A generation ago, television news photographers were widely
viewed as assistants to TV reporters, a practice encouraged at
some journalism schools. The reporters often would give on-air
credit to their shooters at the end of a story.
Today, photographers at New Orleans' four television news
stations are considered equal partners with reporters but seldom
get on-air credit. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of area
viewers often don't know the extent of the photographers' contributions.
"It's one of the many injustices of television," one news director
concedes.
Yet, during a brief sortie into the hectic world of TV
news, we heard no complaints. For more than 60 local television
photographers, it really is about the craft -- and getting the
shot.
Following Porter
Since 1973, Willie P. Wilson Jr. has photographed many of
the biggest stories in New Orleans journalism -- the Howard
Johnson's sniper attacks; the bloody Algiers "incidents" of
1980; former Gov. Edwin Edwards' first of three racketeering
trials; and countless fires, murders and courthouse proceedings.
He has worked on investigative news stories with renowned local
reporters such as Bill Elder, Norman Robinson (now an anchor
for WDSU) and Andre Trevigne (now a talk radio host for WWL
Radio). Wilson, the 55-year-old bearded dean of local television
news photographers, also has trained photojournalists now working
for competitors, such as Dominic Martin of WDSU-TV6 and Kevin
Henry of WVUE-TVFox8.
Recently, Wilson says, he measured his 30-year career alongside
the legendary Marion Porter, the local still news photographer
who documented black New Orleans from the 1940s until he died
in 1983. "I saw myself in a reflection in a window recently
and I said to myself, 'Damn bro', you are old like Porter,'"
Wilson smiles, smoothing the top of his gray head with his hand.
"And I told that to somebody -- who said to me, 'You ARE Porter.'
And that made me feel good because Porter was the man."
A first-year dropout from Southern University at New Orleans,
Wilson joined WWL-TV in 1968 as a janitor and scene setter.
At the time, blacks had few meaningful roles in television.
But Wilson's aggressive curiosity soon caught the attention
of then-news director Phil Johnson and photographer Jim Tulhurst,
who trained Wilson in TV photography.
Wilson's big break came during the 1973 sniper attacks at
the downtown Howard Johnson's hotel. Wilson was working as a
film courier. "But when it got hot and heavy," Johnson recalls,
"we gave him a camera." Assisted by two NOPD cops, Wilson scrambled
to the upper floors of an adjoining building to film the chaotic
firefight. Heading back downstairs, he passed a criminal sheriff's
deputy, whose shotgun accidentally discharged, temporarily blinding
and deafening the aspiring photographer. But Wilson got the
film back to the station. The next day, his pictures were broadcast
nationwide, including on the CBS Evening News With Walter
Cronkite. A month later, Johnson hired Wilson as the station's
first full-time black cameraman. "Willie had the feeling that
Tulhurst had for film," Johnson says.
Like reporters, photographers have their own news sources.
During the 1980s, when Wilson covered the Algiers incidents,
a barbershop tip from an NOPD officer led the photographer and
reporter Norman Robinson to break big stories in the case. Although
he says his police source is now deceased, Wilson still refuses
to disclose his identity. Confidentiality is for perpetuity.
Other memorable highlights include EWE's first racketeering
trial in 1986, when Wilson's exclusive photo of a juror flashing
the "thumbs-down" sign outside the courthouse sparked an uproar
and calls for a mistrial. And during the 1990 federal racketeering
trial of District Attorney Harry Connick, Wilson spied co-defendant
Walton Aucoin, an admitted bookmaker, leaving the courthouse.
Walking backwards to catch Aucoin on tape, Wilson asked a print
reporter to pitch questions to the gambler so he could get audio,
too. The reporter asked Aucoin for odds on the acquittal of
all seven defendants. The bookie complied, rattling off betting
odds on the defendants, himself included, which WWL-TV aired
exclusively that night. The next day, the furious trial judge
slapped a gag order on the proceedings. (Aucoin gave good odds;
the gamblers in the case were convicted, while Connick, a long
shot, was acquitted.)
In the mid-90s, Wilson was paired with investigative reporter
Bill Elder, who "ambushed" Gov. Mike Foster, Jefferson Parish
Sheriff Harry Lee and other powerful politicos at a private
meeting at a Metairie restaurant. An angry Lee told a smiling
Elder: "F--k you, Bill. Put that on the five o'clock news!"
(The tape ran with the expletive bleeped out.)
