Christmas Reptilian Rescue

It's Christmas Eve in the newsroom, and I'm working. The same rattling of taps on keyboards and clicks on computers fill the office, devoid of holiday cheer. There is no red, white and green splashed about, no Christmas songs on replay. I kind of like it. Of course as the media, we must be relevant. So our crime reporter Mike Conte and I go about looking for Christmas spot news.

For whatever reason, Mike and I have it in our heads we are going to find a burning Christmas tree. Several fires had already started around town, but the Jersey City Fire Department is incredibly aggressive. Any blaze is almost always out by the time I arrive. No flaming holiday trees to be seen.

As afternoon starts dipping into the evening, and stories and photos are filed in for the night, we hear one more call over the radio for a fire only several blocks from the office. I grab a camera and run.

It can't be more than 5 to 10 minutes after we hear the call when I arrive at the scene. And the fire is already out. The Jersey City firefighters have hosed down the two story house and are already clearing out charred remains. A young girl in a pink robe is sobbing and muttering someone's name. I realize that there is something she lost in the blackened room. I wait out in the cold with the girl, trying to figure out what she is so worried over, a cat perhaps. I am hoping it is not a person.

Suddenly a firefighter comes walking out of the house holding a three-foot, green iguana. "What do I do with it?" he yells out, holding the reptile.

"For God's sake, get it back in the house," the captain yells. "It'll freeze to death out here."

As the firefighter is about to turn back in, I run up and snap a quick picture. The captain later explained that the girl had two iguanas in her apartment. One escaped its cage and knocked over the heating lamp used to keep the animals warm, thus causing the fire. One of the two unfortunately perished in the blaze, although it was not determined which of the iguanas was killed in the flames.

To read the whole story please click on Mike's Story here.

From Saved Iguana

A killer coincidence

"You hear about that crazy homicide over the weekend Conner?" our crime reporter Mike Conte asks me as I come into work. "Police went into an apartment and found a naked body stuffed into a push cart."

I look down at our cover. The headline reads, "Body stuffed in cart" accompanied by a picture of a red push cart.

"Apparently the cops walked in and the guy's toes were pointing to the ceiling," Mike says.

Although fairly gruesome, the incident is not totally outside the realm of normality here in Jersey City. The next day, a teacher was shot in the head (to read that front page story from very the next day click here). Our part-time photographer / local EMT Bill Bayer added to the conversation about how he once arrived on a scene to find someone high on PCP, stomping a cat to death. Jersey City can a be a violent, crazy place.

Over the next few days, Mike begins to dig up the full story. Carmen Matos, 47, her 17-year-old son and the son's 18-year-old homeless friend, Christopher Gonzalez were partying over at Matos's apartment in Jersey City. The victim, Tyrone W. Counts, 43, was also there enjoying a night of drinking and "possible" use of illegal drugs. Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said at some point, Counts said something that was interpreted as being disrespectful toward Matos, which then inititated the homicidal attack (the "homicidal attack" being Matos and the boys repeatedly stabbing and bludgeoning Counts to death with a knife and baseball bat).

The body was then stripped naked, for reasons unknown, and placed head first into a push cart. These efforts seem to have been made with the intention of disposing of the body, but rather Matos and the two boys continued to drink and party into the night. The next morning Matos walked into the North District police to tell them there was a body in her apartment. Matos and her son were charged and arrested on Friday and Gonzalez was brought in and charged Monday.


That brings me to Tuesday, reading Mike's latest story on my lunch break. Looking down at the front cover and the first released photos of the perps, one of them looks familiar. Looking down at Christopher Gonzalez's mug shot, I know I recognize that face. And than I remember where I met him.

"Ken," I yell, running out of the lunch room, waving the front page at my editor. "Did you guys realize we ran a photo of Gonzalez on the front page for a different story?"

"What?" Ken asks.

"When you sent Paul and I out for the homeless shelter story, Gonzalez was our interview. I took a bunch of pictures of the guy."

Ken pauses and looks down, trying to remember the front page story we ran on a Monday in November. His mouth suddenly drops, and he looks back up at me. "Oh yeah man, that's the guy?!"

