Art Speak Generator

I’m troubled by how the internal dynamic of the biomorphic forms verges on codifying the accessibility of the work.

…never again feel at a loss for pithy commentary or savvy “insights.” (here). Thx Mark.

Is Photo Manipulation Bad For Photography?

Grayson and Mike at Outside Magazine asked me to write an essay for their photography issue and we settled on the topic of photo manipulation. It’s certainly a hot button issue these days not only because of how easy it’s gotten to make realistic fakes but also because it’s gotten easier to publicly debate it and uncover forgeries that are passed off as real. I personally think we’ve reached the point where media organizations need to air out and in most cases simply create guidelines for what they believe is acceptable. Additionally they need to start informing their readers on the where’s, why’s and how’s of these policies. As many astute observers of media have pointed out, transparency in journalism will be a critical part of how media works in the future and the credibility of brands will hang on our belief that their intention is delivering some version of the truth.

You can read the full essay I wrote (here) and a response from Ed Freeman (here) but I wanted to discuss the conclusion I arrived at after interviewing dozens of people for the story. Photos that are faked are intrinsically tied to photos that are real. They draw much of their power from the public’s belief that photos never lie. Of course all of us know “the camera always lies” and the second you pick a lens or a place to stand you’re influencing the reality of the picture in some way. But, we can’t escape that the public still wants to believe in a photograph’s ability to tell the truth. So, people who take images that appear to be truthful but are really altered beyond reality are at some level destroying this bond.

What amounts to a forgery in photography is incredibly subjective and grey. And, like I said above I think it’s up to the media organizations to define and their audience to accept or reject. And really anything is possible now, so the “old darkroom techniques” aren’t really good anymore for guidelines. I believe very strongly that the intentions of whatever is done to the image, whether it is to represent what actually happened in front of the camera or to make what happened seem better than it actually was, help define what’s acceptable. One way organizations are starting to do that is to require photographers to submit RAW files to compare the finished images with (or what about just shooting film).

It seems helpful when thinking about this to look at writing because the same techniques that writers use to take research, raw dialogue and observation and then turn that into a story is no different than what photographers need to do when approaching a subject. So, why don’t we have fiction and non-fiction photography (I think photo-illustrations are different)? And why do we mix non-fiction stories with fiction photography. This seems like part of the solution and something other people have been indicating is a problem with the NY Times Magazine, because they appear to want it both ways. But, let’s be honest with ourselves writers stretch the boundary of non-fiction to it’s breaking point all the time. So, again it’s up to the publication to become more transparent about their guidelines and to not start blaming contributors when the readers show up with torches.

I think the place where I found this practice of photo fakery most troubling was in wildlife photography. Photographers in that genre will simply tack a “fine art” sign to their back and claim exemption from any need to replicate reality. The problem with this is that they more than anyone are benefiting from the public’s misguided belief that all pictures are real. My first interview for the piece was with Art Wolfe who way back in 1994 ignited a firestorm when he published a wildlife book entitled Migrations where a third of the images were fakes. Art was careful to point out that he didn’t misrepresent natural history and he called the pictures photo-illustrations. This was similar to a response I kept hearing from Steve Bloom when I tried to pin him down about a charge many people made to me that his wildlife images are mostly composites and extreme digital enhancements. Steve gave me incredibly evasive email answers in the vein of what Edgar Martins had to say about his dust up with the NY Times Magazine. Why can’t we just be honest and say “I did it because I wanted to make my photos look better than anyone elses”

And look, I’m not claiming I’m any sort of knight-riding-a-white-stallion either I’m just saying it’s time to start policing ourselves (starting with magazines) or else we’ll end up like the fashion industry and congress will soon be considering anti-photoshopping laws (I used to wish each month there was such a law when the owner’s of both magazines I worked at insisted we heinously paint the sky blue on the cover).

When people see an amazing photograph for the first time they usually ask, “is it real?” The answer should be yes.

Questions for Art Buyers/Producers… you got any?

I’m interviewing several Art Buyer/Producers from a couple of the top advertising agencies in the country as a continuation of my thread on advertising photography. I wanted to give readers an opportunity to ask any questions they many have. Anonymously of course. Either email them to me or leave them in the comments. No silver bullet questions please (e.g. what was the promo/email/book/lighting you saw that made you want to hire that photographer?).