After three decades of working with reporters, Wilson has
some clear ideas about the division of labor in TV news. "I
never viewed myself as an assistant (to a reporter)," he says.
"I always viewed myself as a team player. It's half my story;
it's half their story."
He adds: "One thing I hate to hear a reporter say is 'Oh,
I don't know anything about covering this story because I haven't
been covering this story.' It's ridiculous. You are supposed
to know about the story if you are a journalist."
Wilson says the high point of his career was filming Muhammad
Ali training to regain his heavyweight boxing title at the Superdome
from Leon Spinks, who drank from a controversial black bottle
during their first match. Wilson recalls how Ali boxed at his
camera: "And he said, 'You have audio on that?' And I said,
'Yeah.' And that's when he started talking and boxing:
'Oh, watch the black bottle. Oh, it's the black bottle. What
was he drinking in the black bottle?' At that point, I was just
hypnotized."
 |
| Among
local journalists, the still photographer Marion Porter
is a legend for his portrayals of black New Orleans from
the 1940s through the early 1980s. "Porter was the man,"
says Willie Wilson. |
| Courtesy
of Porter Photo News/Marion Porter Collection
|
The low points happen far more frequently. "The low point is when
you have to go knock on somebody's door when his or her loved
one was killed," says Wilson, the father of five children with
his third grandchild on the way. He recalls photographing a teenage
boy killed in the Press Park subdivision and the haunting words
of the youth's father who ran up to the scene screaming: "No,
no, not my son. I just loved my son. Not my son." Says Wilson:
"When I saw the daddy, it really broke me down."
Partnered this day with cub reporter April Commodore, Wilson
drives to the Kenner Police Complex. A 16-year-old boy has been
arrested for operating a child pornography Web site. Reporters
and photographers collect at the front door to the building.
It starts to rain. Kenner Police spokesman Capt. Steve Caraway,
a 26-year police veteran, is obviously buoyed by the sight of
Wilson. They banter about family and Little League baseball.
After the press conference, Wilson walks to the parking lot
to prepare for a noon live shot.
"You get some guys that don't want to be here," Caraway says,
when Wilson is out of ear shot. "You see a lot of photographers
who are aggravated with the reporters they are assigned to.
Willie's not like that. He's always upbeat."
During his tenure as police media spokesman, Caraway says,
Wilson has been without peer. "He's been the man for 12 years,"
the captain says.
Cameras Without Borders
For Kevin Henry, a 45-year-old New Orleans native and a 22-year
news veteran, the camera comes without borders.
"Having Kevin on the photography staff is like having an additional
reporter," news director Keith Esparros says. "His contacts
in the city rival any of our reporters." In fact, reporters
often call Henry for contacts to enhance their stories. Henry
also offers story ideas -- complete with sources -- at daily
staff meetings. But Henry brings even more to the table. "If
you watch Kevin's tape when he shoots something with a reporter,
the interview winds up becoming a three-way conversation," Esparros
says.
"Kevin doesn't see a boundary between reporter and photographer,
which is great," Esparros says. "He's a journalist first."
Most recently, the photographer produced a source with access
to a number of Orleans Parish Public Schools "incident reports"
that allegedly showed the failure of the system to effectively
discipline kids who brought weapons and drugs to school. Henry
and a reporter developed the story, but only the reporter's
name aired.
Esparros acknowledges that TV reporters in the past would
frequently give on-air credit to their photographers, a custom
generally now relegated to hurricanes and other special assignments.
"It's the unfortunate part of television news that the reporter
gets all the credit for it in the eyes of the public," Esparros
says. "It's one of the many injustices of television."
Henry appears unfazed by any absence of recognition. Like
other TV shooters, he appears to thrive more off recognition
from his peers. "We're all friends in this town, but when you
are out on a story it's that competitive edge that keeps you
going," he says. "Nobody likes getting beat. There's always
one shot that people will always remember or one story that
people will always remember, and it will be the story of the
day."
The single father of a 15-year-old son, Henry is a native
of the Lafitte housing development; he was raised in the Seventh
Ward, three blocks from the Fair Grounds. He learned how to
use a camera on the yearbook staff at McDonogh 35 high school.
He graduated from Louisiana State University in 1980, with a
broadcast journalism degree and a minor in Russian. Henry then
returned home the next year to study TV photography at WWL under
Willie Wilson.