Nineteen days before the murder, I had met Christopher Gonzalez on the steps of St. Lucy's homeless shelter in Jersey City. Writer Paul Koepp and I were sent out on a relatively slow news day by our editor, Ken Thorbourne to make a story about how the homeless community was handling the cold. Christopher was a young kid we found smoking outside, and was one of the few homeless people comfortable speaking with us.

What struck me about Christopher was his normality. He was well spoken and polite. His demeanor came across as kind. He was even fairly well dressed and clean, besides a pair of dirty white sneakers. My editors complained that he didn't look homeless enough.

He was unremarkable regarding any perception of violence. I sensed no threats while we talked. I felt no fear when I shook his hand. Thinking back now, I would have never guessed he was capable of such an act from our encounter.

When I cover murders and death, there is a faceless perp. It is usually a grainy mug shot or a vague description of someone acting out evil acts. It is often hard to apprehend someone enacting violence. The experience has left me feeling quite capable of murder myself, as I saw little difference in Christopher and I. He was going in for his first day at a new job last time we met, trying to begin supporting himself at eighteen. The only difference I saw in him and I was a matter of luck. He didn't have a home or family to lean on, something I am lucky enough to have. It seems more a matter of where we started life, rather than of character. While obviously there is a very large gap in our integrity, our potential and capabilities seem no different. It's left me feeling the banality of evil.

"That's a crazy coincidence man," Ken says as we look up the front cover from November. "Did he seem like a crazed, murderer when you guys met?"

Paul and I both reply, "No."

List of stories mentioned (in chronological order):

"COLD COMFORT" by Paul Koepp
"Body found stuffed head-first in folding shopping cart" by Mike Conte
"Third charged in "shopping cart" homicide case" by Mike Conte
"THIS PARTY IS DEAD" by Mike Conte

Happy Hanukkah

Living in Borough Park, Brooklyn really is like living in a neighborhood of Jerusalem. Men in black coats and broad brimmed black hats shuffle up and down my street, stroking long beards. The women hide their hair under scarves or wigs. Everyone speaks Yiddish. Every store is kosher. It is odd exposure, living in the Hasidic New York. But I don't think there could be a more truly diverse experience. And luckily I am four stops to China Town.

Tonight in Hoboken I spent the first night of Hanukkah with a governor, a congressman, a mayor and a Rabbi. There is a good joke there, but I will leave it to the imagination. But, as all my neighbors light the first candle, I'll share with a photos and say Happy Hanukkah.

Don't piss on me!

(To preface this story, Steven Lipski is a Jersey City councilman who was recently arrested for urinating off the balcony of a nightclub and onto a crowd during a Dark Star Orchestra concert. Also for the record, Dark Star Orchestra is a Grateful Dead cover band and councilman Lipski is a huge fan. To read the full story click here. Or to read my earlier blog about the incident click here)

Jersey City councilman Steven Lipski is the story that keeps on giving. Everyday I walk into the office, there seems to be another tip in for Lipski, some other strange detail leaking out. The scandal has been spread wide throughout the news, as Jersey City laughs. I suppose I pitied the man at first. It's not like he embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from the people, or is part of a long list of corrupted officials in Jersey. But then he brought kids into it.

Following up on his story, writer Charles Hack and I traveled back to Lipski's C.R.E.A.T.E. Charter School where he works as the executive director. Driving over I asked Charles if he thought it was fair how the media crucified him before he even made a public statement. We ate up every detail and splashed them across the front pages before Lipski came out. Charles agreed with me, but we still thought of several new peeing puns on the way over. And besides this interview now was suppose to be Lipski's chance to tell his side of the story.

Outside the front of the school, Lipski waited for us at the steps. He greeted us warmly and with a firm, political handshake. "So what do you need? What you want to do?" Lipski asks.

"Wherever you'd be comfortable talking, perhaps your office," Charles suggests. "Unless you want to take a picture first?"

"Hang on a sec then-- let me go get the students," Lipski says, and than turns to go into the school.

"The kids?" I ask Charles. Suddenly about two dozen high school students come pouring out the school's front door. They are holding a sign that reads, "C.R.E.A.T.E. supports Lipksi!" and they swarm around my camera. "Is this going to be in the paper?" they ask, trying to squeeze into my view.

I knew that this was the picture Lipski wanted to run, him with his kids behind him. To say the least, I was not comfortable in the situation. I felt like this was exploitative of the high schoolers, so I addressed them.

