doctor told her "it would be good if I cut back, but if I totally quit, it would not only cause stress on me but it would cause stress on the baby."
Speaking generally, Eric Earnhart, spokesman for Carilion Health System, said any pregnant person who comes to its facilities "is going to be advised to quit smoking."
It is possible, he said, that a person having difficulty quitting would be advised at least to cut down.
Williamson said she has cut down from two packs per day to one-half pack.
Smoking is estimated to account for 20 percent to 30 percent of low birth-weight babies, up to 14 percent of preterm deliveries and 10 percent of all infant deaths. Asthma is twice as likely in children whose mothers smoke more than 10 cigarettes per day. This is just a fraction of the possible harm.
"The most effective way to protect the fetus is to quit smoking," the American Lung Association says.
Williamson is a small woman with long brown hair. She didn't finish high school. She hasn't seen her father since she was 13. She has worked in fast food, but doesn't have a job.
"I've heard of the Internet," she said, "but I've never used it. I have no knowledge of computers whatsoever."
She didn't learn about her widespread critics until a few days after the photo appeared. Her ex-husband said his co-workers had talked about it.
"It didn't bother me," she said. "It went in one ear and out the other. I've heard this all my life."
I think she's an easy target, and I think Andrea Siebentritt of the American Cancer Society had the most thoughtful response.
"We have to see her as an audience we need to reach out to," she said.
I'm posting it cause I got something to say. (uh-oh... )
I do this work, I'm a newspaper photographer and I could easily have been taking a similar photo for a story regarding a similar issue. New York State recently passed a law requiring "hands free sets" for drivers using cellphones, the thinking being that if you're driving with one hand on the wheel and the other with a cell pressed to your head, you might smash into something. Ok, sounds reasonable enough. As the law was passed, we did a story about it and i was assigned to go get a photo of some hapless driver in "violation" of the new law.
Yup, did that, got several shots actually, including a New York State Trooper doing exactly what he was supposed to ticket other people for....
Whoops.
That photo didn't run, another did that actually had two drivers stopped at an intersection waiting for the light to change while yappin' away.
I'm just going off here 'cause it bugs me, the smoking thing, and because this example illustrates an interesting position the "media" (and those that produce it) can sometimes find themselves in.
As a journalist, my goal is to "find the facts" (a terrible cliche') of the story and behind it. I have to be careful to, A) not become part of the story, B) not spin the story towards my own personal views, and C) tell the story accurately, as it happened, without staging or set up. Well the trick is, this doesn't always happen. I've shot scenes of people in important positions doing things they aught not do. I once shot a guy who was involved in a polar bear swim for charity. he had filed a workers comp claim and other medical related claims for being unable to work due to a back injury, yet he was in a Speedo and water shoes floating around an icy harbor on a blustery, sub-zero January day.... Whoops again.
I just found this interesting, the juxtaposition of images and statements. So many questions come to mind with this: Which is more harmful, the noise or the smoking? Does she recognize the dangers, does she understand them? Did the photographer realize what he was shooting when the photo was taken, the implications?
I sometimes change things when I set up a shot on an assignment. Someone poses with a can of beer sitting on the table before them or a glass of hard liquor in their hand, "How about setting that aside until after I take the photo sir?" Is that manipulation, is it good journalism?
Think about what you see on TV, in the newspaper, in a magazine. The world is ripe with images that have been somehow doctored to advance a particular mesage or viewpoint. Sometimes it's with legitimate and acceptable intentions, sometimes it's done with malace, conceit, or outright fraud and libel.
Another pet peeve: I don't think enough people in this world question what they see and hear. I think too many of us buy into things on a first impression, first inclination, whether right or wrong. I also think the world would be a much better place if we could take a moment and reflect on an issue before making a judgement about it, before taking a side. We're too quick to assume, to agree/disagree. We need to take more time reflecting and trying to understand the facts of the matter.
The photo illustrated an apparently (by the essay response from the reporter) and undereducated woman from a more or less broken family history who either truely felt the noise issue was important to her unborn child while smoking was not a real concern, OR was just looking for a little fame by agreeing to comment on the issue and be photographed for the story...
