EDITOR’S NOTE: Picture perfect

EDITOR’S NOTE By Hank Kalet A response to school photo coverage complaints.

   A woman whose daughter attends one of the local schools called me last week and told me she was concerned that we were not planning to send a photographer to the school’s play.
   She said she liked the paper but believed that sports coverage sometimes overshadows coverage of the schools. She said she had requested a photographer, but had been told that no one was available, which prompted her to call.
   Her complaint is not an unusual one. We have a lot of requests from community groups and others to come out and take pictures and it often is difficult to get out to everything, though we do our best.
   What I would ask readers to remember is that we have one staff photographer who works 40 hours a week. The photographer, John Keating, shoots four days a week — Friday through Monday — and spends Tuesday at the computer getting them ready for the paper. He is off on Wednesday and Thursday.
   That is not a lot of time to cover four towns — this office is responsible not only for two editions of the Press, but for the South Brunswick Post. Altogether, we have 20 schools to worry about, including three high schools that run a full array of sports and other activities. Each of the four towns we cover has active civic groups and a lot going on.
   Our goal every week is to ensure that there are a minimum of three photo assignments for each news section, another two or three for each sports section and a lifestyle assignment for each paper. That means we need between 15 and 20 assignments every week.
   We try to use Mr. Keating to cover as much of that as we can, but time constraints and the quirks of scheduling mean we have to rely on other resources. We have a strong stable of freelancers, but they we cannot guarantee their availability — or, sometimes, even their reliability. And our reporters will pitch in and shoot on occasion. And I’ll sometimes run out with my camera to capture a breaking news shot.
   I explained all of this to the reader, who was very gracious and said she would do whatever we needed to ensure that there were pictures of the play in the paper. I told her I would look into the schedule and check on a freelancer and get back to her — as it turns out, an assignment originally slated for Friday night was canceled, allowing us to send Mr. Keating to the play.
   I decided that it made sense to share our conversation with the paper’s readers, though, because I know there are many others who maybe curious how the photo-scheduling process works and who maybe looking for ways to get their events into the paper.
   The main thing for readers and residents to keep in mind is that, when possible, they should contact us as early as possible about assignments. The more lead-time we have the better chance we have of resolving conflicts should there be more than event scheduled for the same time period. Call News Editor John Saccenti, Social Editor Sarah Winkelman or Sports Editor Rich Fisher with photo requests.
   And we will accept photos taken by readers. They can be dropped off at our new office at 401 Ridge Road, sent via mail to P.O. Box 309 or e-mailed as jpg attachments to Mr. Saccenti at [email protected], Ms. Winkelman at [email protected] or Mr. Fisher at [email protected].
The Editor’s Note column will run as often as necessary as a way to explain the workings of The Cranbury Press to our readers. So, please, send me your questions about the paper, about the news business, about the decisions we’ve made and any suggestions you have. I’ll try and answer as many as I can in future Editor’s Notes. Call me at (732) 329-9214, write me at P.O. Box 309, Dayton, N.J. 08810 or e-mail me at [email protected].