Photographers often grab very little information. They don’t have time to gather anything beyond names, date and place, nor is that their job. When I was going through school there was a lot of emphasis on photographers being able to write well and gathering a lot of information and on reporters to be able to work in a variety of mediums, but I’ve found the real world is slower to catch up to that and, is only just now starting to loosen its grip on traditional roles for photographers, reporters and editors.

But as it stands now, a good cutline — at least at my paper — is generally derived from the tiny bit of information from the photographer and information provided by the reporter in the story. And there have been times when I’ve even had to look up a press release for more information because there was no story — this happens a lot of the time for wild art of community/charitable events.

You are right about journalism – the 5 w’s are not always covered. Police reports are considered inadequate if the reader has any questions after reading the report.

Yes, you want to say what’s going on, but you don’t want to regurgitate the obvious. For instance, if it’s a picture of McCain and Obama shaking hands before the debate, you don’t want to say “Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., shake hands before the final presidential debate.”

Instead you might say something along the lines of “Sens. McCain and Obama met here at that time for the final presidential debate.” Views on more information vary, but I would find it perfectly acceptable to mention crowd-size and the type of questions answered, but one of my managers has some stick up her ass about not mentioning anything not directly in the photo — which makes it hard to not point out the obvious, which is another of her peeves. Sometimes my job is hard.