In order to say something outward, something universal, you must first look inward.

Photographer Rodney Smith has a new book and a blog he’s using as a promotional tool which is great, because he’s dropping some real gems in the posts. Like this one:

To say a photographer has a vision is to say the photographer has something unique to say to about the world. Why do some photographers have something unique to say, when so many others just shoot pictures that are general and lacking vision? Most people would say it has to do with talent. Maybe. But maybe not. Maybe it has nothing to do with talent. Maybe it has to do with the ability to express one’s feelings. The person who presents a strong vision has figured out a way to express his or her feelings, while others are struggling to do that. Talent, then, becomes not so much artistic talent, though that may be a good part of it, but rather emotional talent.

via Rodney Smith- The End Starts Here.

The Lessons of Lindsay… continued

A Post Magazine editor encouraged Mendelsohn to pursue the story after reviewing his photos of Ess. But the atmosphere apparently soured after Weymouth told Mendelsohn at a birthday brunch in her honor that this was not the sort of piece that she favored for the magazine. Weymouth has been telling editors that there have been too many stories similar to the one last November about a 13-year-old dwarf undergoing surgery to lengthen her legs.

[…]Brauchli said that after becoming executive editor last year, he consulted with Weymouth, Post business executives and readers on what they wanted in the magazine. Based on those conversations, he concluded there were too many overly long, overly narrow stories. He called the suggestion that he was trying to please advertisers “nonsense.”

via washingtonpost.com.

The Ethics of Reviewing

Mike Johnston of The Online Photographer has a nice piece about the ethics of reviewing products (here).

I’ve been wondering—are the ethical requirements really the same for a personal blog as they are for a magazine? I’ve accepted a camera on extended loan lately for the the first time in my career, too. That is something that is common enough industry-wide, but that I’ve never done before myself. A new thing.

And then there are junkets. Junkets are a common perk in business. Once, when I was an editor, I was offered a particularly dazzling one. To publicize a name-change, a manufacturer offered a flight to Paris for a big dinner at a fancy restaurant—I forget which one, now, but my memory is that the name was world-famous—and then on to a Mediterranean country for a corporate presentation followed by three days at an idyllic resort. Boy, was I ever tempted. I really, really wanted to go. Turned it down.

I count the ethical lapse in product reviews as one of the many small cuts that contribute to the overall demise of magazines as authoritative, trusted, must-read sources of information. The rise of product reviews as a great source of advertising income for magazines ultimately led to the advertisers controlling the outcome of the reviews (along with all kinds of content you wouldn’t suspect they would have influence over). It’s a double edged sword because you either keep the advertising and lose reader trust or you lose the advertising and keep your readers happy. Everyone has tried to have it both ways for too long.

It would be sad to see the only place where unvarnished reviews exist is at the online point of sale because you really have to wade through a lot of comments from people with different agendas and of course the PR and marketing are working the back channels here as well. Ideally I think that just as Mike Johnston has done here trusted reviewers will emerge as they post and continually update a code of ethics of some sort and give disclosures within the reviews they write.

It’s the new way of life.

“There are little ways of cutting,” said one staffer, who drank a bit of the McKinsey Kool-Aid. “You don’t need to send an entire posse to Joshua Tree for a shot in the desert! Who cares! If the photographer is good, and the clothes are good, the models are good, it’s fine—you can shoot downtown.”

via The New York Observer.

Suzanne Sease – Estimating An Advertising Shoot

After the post on “what to charge in advertising photography” received so much interest I decided to start exploring the topic further. A photographer I was talking with suggested I contact Suzanne Sease for more insight into the estimating process. As it turns out she was the perfect person to talk with about estimating an advertising job because of her background.

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got started in this business?

While I was in college I did internships at two ad agencies the first was with RMD (Richardson, Myer & Donofrio) now Grey-Kirk in Baltimore, Maryland. When I found out Hal Donofrio, CEO of RMD was good friends with Dave Martin, then CEO of The Martin Agency, I asked if I could use his name to get a second internship and subsequently landed an internship at the Martin Agency when I was a Junior in college. At RMD I was an intern with the art directors but fell in love with images so the Martin internship was in the print production department. I thought the visuals were so much more fascinating than what the art directors did. So, I wanted to be a print producer. And that is what I did when I first graduated.

