off day

What makes a good editor? I guess that is why I created this almost journal-like blog to help me find the answer to that question. Sometimes decisions aren't so easy. This Huskie game came down to an unbelievable hail mary play during the last seconds of the game. We tied the game...but lost the game when our new quarterback threw one of his 5 interceptions of the day. No one had the picture of the game-ending interception. Our photographer took a great shot of the game-tying hail mary pass in the endzone with a very jubilant player and had UW won the game, it would have been the perfect picture. Unfortunately, we weren't that lucky. The play was hard to illustrate, for sure. But watching the game, talking to the sports and other people in the newsroom, we did feel that it was an important play. I thought about other angles of the game to illustrate...interceptions, bad offensive defense, but I didn't feel like we had strong enough pictures of those to lead the section. So, I made a tough decision and ran with a wire picture of the big play, instead of going with a staff photo. I talked to the photographer about it and I believe he understood. But it definitely has me thinking. A friend of mine, when describing his favorite photo editor told me "he makes me look smart." So, perhaps the best editors don't make good edits of great pictures but help their photographers shine when they are having an off day. And perhaps I should have tried harder to do that.

This is one of the inside pages of the Washington State University game.