"If you are in this picture, you are showing support for Mr. Lipksi during the current scandal he is involved in. If you are uncomfortable or do not wish to directly support him, please go ahead and get out of the picture," I try yell over their chatter.

The only response was, "Yeah, but this is going to be in the paper right?"

I moved them into the back of the frame, into a shadow and lowered my aperture so they would hopefully be blurred out of most the photo. Lipksi stood in the foreground and (without instruction) raised his knee on the steps of his school, like a conqueror standing on his land.

The whole ordeal was so ridiculous, I seriously considered not turning in the photos. When we got back to the office, I continued to question whether or not to submit them and eventually decided to turn them in after talking with my editors. In fact, they loved that I took the photo and ran it on the front page.

Click here to view the full photo online.

(These are the Lipski covers: The first is an old archived photo of Lipski, the second I took as the scandal broke, and the third is from this incident at C.R.E.A.T.E).
About a week later, I met Lipski at a housing authority meeting. Before the meeting began, he motioned for me to come over to a corner to talk, leaning in so close I could feel his breath.

"I wanted to thank you and that writer for the story. I thought it was real fair and balanced," Lipski says in a half whisper. "But what was up with that editorial?"

After my photo ran, we put out an editorial labeled, "Sad: Lipski's use of pupils as props." My editors agreed over the photo's absurdity, thus spurring the editorial. And I agreed fully with it's content; Lipski should not have dragged students into a personal affair. Lipski continued breathing out his point to me.

"That whole editorial was absurd! You know, that you pulled those kids out from the gym for the photo--" Lipski says as he touches my forearm.

I look up, and than down into the much shorter politicians eyes. I pull my arm away to point my index finger back at his chest. "No. You were the one that brought those kids out for the photo."

"Yeah, yeah, but you knew what you were doing and set me up," Lipski says.

"No," I say, feeling the blood suddenly rush from heart through my neck. "I did not ask those students to wait after school for the photo. I did not ask those students to come outside into the photo. And definitely did not instruct those kids to make a poster for the photo. You brought them from inside the school and asked them to line up for a photo."

"But you didn't have to run the photo," Lipski says. The tension of my integrity attacked subsides a moment, as I ask myself the same question. Was it right to run the photo? Was it truthful of his character? Was it telling and correct?

The portrait was shot quickly and without much thought for the technical side. But I did consider whether or not to take the photo, as I shot it. This was my reasoning--

The students pictured were legally allowed to be photographed. We had permission from the school's director, who also clearly organized them to be a in the photo. Lipski understood this interview and photo were his chance to tell his side of the story. The writer Charles Hack clearly explained why we wanted to interview and photograph the councilman. Lipski also showed an understanding by having a prepared statement, and also by asking the students to wait after school for the photo. There is no other way the students could have known of us coming without him telling them. The prepared poster is evidence enough.

"So let's just agree to disagree," Lipksi says to me, after sputtering a few more remarks about how he doesn't blame me and actually likes me.

"No," I say, picking up my camera to set up for the current assignment. "You were in the wrong."

List of full stories mentioned:
"Sad: Lipski's use of pupils as props," by the Jersey Journal editorial board.
"Cops arrest Jersey City councilman for urinating on concert goers," by Charles Hack
"Jersey City stands by councilman accused of urinating on concert goers," by Russell Ben-Ali

Hoboken in Arms

Nestled by the Hudson River looking across the beautiful Manhattan skyline, the city of Hoboken is up in arms. Droves of local residents line the street in front of City Hall to protest an increase in property taxes.

Before this new life in Jersey, I had another life in London. Those dreary London town times were filled with demonstrations, working for a pacifist paper called PeaceNews. Most every assignment I had was out on the streets to meet people marching for a cause. I even met a group called Killer Coke that was exposing murders, kidnappings and torture associated with the Coca-Cola company (read that very old story here). It really put me off Coke for awhile.

But those old days of dread-locked London punks are a far cry from Hoboken. This crowd is filled with suits and cataloged pages from J. Crew, rather than tattered army fatigues and Dock Martins. People are lining up in front of TV camera lights, rather than forming human blockades or the infamous Sleeping Dragon.

