Q: What do you think is the biggest problem in photo coverage today?

A: The biggest problem is the lack of spontaneous storytelling. One of the greatest challenges is that most of the coverage today, photographically, is crime-related, daily news-driven and not real awareness. Most photography in newspapers has been either pictures of kids playing in the park or extreme contrast of breaking news or life endangerment kind of things and not enough storytelling that helps people understand communities.

Q: Do you specifically look for diversity when you take photos or do you take them solely on the action relevant to the story? What kinds of things do you look for in taking a good picture?

A: I think that there is tremendous opportunity to expand our appreciation and thoughtfulness of photographs. When I look at pictures and select images I try to challenge photos and media organizations. Diversity as a criteria is excellent photography. This is new, but it's necessary in the 21st century because we live in a more diverse world from the world in which the rules of engagement for photographs were generated. I look for diversity and experiences just as people in storytelling look for a storyline.

For example, when there are stories about elections and school board votes, that is a place for editors and photographers to be more thoughtful about who is appearing more in newspapers and communities. We need to see more people of color and diverse backgrounds, but photographers are not always thinking about diversity.

Q: How do you get photographers to always think about diversity?

A: By involving them in understanding the value of diversity. It is critical to educate photographers about the expanding life experience and many of the cultural and societal changes must be included in our coverage.

Q: What are your ideas on how to diversify news coverage and/or newsrooms?

A: Several obvious ways. One way is to employ people from diverse backgrounds and color, in the photo staff and picture editing team. Even in homogenous communities, the photography and overall daily report can be diversified under cover. You have to begin with young people. Teenagers, senior citizens, people with different sexual orientation, different religion, this is a big area where diversity can be brought in and injected into the publication.

Beyond that, just going to places that are unique and out of the ordinary of coverage and community centers. Also, building diversity Rolodexes so they can build awareness. When I teach diversity awareness, I start with three simple ways. Who are the photographers who are producing the content? Staffers and interns and freelancers are a wonderful way to bring new ideas and ways. That's in terms of papers and terms of content of stories moving outside of the usual suspects connecting with community centers and clergy members of multicultural and multi-ethnic communities. These will lead to wonderful stories and possibilities. They are not always about unusual and under-covered, but they still could be mainstream stories.

Q: Do you think photojournalism has improved over the years, in terms of content and quality?

A: I think so. I do. There's a lot of room for improvement. But just in terms of those two areas of obvious diversity. If you look at the body of work in the range of topics that have been covered, a good barometer of color is in special sections. Poynter (Institute of Journalism) and other journalism schools show there are a lot more diverse stories being explored than five years ago. I'm encouraged by the improvement. One particular example is the recent addition of community photojournalism at the American Society of Newspaper Editors yearly competition. The topic is called community journalism. This year's winner was John Beale from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His series on faith is a wonderful example of diversity in the community. He shows a broad range of diversity, a great example of excellence in American photojournalism. He is sharing through pictures, not commentary.

Q: In the past year, what photo would you say was shot well, in regards to everything you take into account while taking a photo?

A: A single photo -- that is a hard example to carry out because there are so many pictures. American journalism had advanced greatly in diversity of color but like in the Beale package, he draws a very clear example of how a photographer who happens to be a European-American photographer went out and discovered a community very different from what he was accustomed to. More Americans should partake in that. Another is a picture by Bill Serne from the St. Petersburg Times, taken shortly after the World Trade Center attack, of a group of Muslims praying. A very thoughtful picture that has a great process involved. This is a picture you wouldn't normally see. A photographer asking good questions about a culture he is unaware of, it's a very important process. History shows photographers just parachuting in and just capturing what they see and moving on instead of actually going in asking questions. The process is much more important.

Q: They would ask these questions in the same manner as a reporter would interview someone?

A: Exactly. That's what so wonderful about this process. Photographers are just learning and improving the quality of pictures and it is a part of an ongoing process that does two things. It amplifies the role of photographers as journalists and not just picture takers. And also it improves the equality of pictures to move beyond just aesthetic or contextual value.

Q: What's your take on digitally altering a photograph?

A: I am categorically opposed to it without a clear disclosure. That's my hard position. I am very much a realist about reality that digital imaging is prevalent in our society and for that reason, media organizations need to be very clear on the advent of what I consider a new genre of imaging which I call computer images, not a photograph, and it uses source material from photographs to produce a graphic illustration. In doing that, I think that media organizations should be clear not to deceive their readers and go the extra yard when appropriate to explain what the viewer is seeing and how it was created.

Q: Such an example would be the Time magazine cover that digitally darkened O.J. Simpson's face to make him look darker, more menacing?

A: Those are the kind of examples that erode credibility and it ultimately has an impact on print journalism as well because viewers will want to question and skepticism is raised. It extends beyond photographs to the content of journalism. Take measures to ensure the credibility of publications.

Q: Please let us know your thoughts on photographs run of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

A: Many photographers, not just American, and pictures taken by tourists of the explosion on the morning of Sept. 11, were there. Even amateur photographers and anybody who had a camera in that area was able to take pictures and many of those have been seen and used. The working photojournalist needs to be applauded that day. The journalists were there to put their lives on the line to share what the tragedies felt like, looked like and how it impacted their lives. It's a tremendous responsibility that doesn't give us full consideration to what photographers get into. A photographer was injured badly there, another was killed. Just like the firefighters who died in the line of duty, journalists put their lives in jeopardy as well.