What were you studying in college?

I studied Communication Arts and Design at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. I was in the interdisciplinary program that taught us how to be art directors, illustrators, graphic designers, photographers and video. I was in school from ’80 to ’84.

Really, does that kind of program still exist?

Yes, it’s at Virginia Commonwealth University and in fact a lot of graduates have gone off to do very well in the industry. A lot established art directors and creative directors were in the VCU program back in the 80’s. The program has been the precursor to the VCU Brand Center which has been getting International notice.

So, what happened after you graduated?

When I graduated in 1984, I went back to Baltimore and worked for a small agency as the print producer. It was great experience because I had to wear several hats like go on the photoshoots to work with the photographers and one client even requested that I be their account executive so I wore that hat as well.

Eventually I decided that I wanted to move back to Richmond and returned back in 87 but didn’t get a job in print production but in a position as a print project estimator for The Martin Agency. I was the print estimator which was the beginning and end of every single project that went through the Martin agency.

What did an estimator do?

Well, back then it was before everything was done on a fee base we had to estimate how much time the art director needs, the copywriter, studio art, photography, typography, how many xeroxes you would need. I was really entrenched in the whole project. It was really a great experience to understand what it took to do print advertising.

Then they created the Art Buying position in 1989 so I interviewed for the position and got the job. I trained under the amazing late, Linda Marso, then at Scali, McCabe & Sloves (now Lowe & Partners) I then worked for the next 6 years as the sole Art Buyer working all the campaigns until the department grew and they brought in Kat Dalager (now at Campbell Mithun) to run the department. I got to work on some amazing campaigns and with many of the great photographers at the time both of local and International fame.

In 1999, I decided to spend more time with my family and was looking for a career that would allow more flexibility. Bobbi Wendt suggested I should consider being a creative consultant. I gave it a shot and haven’t turned back.

Tell me about this book, The Photographer’s Survival Guide, that you wrote with Amanda Sosa Stone. I was just reading the chapter on estimating and it’s quite informative.

Amanda and I put together a program called The Photographers Survival Guide and we were going around the country giving a presentation once a month to associations and at one event there was a publisher in the audience and they approached us about making a book. We had this black and white xeroxed hand-out as well as a in depth PowerPoint Presentation that became the basis for the book.

First thing I want to know is if you are a photographer who’s never bid on a big advertising job but expect to be doing so in the near future what kinds of things should they be doing to prepare yourself for when that day comes?

The first thing would be to check out Blink Bid. It’s really the easiest way for a photographer to get a bid together and a great way to teach yourself. Blink Bid is a check off list to make sure you are not forgetting something and if your job has unique items you can customize them. I am beginning to think that this program will become the universal format that buyers will expect to see.

So, the first thing would be to practice by doing a fake job?

Yes and understand the verbiage. Like for example on the “real estimate” post you did someone in the comments was explaining what I call the Creative Fee for execution and usage. That is a term that all the big dogs use. It really comes in handy to lump the execution and usage together when you’re negotiating fees (as someone explained in the comments), but it’s also good for residuals because those fees will be based on the creative fee now instead of just the usage fee. In other words if you separate them out: $2,500.00 for shoot and $2,500.0 for usage residuals will be based on the usage fee of $2,500.00 not a combined $5,000.00 for a creative fee.

Another good reason for doing this is when, for example, you have a prototype or a product that’s new to market. Never do a shoot and usage because the chance of those products being held up is really great. When I was doing satellite art buying once the product wasn’t ready to come to market and I had to explain to the account executive that there was one fee to be paid and it was not the photographers fault that the product is not ready. So, I could not credit the client for not using it, as when you have a shoot and usage fee separate, but when they were ready to use it, they could for the negotiated two (2) years usage effective date of first use. And if it took them weeks, months or years, they had the rights from when it was first used. This protected the photographer who did all the work asked of him.

What I really want to get at is where do you come up with those numbers? The creative fee. How do you know what that should be?

Sometimes you can come up with those numbers by going to Getty Images and see what a stock shot is worth and use that as a parameter but there’s no real source out there for numbers because there are so many parameters go into an estimate.

What about the quoting systems like books, software and websites?

I have found that none of these are very reliable because there’s no experience of having done large advertising production jobs behind them. I think only someone like a rep, art director, photo editor or an art buyer can tell you what to charge.

