"That's not what I asked for."
    "Is that all you've got to give me?"
    "You don't understand me."
    No these aren't quotes from a couples therapy session. It's not a Mars-Venus thing. It's a more difficult relationship, at least by newsroom standards. It is the words people and the visual people and their inability to understand each other.
   Just as communication troubles can wreck a personal relationship and cause headache-inducing problems, so can miscommunication between photographers and edtiors and reporters. This problem was discussed  in the Visual Editing seminar led by Warren Watson, associate director at the American Press Institute in Reston, Va., since 1998.
    Watson encourages newsrooms to bridge this gap by developing a common language. He suggests that editors and reporters learn how to verbalize, with concrete and descriptive language, what it is they want in a photo or what makes a great photo. He also has some tips for copy editors and layout editors who edit pictures:
    - Be picky.
    - Consider the crop.
    - Bigger photos are usually better.
    - Make sure the package works.
    - Write captions that say something.
    - Do one thing right on every page.
   Watson also referred back to work done by Joe Elbert of The Washington Post and Karl Kuntz of the Columbus Dispatch. Elbert and Kuntz developed questions to keep in mind when looking at photos:
    - Does the photo communicate  quicker, stronger, better or more eloquently than a simple sentence?
    - Does the photo have visual content, or stop short of elevating the story?
-Does the photo go beyond the trite and the obvious?
    -Does the photo have enough impact to move the reader?

    - Is the photo mindless documentation?
    - Does the photo communicate effectively? A good photo should either move, excite, entertain, inform or help the reader understand the story.
    By following some simple guidelines such as these and learning to communicate in visual terms, Watson says, editors and photographers will be on their way to creating a better product that will draw the readers in and keep them coming back.
    Warren Watson has 25 years of experience in U.S.
newspapers. He has worked for a number of newspapers including the St. Petersburg Times, the Cleveland Press and the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in New York. He has experience in a variety of areas in newspapers, including reporting, editing and managerial positions. At the American Press Institute, he plans and moderates seminars on the newsroom, management and marketing. Watson, 49, sits on the board of the directors of the Society for News Design and will become its president in 2003.

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Amanda R. Hiatt is a slot editor and copy editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. She can be reached at arhiatt@yahoo.com.