Henry joined WVUE in 1981. He and Avis Landry (now chief photographer)
were the first TV news crew on the scene of the Pan Am 759 jet
crash in Kenner in 1982. Henry also has covered hurricanes,
fires, crime and sports. His work since has taken him from the
Vatican, where he filmed a local choir that sang for the Pope,
to Russia for a potential break-through in eye surgery. "I never
thought I would make it to Red Square," says Henry, who was
afforded a rare chance to practice his Russian on the trip.
"I saw Lenin's Tomb. I saw the Bolshoi Ballet. It was 1988.
Moscow had just gotten a McDonald's and there was a line around
the block."
Part of the excitement of television news, insiders say, comes
from not knowing where you will be next. At 2:15 p.m. on a recent
Thursday, the FOX8 newsroom is nearly empty. Kevin Henry has
gone to a hardware store to buy cork for the sports department,
a staffer says. Anchor John Snell paces, waiting for another
photographer.
 |
| "When
you are out on a story it's that competitive edge that
keeps you going," says Kevin Henry of WVUE-TVFox8. "Nobody
likes getting beat." |
Across the newsroom, sports anchor Darrell Green takes half-swings
with a baseball bat. He is localizing a story about Sammy Sosa
by showing viewers how much farther -- or not -- players can hit
a ball with a corked bat. A drill press and a minor league baseball
player from the Zephyrs have been secured for the experiment.
Now, Green is just waiting for Henry.
But so is reporter John Huffman. He is standing in the pounding
sun outside the station garage. Huffman needs Henry for a cross-town
crime story, which must air in less than three hours. "Photographers
are usually the institutional memories around here," Huffman
says. "When you have a reporter who just hit town, they tell
him what the heck's going on. ... And Kevin knows everybody.
He has more than once found the lead or the interview I needed
to make a story."
Henry suddenly pulls up. Huffman advises him of his cork-to-crime
assignment change, takes the bag of cork from Henry, races it
back inside, then hurries back to the Fox8 car. "We are lead
story at five," the reporter says. "We have to jam it."
It's now after 2:30 p.m. Henry wheels easily through a maze
of gritty neighborhoods. Suddenly, the team is at the residence
of an alleged armed robbery victim who says NOPD blew off his
report after he recovered his possessions with no loss of income.
(NOPD says the victim withdrew his complaint.) Henry unpacks
his camera gear and mics the man for sound. Huffman fires off
questions. Henry then films the man walking toward a corner
store -- near where someone stuck a gun in his back.
At 3:15 p.m. the news team packs up. Huffman writes the script
to the video. Henry heads to an editing bay.
On Fox8 at 5 p.m., the alleged robbery victim appears in front
of the corner store and talks about his ordeal. The man's sound
bite comes from his interaction with Henry. (At the time, Huffman
was down the block starting the outline of his script.) Huffman
gets the on-air credit -- and any criticism -- for the story.
The viewers don't know the difference, but Esparros does.
Into the Fire
Standing in the lobby of the World Trade Center, they make
for an odd couple. Anchor/reporter Tom Bagwill is immaculate
in a dark blue suit that cools against his fiery red hair. David
Sussman, the station's newly promoted, awards-loaded chief photographer,
is clean-shaven and dressed in a sports shirt, shorts and sneakers.
Facing summer heat, Bagwill looks his partner up and down, with
contemptuous envy.
"I brought your sunscreen," Sussman says, cheerfully.
The ABC/26 news car is packed with enough clothing, accessories
and water for three days. "Hurricane season," Sussman explains.
He also keeps a pair of khakis and a dress shirt, in case he's
suddenly assigned to shoot a funeral.
By 9:35 a.m., they're en route to the Murphy Oil refinery
at Meraux in St. Bernard Parish. About seven hours earlier,
an explosion at the plant sent flames roaring into the sky.
Area residents were evacuated. Meanwhile, a separate fire erupted
at the Chalmette refinery. No one is seriously hurt at either
fire, and both blazes are all but suppressed. Investigations
are underway.
Bagwill was awakened at home at 3 a.m. One hour later, he
was on the air, anchoring the breaking news. Now, he and Sussman
are working a follow-up story. "The easy way to cruise through
this story is to load up the story with a bunch of video from
last night of the big fire," Sussman says. "But what we will
more than likely try to do is find the people that were affected
by this. Another crew will do the 'What happened?' angle. Our
story will be 'How did it affect you?'"