Ok but there must be a source for the usage, right? The creative fee would grow the more experience you get and the more seasoned or in demand you become as a photographer but the usage is usually fixed isn’t it?

Well not exactly. I had a young client just a year out of school who I helped with his estimate and he was asking more than two seasoned photographers. He got the job because his estimate was so buttoned up. We spelled things out, how we would produce the job and we estimated for one division of a corporation that has International divisions. It has paid the photographer greatly and he shoots for them all the time now.

The estimate really has to speak the volume of how you plan to shoot a job and really shows your understanding of what it will take to execute the job.

As an art buyer I once had a job with Capitol One and I had to triple bid it and I had this one estimate where the producer was so good I just looked at it and said “this guy gets this job.” The other people bidding said “this can be done in post” but I didn’t want it done in post I had asked them to go get a prop and have the logo melted into brass and that’s what I had asked for. So don’t assume you can save money for the client when the client wants things the way they asked.

So, you’re reading into how they’re going to produce a shoot?

Right. The winning estimate was $100,000 more than the other two estimates and I got Capitol One to approve it because I told the creative director “this estimate will come under budget but the other two will be over budget,” because some people under estimate thinking the money will be there if you need it later when in fact the money is already allocated to other divisions.

I was reading in your book that you tell photographers they shouldn’t mark up invoices anymore, something  you say will be controversial. Why is that?

In a large production any Art Director or Art Buyer is going to ask for receipts. You are required to give receipts and bill exactly what you have. So, there is no room for markup anymore. That went away when the agencies didn’t get to markup invoices anymore. Agencies used to markup the estimates 17.65% and that’s when the photographers started marking up expenses as well. Those days have gone away. The other thing that’s gone away is agencies now days are not purchasing the media buy so you cannot base your estimate on a media buy, because half the time the agency doesn’t even know exactly what it will be. The agencies used to make their money off the media buy plus per hour expenses but now it’s becoming a monthly retainer. It’s all done on retainers now. There’s no little fluff extras anymore.

Ok, but there’s really no place to get a number?

You and I could come up with a chart with a whole range of numbers and you can post that.

Yes, let’s do that, that sounds really cool.

Now with regards to the estimate again how thorough do you need to be in describing how everything will happen?

In the example I gave you earlier where the young photographer out bid 2 seasoned photographers he was bidding against a team of photographers who were friends with the creative director. They did a pdf thing with these superimposed shots on how they would execute the job, but they weren’t where the client was going and they had second guessed it thinking they were for sure getting the job. The other thing I’ve seen is where this photographer had a 2 or 3 page dossier of how he was going to execute every single aspect of an image but forgot to include props, location scouting, wardrobe, casting in his estimate. I will tell you this, Art Buyers don’t read. That’s why an estimate needs to be clean, concise and to the point. They’re looking at the numbers.

And in that example I gave on my blog earlier the estimate was a little loose because the photographer was the ringer on the job so they didn’t have to worry about making everything super tight they just had to hit the number.

Well, I can tell you on a job where I did have a ringer that I knew was going to do it but another photographer actually won the job over my ringer because of the way he talked to the Art Director about how he was going to expedite the job. The Art Director wasn’t sure how to do a shot and the other photographer said “let me show you” and sent over a sample while on the phone. I actually had another job where a big name photographer withheld information and lost the job because he thought it was proprietary and they might steal his ideas.

When I used to triple bid jobs I would set the fee at fair market value then tell the photographers who they were bidding against and just make it about the production and the photographer who I thought produced the job best would get it. It wasn’t about the fees.

Also, I will tell you one trick I used once when I wanted Richard Avedon to shoot a job I asked to see the media buy which was in the millions of dollars and found 1 insertion in Ladies Home Journal for $40,000 and told the account executive I needed that insertion for my shoot and to ask them for the $40,000. The client agreed. My philosophy was always that running crap 6 times is way worse than running something great 5 times so lets spend the money that we need on production.

Ok, if I’m a photographer and I get the call tomorrow to bid a big advertising job and I’ve never done anything like that before, what do I do?

I do estimates for people and even have people in my back pocket who can do it if I’m not around.

So, you call a professional estimator. What does that cost?

