Journalistic achievements: it's the little things

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Today, I published a photo of a high school wrestling team, and no one in the photo was indecent.

I consider this the greatest of journalistic achievements.

Because yes, there is precedent of publishing an indecent photo of high school wrestlers in my professional journalistic past...

In early 2007, I had just started my new internship at a community newspaper in Tulsa. The publication came out mid-month, so with my starting date at January 10, I was right on the cusp of deadline and much of my first full week was spent helping edit the entire paper.

This newspaper catered to the school districts of Tulsa, and often included photos from a former high school basketball coach who enjoyed chatting with the current coaches and players in virtually every sport. He would send us his photos, write short articles and in general save me from having to write any semblance of a sports story. (To this day, the closest I've come is a piece on high school tennis, which I didn't mind because a good friend was on the team, and my piece on the TU employee with the "Lambeau-ghini," aka an old station wagon completely decked out in Green Bay Packers gear.)

We edited the paper. We sent it off to print. We never thought about double-checking the photos for anything close to what we were about to discover.

Two days after distributing the paper, we started receiving outraged, concerned and generally dumbfounded phone calls about the local high school wrestling team photo.

It was a fairly typical team photo. Kids lined up, kneeling and sitting and a lengthy caption announcing the team's latest achievements. It looked great.

Except for the third kid from the right sitting on the ground. Prankster he was, he apparently thought it would be hilarious to sit in a position where you could see straight up his shorts.

And yes, you could pretty much see everything.

I was shocked. My first two weeks on the job and already I had learned a valuable lesson first-hand:

Check EVERYTHING.

And I do now. I examine every photo, read over every ad and double check headlines for every possible meaning and double entendre that could be derived from a phase. I've gotten used to coworkers telling me I have a sick mind when pointing out something that could be conveyed the wrong way, but hey - better safe than sorry and out the advertising dollars because some dumb high school jock showed his junk in your publication, right?

So yes. I am quite proud of myself today for successfully publishing a wrestling photo where every member of the team is decent.

In community news, it truly is the little things that get you through.