They see that we can empathize with their situation and can see where they are coming from. Tell me about the daily experience of being a picture editor today. When I became a picture editor in the '80s, people automatically assumed that if I was a picture editor, then I couldn't understand words. Even though my background and my pedigree was reporting, all of a sudden, I didn't have the credibility to speak or be on equal footing with word editors. Pictures were kind of thought of as adornment, and I don't think anybody now thinks of pictures that way.
Photos are content just as much as words are.
The opinions of a photo person are just as important as the national or foreign editor. And I've seen the credibility of photographers rise, as the photographers have gotten better, well-rounded educations. Our status in the newsroom has improved so much. There are still difficult days because you can rewrite words if the managing editor doesn't think that the words adequately describe the situation, but in a news situation, you can't go back and reshoot it. Sometimes having to explain why a moment is significant is a difficult situation because everyone is a picture editor, just like everyone has an opinion about a movie or a television show.