We get a LOT of people like the second category. They're itching to get into the paper, either themselves, or at least be credited for bringing "some big thing" to our attention...
This is what I love about my job, shots like this that pose all KINDS of questions and make people THINK about the issue I'm addressing, or at least they should....
I've got a few pet peeves. People who don't know the rules of the road is one that comes off the top of my head. Another are mothers who smoke, and this is of course extended to expectant mothers.
If you're paying attention, you may remember me recalling an incident when I left Cleveland Clinic after my valve surgery, seeing the mother of a child who was a resident only feet from where my bed was in the Children's Hospital, a child who had spent most of her life in that hospital waiting for a heart transplant, a transplant that happened two weeks before I got to go home. There was mommie, standing on the curb in a light snow/drizzle, puffing away on a cigarette.
Yeah, that's a pet peeve.
So anyways. I was surfing the web killing time while waiting for Sports to give me photos to set up for Sunday's paper and I came across the image file attached to this post. It's obviously scanned from a newspaper, I reduced it some for slower computers but beyond that it's untouched.
It caused quite a furor apparently and the author of the article the photo was for wrote a column in response to the attention the image generated"
Criticism doesn't bother smoker
By Joe Kennedy
THE ROANOKE TIMES
Mellissa Williamson came to her door smoking a cigarette Thursday morning. It was a sign that the Southeast Roanoke woman didn't know or didn't care about the furor her photograph had ignited since it appeared in The Roanoke Times on Sept. 20.
The photo showed her seven months pregnant and smoking a cigarette. It accompanied a story about unpopular "traffic-calming" measures under way on Bullitt Avenue, where she lives. The caption said she worries about the effect of jackhammer noise on her unborn child. She couldn't have touched off a controversy more quickly if she'd called President Bush an Islamic extremist.
Dozens of calls and e-mails came to The Roanoke Times impugning her reputation and criticizing the paper for printing the photo. It glamorized or promoted smoking while pregnant, some people said. At least one syndicated talk radio host mentioned it, and the picture proliferated on Web sites, with the caption and some wise remark like, "Yeah, the noise is what the baby needs to fear."
That's life
We'll deal with these issues one at a time.
First, the furor: Yes, Mellissa Williamson, 35, violates sound medical behavior every time she takes a puff. Yes, she deserves censure.
Second, the weighing in of egomaniacal talk-radio hosts: Yes, they're correct in saying Williamson's unborn child - a boy named Emmitt, after her "old man," who also smokes - can be damaged by her smoking.
But egomaniacal talk-radio hosts should be viewed with antipathy because they troll for people to demean. "Mercy" is not in their vocabularies. Their favorite word begins and ends with "I."
Third, the newspaper's decision to publish the picture: My view? That's journalism.
My bosses' view? The same.
"A good newspaper depicts reality, for good or ill," Times Editor Mike Riley said, "and sometimes people don't like what they see on our pages. ... We're not promoting smoking or pregnancy; we're simply documenting one person's viewpoint on an issue."
Managing Editor Rich Martin concurred: "Our photographers are out there to show what's really going on - not to stage or edit a scene just so we can photograph someone in a more favorable light."
Staging and editing scenes constitute filmmaking, advertising or propaganda, but not journalism.
When you write in your journal, do you present the truth as you lived it or a purified account that makes you look good?
Never mind.
A target market
Thursday morning, Williamson said she knows smoking is bad because people have criticized her since she took up the practice 20 years ago.
"I really don't pay that much attention to it," she said. "If people don't like it, that's their opinion. They've got theirs and I've got mine."
She has tried every way to quit without success, she said.
As for smoking while pregnant, she said her doctor told her "it would be good if I cut back, but if I totally quit, it would not only cause stress on me but it would cause stress on the baby."
Speaking generally, Eric Earnhart, spokesman for Carilion Health System, said any pregnant person who comes to its facilities "is going to be advised to quit smoking."
It is possible, he said, that a person having difficulty quitting would be advised at least to cut down.