I charge $150-$200 plus 7.5% of the creative fees if you get the job. That’s just for the estimate negotiation is by the hour at $150.00 per hour plus the percentage of the creative fees.

Are there a number of people who do this kind of thing?

I don’t know for sure (comment if you know some – rob).

I wanted to comment on a couple of things in that example you gave the other day. There are profit centers that photographers don’t realize even with no markup. The biggest one is Tech Scouting. There were two locations scouted with no tech scouting and let me give you an example of why it’s so important to do this. The location scout goes to 5 or 10 areas a day but the actual chance of them going to the area where the shoot will happen at the time it will happen is close to nil. I have been on a golf course with a client at 6 am because the photographer thought the sun was going to clear the trees then and we sat for 3 hours waiting for it to happen. If the tech scout had actually happened I would have had a lot happier client. So, that’s how you can sell it to any client and a lot of times it can be half of the fee. Also, digital capture and even something like an ftp site. I have a client who charges $1500 for an ftp site. Another area people don’t charge for is liability insurance. You can actually mark that one up because of the time it takes you to go get the certificate.

Right, so don’t forget to charge for your time and equipment on a shoot.

When you’re negotiating a job how do you make sure you’ve not left money on the table?

I don’t think you can ever know for sure except maybe when they say “yes” really fast. There are times when you may have left money on the table but you are building a relationship and you get people to realize that you are a good value. So, in the example you gave earlier, the photographer was within the budget and the client is coming back.

There are always people who out bid you, you have to show value for what you are.

Any last thoughts on pricing advertising photography?

You can never gauge something by another person’s success, because you don’t know how they got there.

Only walk in your shoes.

Why did the readers stop reading?

Most of those titles are boring. Editorial direction is dictated by marketing needs, so content is designed to keep the advertisers happy rather than to attract and stimulate readers. The result is that readers are bored, they don’t buy the bland products on offer. And so the advertisers pull out.

via Journalism.co.uk

2009 Best Magazine Cover of the Year Award

I guess ASME (American Society of Magazine Editors) can’t wait for 2009 to end because they’ve got the Best Magazine Cover of the Year award going already and this year the voting is open to the public on Amazon (here).

This is going to be a cool experiment to see what kind of cover the amazon buying public likes. There are quite a few covers missing the coverlines which I presume are the subscriber copies and just looking at those makes you realize how coverlines ruin a good cover. Then there are the illustrated covers which I’d be willing to bet will lose out to the photographs in any category where there’s a strong picture. The best part is that they have all the photographers properly credited so you can click on a cover and see who shot it. That brings up an interesting cover competition in the food category:

Picture 1

Nigel Cox vs. Kenji Toma vs. Roland Bello

Also in the Obama Cover section it’s Peter Yang vs. Nadav vs. Chessum vs. Joe Raedle/Getty

Picture 2

I thought this Stephen Wilkes cover in the Science, Technology and Nature Category was cool:

Picture 3

Copyright Test

Sharpen your pencils peeps here’s an excellent multiple choice copyright test I found on the Art + Law + Blog via Photo Attorney.

1. Copyright protection comes from placing a “©” on your work.
a. Absolutely true. Why else would that little c be in the circle?
b. Sometimes true, depending on things I’m not really sure about.
c. Not true.

2. Copyright protection requires registering your work with the Copyright Office in Washington, D.C.
a. This is a trick question. It’s true that copyright protection requires registering your work, but you don’t have to do it at the Washington office. You can do it at one of the many affiliated offices through-out the country. In fact, I think I saw one just the other day.
b. Not true. I created it, it’s mine, and there’s nothing more I have to do.
c. Of course. Why else would your tax dollars go to support a federal copyright office?

3. Placing the work in an envelope and mailing it to yourself has the same effect as registering it with the Copyright Office.
a. No. If it did, why waste the ink to print this article?
b. Of course it does. If it didn’t, why waste the ink to print this article?
c. Yes. And if enough authors send in their tasteless dreck, the postal service may not have to raise rates again anytime soon.

4. If it’s on the Web, it’s free for the taking.
a. No. Stealing is stealing.
b. Sure, why not?
c. This is true, but only if I use a 28KB modem, and the copyright expires before I finish downloading it.

