THOMSON BLOG: Thomson Foundation consultant and award-winning launch picture editor of the UK’s Independent newspaper ALUN JOHN returned to China to advise journalists at the Guangzhou Daily … and found himself co-ordinating the photo coverage of an edition to highlight the plight of earthquake victims.
This was my second visit to China for The Thomson Foundation and I was keen to see how the country and its media had changed in the six year gap.
Air China set the mood well as we were landing, playing stirring patriotic music with flight attendants executing perfect half bows as we left the cabin. First impressions at Guangzhou were good as I sailed through the gleaming new airport and set off to my assignment at Guangzhou Daily, the broadsheet paper selling nearly two million copies each morning in the city and Pearl River delta region. My brief was simple: To improve the quality of the paper’s pictures.
First day … introductions, handfuls of business cards, meetings, endless cups of tea and a chance to assess the way their editorial operation worked. Overnight I ploughed through my notes and scribbles and soon came to a clear conclusion.
The photographers and their picture editors were a very talented and experienced set of journalists with plenty of evidence of their ability to produce pictures of a standard to compare with any. I quickly noticed that the great pictures pinned on the walls of the photo department and showed by photographers to me weren’t the same ones appearing in the pages of the paper.
The solution was not one of training the photographers (who I actually suspected knew a lot more than I did about some of the very technical issues involved in digital photography) but in getting them more integrated into the editorial team and convincing their words-based colleagues to use their pictures to best effect.
Alun John and picture editor Ji Dong with the special earthquake edition. The Guangzhou Daily's more usual approach to front-page design can be seen in the gallery picture below
Reporting this conclusion to senior staff, they readily agreed to my suggested programme of visual awareness training sessions for the news editors, reporters, page editors and district reporters. Each session was well attended and was often turned into a lively discussion as I showed how the intelligent use of photography can help at all stages of the newspaper’s production.
Picture-based stories don’t need to have significant news content to help on slow news days. They can also help fill thin news schedules. When layouts are prepared they can be the focal point of the page for readers. They can also help localise stories from farther afield.
Toward the end of the first week there was a real acceptance of what I was attempting to demonstrate to them – and this was demonstrated when President of the company Dai Yuqing sent me into the newsroom to take charge of the photo coverage of a special edition commemorating the plight of the victims of the earthquake in southern Qinghai province.
Picture Editor Ji Dong had already dispatched two staff photographers, who were filing excellent pictures. I was able to select one striking image of a clearly shocked but surviving father and child, and filled the whole of the front page with it, set off with a single line headline – THE LUCKY ONES. Printed in black and white as a mark of respect for the victims, this was the first time they had attempted the scale of visual impact.
Next day the paper stood out on the news stands from its rivals and was generally agreed to have been a great success. Ji Dong’s verdict can be seen in this picture!
The whole assignment ended on a very positive note with wide acceptance of a new approach to the use of pictures at the Guangzhou Daily, and an understanding that it can often be more effective to show the reader the main point of a story, rather than simply telling them.
• While in China, Alun also held a Sunday afternoon class for some of the amateur photographers recruited by the Guangzhou Daily to help cover the forthcoming Asian Games, a huge event and a major opportunity to put Guangzhou on the map.
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