Williamson said she has cut down from two packs per day to one-half pack.
Smoking is estimated to account for 20 percent to 30 percent of low birth-weight babies, up to 14 percent of preterm deliveries and 10 percent of all infant deaths. Asthma is twice as likely in children whose mothers smoke more than 10 cigarettes per day. This is just a fraction of the possible harm.
"The most effective way to protect the fetus is to quit smoking," the American Lung Association says.
Williamson is a small woman with long brown hair. She didn't finish high school. She hasn't seen her father since she was 13. She has worked in fast food, but doesn't have a job.
"I've heard of the Internet," she said, "but I've never used it. I have no knowledge of computers whatsoever."
She didn't learn about her widespread critics until a few days after the photo appeared. Her ex-husband said his co-workers had talked about it.
"It didn't bother me," she said. "It went in one ear and out the other. I've heard this all my life."
I think she's an easy target, and I think Andrea Siebentritt of the American Cancer Society had the most thoughtful response.
"We have to see her as an audience we need to reach out to," she said.
I'm posting it cause I got something to say. (uh-oh...
)I do this work, I'm a newspaper photographer and I could easily have been taking a similar photo for a story regarding a similar issue. New York State recently passed a law requiring "hands free sets" for drivers using cellphones, the thinking being that if you're driving with one hand on the wheel and the other with a cell pressed to your head, you might smash into something. Ok, sounds reasonable enough. As the law was passed, we did a story about it and i was assigned to go get a photo of some hapless driver in "violation" of the new law.
Yup, did that, got several shots actually, including a New York State Trooper doing exactly what he was supposed to ticket other people for....
Whoops.
That photo didn't run, another did that actually had two drivers stopped at an intersection waiting for the light to change while yappin' away.
I'm just going off here 'cause it bugs me, the smoking thing, and because this example illustrates an interesting position the "media" (and those that produce it) can sometimes find themselves in.
As a journalist, my goal is to "find the facts" (a terrible cliche') of the story and behind it. I have to be careful to, A) not become part of the story, B) not spin the story towards my own personal views, and C) tell the story accurately, as it happened, without staging or set up. Well the trick is, this doesn't always happen. I've shot scenes of people in important positions doing things they aught not do. I once shot a guy who was involved in a polar bear swim for charity. he had filed a workers comp claim and other medical related claims for being unable to work due to a back injury, yet he was in a Speedo and water shoes floating around an icy harbor on a blustery, sub-zero January day.... Whoops again.
I just found this interesting, the juxtaposition of images and statements. So many questions come to mind with this: Which is more harmful, the noise or the smoking? Does she recognize the dangers, does she understand them? Did the photographer realize what he was shooting when the photo was taken, the implications?
I sometimes change things when I set up a shot on an assignment. Someone poses with a can of beer sitting on the table before them or a glass of hard liquor in their hand, "How about setting that aside until after I take the photo sir?" Is that manipulation, is it good journalism?
Think about what you see on TV, in the newspaper, in a magazine. The world is ripe with images that have been somehow doctored to advance a particular mesage or viewpoint. Sometimes it's with legitimate and acceptable intentions, sometimes it's done with malace, conceit, or outright fraud and libel.
Another pet peeve: I don't think enough people in this world question what they see and hear. I think too many of us buy into things on a first impression, first inclination, whether right or wrong. I also think the world would be a much better place if we could take a moment and reflect on an issue before making a judgement about it, before taking a side. We're too quick to assume, to agree/disagree. We need to take more time reflecting and trying to understand the facts of the matter.
The photo illustrated an apparently (by the essay response from the reporter) and undereducated woman from a more or less broken family history who either truely felt the noise issue was important to her unborn child while smoking was not a real concern, OR was just looking for a little fame by agreeing to comment on the issue and be photographed for the story...
We get a LOT of people like the second category. They're itching to get into the paper, either themselves, or at least be credited for bringing "some big thing" to our attention...
This is what I love about my job, shots like this that pose all KINDS of questions and make people THINK about the issue I'm addressing, or at least they should....
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