The Artist as Reporter

Sketches to illustrate news have been part of U.S. journalism at least since the Civil War, when small armies of artists invaded the battlefields on behalf of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and Harper's Weekly. The development of the camera did not end the practice, one thing, artists still can go some places that photographers cannot--notably, inside most courtrooms.

A succession of sensational trials lately has made the work of the cortroom artists more evident than ever. For magazines, newspapers and television, they have limned the likenesses of Jack Ruby, Clay Shaw, Sirhan Sirhan and James Earl Ray. In recent weeks, they have been busy covering the Chicago Seven trial, the Black Panther conspiracy hearing in New York and the Lieut. William Calley hearings in Georgia.

Many sketchers are freelance artists who work for between $100 and $500 a day. The pressure is severe, especially when they try to capture fast-moving uproar. Says Leo Hershfield: "I love the work, but if I had to do it all the time I'd get an ulcer."

Looking Better. Some of the art-istsfrave been around a long time. Hershfield, 66, covered the Joe McCarthy censure hearings in the mid-1950s. But Andy Austin, a pretty mother who graduated from Vassar in 1957, got her first news assignment at the Chicago Seven trial. She started out sketching it for herself and landed a job with ABC when another artist left to cover a Mary Jo Kopechne hearing.

More than a dozen artists worked on the Chicago trial. "For a noncapital case," says Howard Brodie, a noted freelancer used by CBS, "it was about as exciting as any trial can be in terms of action, drama and color."

The participants posed some problems. Defendant Abbie Hoffman was particularly difficult to draw because of his changeable facial expressions. Defendant Jerry Rubin complained to Artist-Reporter Franklin McMahon that he was made to look menacing while Assistant Prosecutor Dick Schultz came out "cherubic." Judge Hoffman had a word with Marcia Danits, an artist for CBS's Chicago affiliate WBBM-TV. "He told me his wife didn't like me because I didn't draw him pretty enough. I felt sorry for him, so I did one in his chambers, and he came out looking much better."

At least Judge Hoffman allowed the artists to draw in court. At some trials, and in the U.S. Senate gallery, sketchers must keep their pens, pencils or crayons in their pockets and draw later from memory. Brodie once got into trouble with a judge who claimed he was being distracted by the glare of Brodie's bald head bobbing up and down over his pad.

Photography is banned in all federal and most state courts, but as always, the artist has one advantage over the camera: subjectivity. Watching Anthony Accurso do some impressionistic sketches at the Panther hearing in New York, ABC Reporter Greg Jackson became convinced that drawings are more than a substitute for photographers. "Drawings are frequently more effective," he said. "The artist can leave out irrelevant material--and the essence of journalism is elimination."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.