When I began writing "Media Monitor" 14 years ago, a Deseret News photographer made a portrait, or what the trade calls a "mug shot," of me for use as the insert photo. I liked it, so much so that I stuck with it weekly even while I gained not only years but also a few pounds and gray hair, and the Deseret News indulged my preference.
The more youthful photo was consoling but also proved to be embarrassing. Recently I made the mistake of giving photocopies of a column to a class to help make a point in a discussion. One of the irreverent students blurted out, "Is that really supposed to be a picture of you?" I fumbled for a moment, then observed that the Deseret News didn't want a shot that looked too much like me because of my confusing resemblance to Daniel Day-Lewis.Now I have had another photo made. It appears today, and I hope it wears as well as the old one.
I also was encouraged to sit for a new photo by a discussion in the current edition of Editor and Publisher, the trade magazine for dailies. In an article titled, "Columnists can be young again in pix," it asks, "You ever wonder why photos of syndicated writers sometimes are so outdated?"
- ONE REASON CITED is, naturally, pure human vanity. Older columnists often want to keep using old photos. One syndicate promotion person tells E&P that in this regard "men are worse than the women." Some of these columnists plead unconvincingly that they are too busy to have another picture made.
In some cases the columnist is not at fault, however. Many papers continue to use the picture of the original Heloise, who wrote the household helper column "Hints from Heloise," though it has been written by her daughter since 1977, when Heloise died. The daughter called herself Heloise II when she took over the column but soon bylined the column simply as Heloise. The mixup is thus somewhat understandable. I don't know if the new photo looks like the new Heloise. It shows a glamorpuss with blonde locks cascading down the shoulders, somewhat younger than I would have expected.
Some feature syndicates require a new photo every few years, others only when appearance changes significantly such as with beard, gray hair or weight change. The Copley News Syndicate has a rule: "Our philosophy is current photo or no photo." The Deseret News follows the preference of the writer and finds that many voluntarily bring in a new photo from time to time.
- COLUMNISTS WHO are public figures and instantly recognizable because of their frequent appearances on television and the banquet circuit can't get away with using old photos.
The restyling of the newspaper may also require that new photos be made. Papers have updated column pictures when they have gone to strongly horizontal head-and-shoulders pictures, as the Tribune has in cropping pictures sharply at forehead and chin.
No part of the paper is of course more photo-sensitive to age than the obituaries. Often obits contain pictures half a century old, presumably because the deceased never had a more recent one made, and increasingly of late two pictures, young and older, are being run. To me it is much more representational and dignified to have only a current photo used. And that is a soothing thought as a more mature picture of me takes it place in these pages.
- BIGGER THAN THE BABE
A Canadian sports writer says that the Tonya-Nancy story is "probably the biggest sports story in the history of the world. I know in my newspaper we've had it on the cover virtually daily since it happened." If so we've turned the conventional definitions of news on their ear. Significance, consequence and magnitude once were important considerations; in the television age drama and action are dominant.
Never mind that the story also has been called the most overblown attack since Grenada; it has overshadowed all other Olympic features. Tonya's arrival in Norway was of at least coordinate importance in the media as the gold medal performances of Diann Roffe-Steinrotter and Tommy Moe, who may need some luck to make the cover of the sports magazines.
Cover photos of Tonya or Nancy or Tonya with Nancy have been stock features of the newsmagazines for weeks, but last week's Time magazine cover outdid all the competition for sheer purple Freudian fancifulness. Nancy is shown in a regal skating pose, with the dark face of Tonya looming large and malevolently in the background shadows.
Newsday, the Long Island/New York City tabloid, went to greater excess. It couldn't wait for Tonya and Nancy to practice on the same ice, so fabricated a computer-generated photo of the two skating together a day before they actually did. Although Newsday explained that the photo was a composite, it set off a new ethics debate in the press over faked photos (Media Monitor, Nov. 29, 1993). News-week's cover features a tight shot of Tonya's defiant features. Kerrigan also appears on the cover of last weeks TV Guide, which used it no doubt in anticipation of the blockbuster ratings appeal of the women's skating competition this week.
In a column of letters to the editor Newsweek says many readers condemned the magazine for "railroading" Harding, and that is the tone of many of the letters that were printed following publication of the Jan. 24 piece titled "Living on the Edges."
One letter writer was inspired to the same kind of excess the media have shown, but she wasn't far from wrong: "By supplying us with such detailed perspectives on prominent figures in the news spotlight, the media are creating with the American public blood-hungry monsters ready to pounce upon the next juicy morsel of `infotainment' and devour it voraciously."
- MANGLED PRONUNCIATIONS
Nadine Wimmer's fun feature on Ch. 5 last week on how variantly people are pronouncing "Lille-hammer" reminds us that foreign words and phrases often come up mangled by American broadcast reporters. That is particularly true when the words are transliterated from an exotic language, even though pronunciation guides are supplied by the news services whenever a name gravitates into wide usage.
Cable TV recently reran the Mary Tyler Moore show in which the idiot anchorman at Mary's Minneapolis TV station, Ted Baxter, takes a bet that he can pronounce the name of the Japanese prime minister on air. He blows it, of course, despite daylong practice.
The worst examples here of mispronunciations lately are not of words and names from Norway but from China. Consider that the name of Ma Jian, the University of Utah basketball star, is pronounced JE-en. It usually comes up on the air as Jean.
A Ch. 5 report a month ago on Mao Tse-Tung pronounced the name Tsay-Tongue; correctly, it's closer to Tseh Doong. The anchor person also used Tse-Tung as the surname. The Chinese surname is of course Mao. You might get away with pronouncing it Tsay-Tongue, but using Tse-Tung when whe Mao is called for is Ted Baxterish.