The Kiss

Before The Kiss narrative, let me tell you about The Coup.

It was 2008. Some handsome man from Chicago was running for President of the United States. His most admirable quality, still, is he speaks in complete sentences. I digress… It was 2008 and I got a call from Jim Anderson, a wonderful journalist at Denver’s Associated Press office. He told me David Ake, then AP’s vice president of North America, wanted two of my best photojournalism students to help shoot the Democratic National Convention during that summer. “Only two?,” I asked. Yep… AP was going to get two of the best college shooters from 15 of the nation’s top journalism schools to help shoot the convention. Jim told me the request had come from Ake. I knew David from my days with AP in San Francisco in the early 70s. So…

I called David. We caught up and then I said, “You are not using any other shooters from any other colleges. I have 30 of the best student-photojournalists and you will use them.” To my amazement, David said, and I misquote, “Okay.”

Thirty of my shooters from the university where I was Chair of Journalism and Mass Communication worked the week before, the week during, and the week after the convention. And it was paid. Quite nicely, I might add.

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