5. Copying just a little bit does not constitute copyright infringement.
a. Maybe.
b. Maybe.
c. Maybe.

6. Company names and slogans, such as Microsoft, Coppertone, “Just Do It,” and “Things Go Better With Coke” are protectable under the copyright law.
a. Sure, they all originated from companies that are crawling with copyright lawyers.
b. No, or it wouldn’t be a copyright myth.
c. What things go better with Coke?

7. Once I have copyright protection, it lasts forever.
a. Nothing lasts forever.
b. Define “forever.”
c. Yes, this much I know.

8. When I acquire a copyrighted work, I also acquire the copyright to it.
a. How else would museum shops stay in business?
b. Uh, isn’t this why Napster got in trouble?
c. This better be true; otherwise, I just severely overpaid for “A Bug’s Life.”

9. Sure, you can copyright a book, a movie, or a song, but there is no way you can copyright a house.
a. This must be true. Just drive through Orange County.
b. Not so fast. I’m from Orange County, and the houses are not all alike; those shades of beige are distinctly different.
c. This is false; you can copyright a building, but only if it was built less than a dozen years ago.

10. Once a copyrighted work goes into the public domain, I can reproduce it and claim the copyright for myself.
a. Uh — no.
b. Sure, but you need permission from the former owner first.
c. Yes, as long as the copyright had been held by the federal government.

11. The concept of “moral rights” does not exist under U.S. copyright law.
a. Oh, please. Is this going to get preachy?
b. No. Like snobby maître d’s, stinky cheese, and sautéed garden invertebrates, it’s a French thing.
c. Well, maybe it’s not called “moral rights,” but the same basic idea exists.

BONUS: Is this excerpt a violation of copyright law?
a. APE, you will be hearing from an attorney shortly.
b. No man, links are like internet money.
c. Yes this is a little too much but nobody who’s reading this and is the least bit interested in copyright will not hit that link to read the original material so I give you a pass unless they ask you to take it down in which case you better not get all offended and start spewing about how links make the internets run and go on a jag on your blog claiming you will never ever ever give them any of your valuable link juice…

Answers are (here).

James Thurber on editing

Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency of the writer-editor to collaborate is natural, but he should say to himself, “How can I help this writer to say it better in his own style?” and avoid “How can I show him how I would write it, if it were my piece?”

That’s James Thurber in a 1959 memo to The New Yorker. via kottke.org

NYTimes Reminds Freelance Photographers “No Unauthorized Alteration Of Photos”

I’m not familiar with how assignments are made at the NY Times Magazine, but it looks like this policy is a part of the contract photographers sign when they start working with “The Times.” This memo just went out (presumably in response to the Edgar Martins fiasco) to remind everyone to only submit unaltered images. Except of course portraits, fashion and still life, natch.

Here’s the memo:

TO: ALL FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHERS

This is a reminder of The Times’s policies on digital manipulation or other alteration of photos.

As you know, under the contract you signed for The Times, you warrant that any photo submitted for publication “will be original and unaltered (unless it is a photo illustration, pre-approved by your editor and fully disclosed in caption information materials).”

The Times takes this obligation very seriously; the integrity of photographs and other material we publish goes to the heart of our credibility as a news organization. The prohibition on unauthorized alteration of photos applies to all sections of the paper, the Magazine and the Web site.

This passage from the newsroom’s “Guidelines on Our Integrity” explains our rules in more detail:

Photography and Images. Images in our pages, in the paper or on the Web, that purport to depict reality must be genuine in every way. No people or objects may be added, rearranged, reversed, distorted or removed from a scene (except for the recognized practice of cropping to omit extraneous outer portions). Adjustments of color or gray scale should be limited to those minimally necessary for clear and accurate reproduction, analogous to the “burning” and “dodging” that formerly took place in darkroom processing of images. Pictures of news situations must not be posed.

In some sections, and in magazines, where a photograph is used to serve the same purposes as a commissioned drawing or painting – as an illustration of an idea or situation or as a demonstration of how a device works, etc. – it must always be clearly labeled as a photo illustration. This does not apply to portraits or still-lifes (photos of food, shoes, etc.), but it does apply to other kinds of shots in which we have artificially arranged people or things, as well as to collages, montages, and photographs that have been digitally altered.

If you have any questions about what is permissible under the rules, please consult the assigning editor.

Sincerely,

[Redacted]
Deputy Managing Editor
The New York Times Newspaper
Division of The New York Times Company