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| Carol Griffee 1937-2011 |
On a day when we celebrate strong women (that is to say, all women), I want to share one strong woman with my readers. Unfortunately, Carol Griffee is no longer with us, but I can say, unequivocally, that had Carol not been in my life when I was a teenager looking for work in the news business, it is quite likely I would have chosen a less demanding, less fulfilling line of work. Carol was tough love personified, and she was one hell of an editor.
Carol gave me my first chance to cover a story and take pictures on Memorial Day, 1967, when she was the managing and executive editor of the Northern Virginia Sun--a local daily here in the DC area. All I had to do was go to a local cemetery in Alexandria, take pictures of a wreath-laying, interview one or two people, describe the ceremony, and then return to the paper (on a Monday, as I recall), develop the film, write a paragraph or two, write a caption for the photo, and give everything to the press foreman who was setting up the next day's paper. The paper was closed that day, so I was let in by the press foreman, ushered into the silent newsroom, shown the darkroom, and left alone.
Carol gave me my first chance to cover a story and take pictures on Memorial Day, 1967, when she was the managing and executive editor of the Northern Virginia Sun--a local daily here in the DC area. All I had to do was go to a local cemetery in Alexandria, take pictures of a wreath-laying, interview one or two people, describe the ceremony, and then return to the paper (on a Monday, as I recall), develop the film, write a paragraph or two, write a caption for the photo, and give everything to the press foreman who was setting up the next day's paper. The paper was closed that day, so I was let in by the press foreman, ushered into the silent newsroom, shown the darkroom, and left alone.
Well, I botched most of the negatives (Tri-X) in the darkroom when I was putting the film on the metal reel, preventing most of the images from even touching the developer). I barely got through the story (how hard is it to write one darn paragraph about a wreath-laying?), and I screwed up the cutline for the one remaining image (the only one of 36 that survived my darkroom disaster). I was also supposed to make a plastic plate of the photograph using a Klischograph machine--an early scanner technology--with which I'd had no experience at all! A nightmare in the making.
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| The Dreaded Klischograph Machine |
Thanks to a kindly pressman ("Kid, you're supposed to write a caption, not a novel") and a Linotypist (what's your byline, kid? I gotta make a slug of type for your byline.") who helped a floundering idiot on that Monday afternoon, the picture and story ran the next day.
Carol called me in Tuesday afternoon--I was still in high school--and said that the two guys back in the printing plant recounted my fumbling first day as a reporter/photographer. We went through the whole megillah--from start to finish, with Carol probing each point of my account. When I got to the part about the darkroom, she was barely hiding her laughter at the near disaster. She finally broke down with deep, smokey guffaw when I told her about the Klischograph and how the press boss had to show me every step in the process and get me straight about writing the caption.
Carol called me in Tuesday afternoon--I was still in high school--and said that the two guys back in the printing plant recounted my fumbling first day as a reporter/photographer. We went through the whole megillah--from start to finish, with Carol probing each point of my account. When I got to the part about the darkroom, she was barely hiding her laughter at the near disaster. She finally broke down with deep, smokey guffaw when I told her about the Klischograph and how the press boss had to show me every step in the process and get me straight about writing the caption.
I had not been completely honest with Carol about my skills--obviously--but I really wanted the job, so I'd bluffed (I thought) my way into the assignment. Carol had spotted that right from the get-go, but she'd given me the assignment anyway--just to see.
As I stood in front of her desk that Tuesday, she peered over her glasses, her cigarette-stained voice penetrated my teen-stupid brain and she said (here, I have to paraphrase, but I'm pretty sure I'm very close),
As I stood in front of her desk that Tuesday, she peered over her glasses, her cigarette-stained voice penetrated my teen-stupid brain and she said (here, I have to paraphrase, but I'm pretty sure I'm very close),
"Don't ever lie to me again. You did good work, the guys in the back said you learned quickly, and you can have the job, but when you don't know something, tell me. We can work it out."
She was only 30 then, but her voice was the voice of wisdom and guidance for this newcomer. For a year, I covered everything from social club meetings to the police beat to the riots in Washington, to the assassination of Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi party. Under Carol's tutelage, my writing got tighter, my pictures improved with richness and focus (and I learned how to use that damn Klischograph and type a few lines of type on that ancient Linotype machine with its buckets of hot lead).
When it was time for me to go off to college a year later, Carol gave me a great final assignment--a full story and a double truck of pictures of a big airshow at Dulles airport--to round out my portfolio. And then she handed me two letters of recommendation (one to the dean of the J school at Boulder, and one to any potential news editor) to take out to Colorado, where I got my next paper job at the Longmont Daily Times-Call...and all the good stuff followed.
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