Everyone has a blog, it seems … or Twitter or Facebook, updated from their mobile phones, letting us know when they’re watching TV, brushing their teeth or in a long line at a fast food joint drive-thru. Anyone can post pretty much anything they want on the web. And they do: trillions of opinions, billions of video clips. A lot of people love to post photos on the web, too, and anyone with a camera phone can have their picture online.
The Mariner Moose greets students at Lince Elementary School in Selah during a stop from the Mariners Caravan Friday, Jan. 15, 2010. The Moose and Mariner players Doug Fister and Mike Carp presented their D.R.E.A.M. program to students that stresses the principles: Drug-free, Respect for yourself and others, Education through reading, Attitude and Motivation to achieve dreams. The caravan will make stops in 20 communities across the Pacific Northwest.
But not everyone can have their picture in the paper. If my recent visit to Lince Elementary School to see the Mariner Moose and a couple Mariner players is any indication, having your picture in the paper still means something. Like most events I attend, kids all over the room saw me with my cameras and as I got closer to them, started to mug, jump up and lean in to get my attention, begging me to photograph them once they know that I’m from the newspaper. At a recent Eisenhower basketball game, a high school student made extra efforts to convince me to put a photo of his friend — a starter on the team — in the paper. Adults, too, thank me for attending their events photographing them and recognizing their efforts, like the mission group from Memorial Bible Church in Gleed I recently shot.
Mission group members and other church members from Memorial Bible church in Gleed pray before loading luggage for a mission trip to the Dominican Republic and Haiti Thursday, January 14, 2010.
It’s nice to know that in an era when everyone is a commentator, reporter, photographer or videographer; when anyone can mass market ideas and call attention to themselves by using the web, the work I do for a printed newspaper still matters. In fact, with the continued inundation of online media and the inability of people first wade through it all and then to parse truths from opinions and real photos from faked ones, being in the newspaper might start to matter even more.