Of course, the good fight includes any suit or punk-- any class. The ability to demonstrate and cry outright makes us beautifully democratic. It is an amazing privilege to boo the mayor in public. And to be honest, I too would be in arms if my property tax was raised by 47%.

To read the story click here.

Baroque

The quiet moments on an assignment are often what capture me. Filled with the static noise of a city and its people, I am drawn to places that are silent. And lately, with so much work to rush in and out of, it is hard to find those quiet places. This frame led me into an old church and its rafters, and for a brief period, up into bit of peace.

Through the glass

Every once and awhile, I see someone else looking back through the mirror. And they ask me sing. And sometimes a traditional nativity play in Hoboken calls for a kid dressed as a cow.

Another frame from long days in Jersey.

Pearl Harbor by the Hudson

Wiping the sleep out of my eyes at seven in the morning, I arrive to a gray morning by the Hudson River at Exchange Place, Jersey City. I can't even get a coffee this early on a Sunday. Normally I work the night shifts, starting when the sun begins to fade over New Jersey. Waking up as the sun began to rise left me without many thoughts this morning, but the material I collected for the story gave me more ideas than I had originally set out to gather.

The story commemorated the day of the Pearl Harbor attacks. A short ceremony for those that lost their lives in 1941 was held by New Jersey Gov. John Corzine, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy and two actual survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack. While this could have simply been a stand-alone picture for the paper, reporter Charles Hack and I decided to try and make a bit more out the small gathering.

The Journal does not have a style for it's multimedia, so I have been trying to test out a few different variations of the medium. Charles was kind enough to lend his BBC Radio voice to the piece, reading from a short transcript. I prefer to allow a story to tell itself; without narration. But it is quite hard to gather each element for such a story (also considering this event was no more than 20 minutes). Writing, producing and editing this piece was easier than I thought, and it had quite a quick turnaround. But it does suffer from lack of foresight. Quality is truly latched to its mistress: Time.

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

Click here to watch the piece at the Jersey Journal online.
Or to read more click here to read the story.

A changing of the media?

Newspapers are suffering palpitations. But rather than get up off the couch and try to strengthen a new heart, they seem stuck to palpable tension. The business is suffering, as jobs are continually dropped and cut (read more from Maryland, or Virginia, or Kansas). So where is the news headed?

My belief is that the media will always be here. People always need to know. But how people come to know may change drastically. Even how we may ask the questions may change, as what was once the five Ws (who, what, when, where, why and that H, how) may now become Michael Bloomberg's the five Fs (first, fastest, factual, final and factual). In Bloomberg News, reporters use this model to help write stories before they happen. Rather then report, they predict most of the story and wait until they have some release of verification that will allow them to be the first to publish the story. Of course this method is modeled for reporting business news and Bloomberg demands that a very young staff report this way. But where are we headed? Is our emphasis now geared to be the first to lock, load and fire these stories out into the world or have we forgotten content?

The new media should not refocus on quickness, or at least not entirely. Rather the technology should be modified to help create deeper, layered pieces. We should help marry all these mediums into strong stories, not use them as crutches to quicken a message or certainly not to beat out competition. Of course, there may not be any money in the later.

Read the transcript of this NPR broadcast here.

Grace

Living to see the day

My time during this historic election was spent with Grace, but make sure to call her Mrs. Linkhorn. I was corrected several times for calling an old woman by her first name. Sometimes I lapse on the cordiality. Through her historic, 101-year-old life, Mrs. Linkhorn has witnessed both world wars, the Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam era and now the election of America's first African American president. I had the pleasure of following her through several functions. I watched her make a speech supporting Obama in a dark bar on MLK Blvd. I watched her press in her vote at a crowded Ward F polling station. When photojournalism is done well, it holds witness while others do not. In this case, the momentous feelings of our history's newly written pages felt much smaller and personal. I witnessed someone cast a vote rather than win an election. Her story is small in comparison, but I could feel it connect a long road of history.

This story was particularly challenging, learning how to make a layered piece with new equipment, within a new system. I made more mistakes than I care to count, and am trying to help build a multimedia department from the ground up. The Journal does not have a large voice in this new world of media, and I am still trying to find my own. This piece may be a cast into empty waters, but it feels like a new mistress to try; exciting, and hell of a lot of work to go after.