Cutlines please, pretty please

Sloppy editing is the rule

Mary Sheffield, the mayor-elect of Detroit got married a couple weeks ago and looked fabulous in an off-the-shoulder white dress, bedecked by roses. She was standing next to a handsome man who just became her husband. It took a week before he was identified.

Here were a hundred pictures of Mary and Mr. Right. Pictures that warmed your soul. I sent a note to Keith Owens, former editor of the Michigan Chronicle, who was as concerned as I was that the first gentleman was not named. Bridge Magazine came through. Days after the fact. He is Ricky Jackson, who runs Project Play, an organization funded by the Community Foundation.

That it took a week to identify this fine man is becoming more and more common with the paucity of newspapers and the discipline of journalism.

Rochelle Riley, artist, author, reporter and civic leader recently posted her brunch pictures. Happy faces, yummy food. No cutlines. Margaret Ann Trimer, socialite and Delta Dental executive posted Thanksgiving Day parade pics. More happy, unidentified faces. These are folks schooled in journalistic discipline, but certainly not the only people who ignore what used to be mandatory.

I’ve been guilty of doing this too. Maybe more often than I ought to do if I find it frustrating when other people do so.

But it begs the question of what are we missing when real journalism becomes as rare as Kresge lunch counters and printed road maps. Printed newspapers are almost nonexistent. Party pictures aren’t journalism. Identifying participants is just nice, certainly not obligatory.

When I freelanced for the Detroit News - which I did for more than a decade, I couldn’t sell a story unless I included a complete cutline, everyone in the picture identified. Today, even the New York Times runs pictures with two out of three people identified.

Sometimes Facebook feels like one giant, virtual scrapbook. I like to tell friends I’ve been out and about with other friends. Or share a poignant event. But names feel less important. Yet that is the whole reason for Facebook.

True, some estate dealers and car dealers that heap their entire inventory on a post to get out of the cost of advertising. As if we’re all waiting for 400 pictures of stuff in a house.

I’m a Facebook addict. I need to slow down or stop scrolling all together. Some folks remind me that I will post a meme and not mention a cite that would explain what the meme is about. As if one photograph says everything. It doesn’t. But it takes a little time to identify a cutline.

For the sake of friends and readers, I’d only ask to add a few names to all the pictures people share. The restaurant with great food, but the name not identified. The vacation spot that could be anywhere in the world.

Have mercy on those raised on the notion of who, what, where, when, why and how.

Here’s a simple meme that gets it right - in a tragic situation.