When I graduated from college and started working as a professional journalist in 2007, I had what could be described as a pretty old-school method of navigation.
I traveled with a laminated map of the city I was working in, Lansing, Michigan, that I had folded into a neat, handheld square so I could see where I was going on the fly. This was a time when GPS was nowhere near as ubiquitous as it is today — and certainly not as commonplace as an app on a smartphone.
Now, of course, I’m routinely dialing addresses into my Waze app for locations across the 22-country region we cover at Ideastream Public Media. But the central idea is the same: In this line of work, you have to go to where the story is.
That’s all the more true for me, specifically. As a member of Ideastream's digital team, a big part of my job is working side-by-side with our reporters as a photojournalist, producing the best images possible for our stories at ideastream.org and on our social media channels.
Public media, especially in our case at Ideastream, means more than just radio. We have a robust website and active social media channels filled with photos and videos. We’re more than just words spoken on your radio.
That means it’s crucial that we have strong, compelling visuals for our digital journalism. We do, after all, see the internet in all its forms — whether on a homepage or Instagram.
Below are a few images from recent months. The stories they accompany run the gamut in the topics they cover: Health care, the justice system, gun violence, the East Palestine train derailment, climate change, food insecurity and a budding recreational marijuana industry.
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— Astrid Burkle 08427.jpg
Ten-year-old Astrid Burkle peeks out the front window of her family's Cleveland Heights home. Astrid, who is transgender, and her family spoke to Ideastream Public Media in January about the uncertainty they're facing following successful efforts by Ohio lawmakers to ban transgender youth from receiving gender-affirming medical treatments or playing on girls’ sports teams.
Ryan Loew / Ideastream Public Media
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— Judi Hill NAACP Jayland Walker Akron
Judi Hill, president of the Akron NAACP, marched with other demonstrators in Downtown Akron on Wednesday, May 24, 2023. Hundreds of protesters, including local and national activists, marched to protest a grand jury’s decision not to indict the eight officers who fatally shot Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man.
Ryan Loew / Ideastream Public Media
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Chickens gather behind some fencing at Joe and Jen Lautzenheiser's Glenview Acres farm in North Lawrence.
Ryan Loew / Ideastream Public Media
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— Kristin Diaz 09816.jpg
Kristin Diaz stands for a photo outside her Akron home. Between 1953 and 1987, hundreds of thousands of United States Marines and their families stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina were exposed to contaminated drinking water. Kristin's husband, George Diaz, a Marine and truck driver, died 13 years ago of acute myeloid leukemia after developing myelodysplastic syndrome, a condition in which red blood cells are improperly formed. Diaz has filed a claim on behalf of her late husband.
Ryan Loew / Ideastream Public Media
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— Michael Buehner 02480_2.jpg
A jury in Cuyahoga County found Michael Buehner not guilty of murder on July 19, 2023, two years after his two-decade-old conviction was overturned by an Ohio appeals court. Michael Buehner hugs his son Ryan Buehner after being found not guilty.
Ryan Loew / Ideastream Public Media
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A staff member at MetroHealth's main campus emergency department holds a container with a bullet inside. The bullet had been found on the floor of the trauma bay where medical personnel had been working to save a man shot multiple times. He died of his wounds.
Ryan Loew / Ideastream Public Media
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A train passes through East Palestine on Monday, Sept. 25, 2023.
Ryan Loew / Ideastream Public Media
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Kimberly Lessman, who manages the seed bank at the Holden Arboretum, collects spicebush seeds on the arboretum's grounds on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023.
Ryan Loew / Ideastream Public Media
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Winnie, the family cat, sits atop Tyler Tanner as he and his wife Kelly Cunningham ready dinner for themselves and their two sons in their Mount Vernon home.
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— ESL Kingsley Akron 07954.jpg
Marcela Funes, 3, wears an earpiece allowing her to listen to an interpreter during a presentation at Akron’s Findley Community Learning Center on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023. Marcela's mother, Sheila Soto, (right) who primarily speaks Spanish, attends the presentation while holding her infant nephew Ian Hernandez. Sitting to the left are Sheila's son Yago Soto, 5, and the son a of family friend, Erick Hernandez, 10.
Ryan Loew / Ideastream Public Media
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Flowering marijuana plants grow inside Buckeye Relief's cannabis cultivation and processing facility in Eastlake.
Ryan Loew / Ideastream Public Media
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— bees Akron Canton Airport 04143.jpg
Bees crawl and take flight around colonies that have been introduced to the Akron-Canton Airport airfield.
Ryan Loew / Ideastream Public Media
Ideastream Public Media is far from alone in emphasizing visuals. NPR has long put a focus on strong photojournalism, and it's been heartening and inspiring to see other member stations across the country prioritize visual storytelling along with their radio reporting. Many of us in the community of public media photojournalists regularly share our work with each other, offering up encouragement and ideas.
Something I think about often while traveling around Northeast Ohio is how working in public media allows us to tell stories about virtually all aspects of the human experience — whether that's reporting on critical issues affecting our neighborhoods, big breaking news, quirky curiosities, deeply personal reflections on life or simple moments of joy.
This is something our audience expects from us, often regardless of a story's traditional newsworthiness. The role of photojournalist directly reflects this wide-angle storytelling mission. I get to see and share it all.
Now, time to fill out my mileage reimbursement form.
"The Cut" is featured in Ideastream Public Media's weekly newsletter, The Frequency Week in Review. To get The Frequency Week in Review, The Daily Frequency or any of our newsletters, sign up on Ideastream's newsletter subscription page.