Specifically, the desk wants to gauge public angst over whether
terrorism played a role in either fire. The team plans to head
to a trailer park next to Murphy for neighbors' reactions, then
to Rocky & Carlos restaurant for more responses and to film
the friendlier fires of the kitchen grill for contrast. "We'll
know at the end of the day whether our story -- as David likes
to say -- rocked," Bagwill says.
 |
| "A
photographer has just as much influence over a story as
a reporter," says David Sussman, WGNO- TV/ABC26. "I try
and really represent what I saw." |
They will work all day to fill about a minute and 40 seconds of
airtime. On the way to Chalmette, they talk about what makes good
television journalism. A 20-year veteran of local television news,
Bagwill says he looks for a photographer with "a good eye, a good
feel for the story, good communications skills, and good chemistry
[with a reporter]."
More than 20 years ago, Bagwill studied broadcast journalism
locally at Loyola University under CBS legend Peter Kalischer.
"The reporter runs the story," Bagwill recalls Kalischer saying.
Those days are gone, Bagwill says. Reporters and photographers
at WGNO are equals in the field.
In the perfect relationship, he says, the photographer knows
what the reporter wants, and the reporter knows what shots the
photographer is getting. "If we're doing a story on kids being
afraid," Bagwill says. "I know David is getting the picture
of that bike, that basketball goal ...."
A local native who also graduated from Loyola, the 36-year-old
Sussman worked for TV news stations in Mobile, Ala., and Nashville,
Tenn., before returning home to help launch WGNO's news team
in 1996. He has won numerous local and regional awards for his
work. Since April 7, he has been chief photographer of WGNO's
11-member photo staff. He estimates he works up to 50 hours
a week -- more if there's a hurricane or an Edwin Edwards trial.
"Overtime from the third trial financed the renovation of my
den," he says.
Sussman says he works best with reporters who don't suffer
from oversized egos. "I want to do stories about people," he
says. "I don't want to do stories about reporters doing stories
about people. Tom has no ego about being on television or being
recognized out in the field. He does this only because he likes
telling stories ... and it just so happens he's doing it on
television."
Inside the trailer park, Sussman and Bagwill approach a WDSU-TV
news team. "If we run them down now, we won't have to compete
with them," Bagwill jokes. Instead, everybody gets out, quickly
shakes hands, then returns to their own story lines. Sussman
and Bagwill find two men, both trailer park residents, who are
still obviously shaken by their ordeal. They interview them
separately. In the background, flames roar up from controlled
flare pipes.
By 11:30 a.m., the team is inside the live truck, dubbing
sound bites from emergency officials. Bagwill transcribes the
quotes for the station's captioned news for the hearing impaired.
Shortly after noon, they enter Rocky & Carlos. Bagwill seeks
out the manager for permission to film. Sussman waits up front
with his camera and tripod. Fear of media exposure and tabloid
television has made people wary, Sussman says.
Bagwill returns: "We're in luck."
Sussman: "I can shoot anything I want?"
Bagwill: "No, you can shoot a flame on a grill. And we can
try and interview some people."
Minutes later, they emerge from the kitchen and talk separately
with a man who suspected terrorism the moment he heard about
the fires and a woman who says the thought of terrorists attacking
St. Bernard Parish never crossed her mind. Then the news team
eats lunch.
"A photographer has just as much influence over a story as
a reporter," Sussman says. Lighting, editing and camera angles
all are key. "A meeting hall can be shot so it looks packed
or empty, depending on the lens used and the position of the
camera. I try not to skew it. I try and really represent what
I saw. ... And if I don't light people right, I can make them
look lousy."
That night, their story airs with pictures of the flaming
restaurant grill, followed by the plant fires. Bagwill's lead-in:
"There's always a fire at Rocky and Carlos, but folks didn't
expect to see two in one night down the road." Preliminary investigations
show the fires were caused by mechanical failures. The story
did not quite "rock," Sussman says, later. Only a few stories
do each year. "But it hummed -- which is more than we expected."
When Reality Hits
Dolly Narhi recalls the day in 1988 when she suddenly teamed
up with investigative reporter Richard Angelico. It was Narhi's
third day at WDSU, then located at 520 Royal St. in the French
Quarter. Angelico stepped out onto the patio to light a cigar.
He suddenly smelled something else burning. Looking up, he saw
black smoke roiling across a blue sky.
"I was in the garage digging in my trunk," Narhi recalls.
"And Richie says, 'Hey, Dolly! Grab the camera.' Then I hear
fire engines roll by."
