Emily Matthews (class of 2014) was involved in both The Oracle and the softball team during her days here at Shaler Area. She went on to college at Ohio University where she was a photographer and photo editor for The Post, Ohio University’s independent, student-run newspaper, and got her degree in Visual Communication. She has experience at several outlets including The Vindicator in Youngstown, Ohio, the NPR Science Desk, the Beaver County Times and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She recently came back to talk with us about her experiences.
Q: What was The Oracle like during your time here?
A: When I was in this class, it was a lot different, and we were downstairs in the basement. I was one of the editors. Every month we would go through and figure out story ideas and assign them out. That class really helped me decide that I wanted to be a journalist. I always really liked writing, and doing this class helped me understand the process of writing a story and interviewing people. I also always really loved photography. After school, I would just go home and walk around the neighborhood, walk around the woods and take photos. It was a real comfort. In school, I was always shy and introverted, and school kind of stressed me out.
Q: What steps did you take to get involved in the journalism world out of college?
A: Ohio University was really good about partnering us with internships and helping us reach out to different internships, we would have websites through the school showing us what was available. There’s a pretty big alumni connection, too, with OU, so that really helped.
Q: Have you ever worked for a newspaper other than the Post-Gazette?
A: Right out of college, I worked for the Youngstown Vindicator. I had an internship with them for about a year and two months, and then they closed down. It was a great experience as a first job out of college. I worked a ton. It was a smaller newspaper than what the Post-Gazette is.
Q: What does the workload look like at the Post-Gazette?
A: At the Post-Gazette, usually I would work five days a week. My shift was 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. I would usually have anywhere between 3-5 assignments. It would range from event coverage, to portraits, to sports, and stand alones. It was a pretty busy schedule, I didn’t really have much downtime during my shifts. I would go out, take the photos, upload them on my computer, go through the shoot and then pick which ones I wanted to turn in.
Q: What’s the difference going from a high school newspaper like The Oracle to a professional newspaper like the Post-Gazette?
A: There’s more people doing different things. I feel like in this class you’re doing a little bit of everything whereas at the Post-Gazette you’re doing one job. At the Post-Gazette I’m really just taking photos, and doing a little bit of writing when I write captions, but there are writers, designers, and different people dedicated to doing different jobs.
Q: Did the Post-Gazette strike affect you in any way?
A: Yeah, I’m on strike right now. The strike started in October of 2022, and it’s still going on. It affected every aspect of my life. Obviously I’m not getting a paycheck like I was before. Our parent union pays us a stipend every week but it’s not like it was when I was working. Emotionally, not having that job to go to every day is really difficult. I’m someone who likes to stay busy, and I really like my job, so not being able to do it has been really tough. We have our own strike publication called the Pittsburgh Union Progress, so that helps to stay busy, but it’s not the same level that it was when we weren’t on strike.
Q: What’s the decision making process for a union before they go on strike?
A: It started when our contract expired in 2017. We tried to bargain with the company for a few years, and then in 2020, the company declared an impasse in bargaining, which means they just chose not to bargain anymore. They just gave us conditions without mutually agreeing on a contract. That’s what made us decide to go on strike, because we believed that they were breaking federal labor law. We had a very long Zoom meeting where we voted on whether or not we wanted to go on strike. It was a pretty close vote, I forget what exactly the numbers were, but it was very close. A couple of weeks before we went on strike, there were four other unions at the Post-Gazette, the production unions. They deal more with the printing and advertising and delivering the papers. They decided to go on strike because of a health care dispute. They were going to impose a new health care plan on them without letting everyone decide. Things like healthcare or a contract, things that should be mutually agreed upon between a union and a company, when stuff like that doesn’t happen, you strike to try to pressure the company into doing what’s fair and doing what’s legally right.
Q: Has there been any progress with the strike?
A: We’ve had a couple bargaining sessions since the strike started. They bring in this lawyer from Tennessee, the company isn’t even there. They have an HR person who’s there, but she doesn’t do much. We’ll bring in concessions and they’ll just say, “We like our plan.” They don’t really bargain, so we’ve had to take it to the courts. In January of 2023 an administrative law judge agreed with us and said that the company was acting illegally. Then the company, of course, appealed that decision. We are filing for what’s called an injunction, or injunctive relief, where a judge would grant us an injunction and what the administrative law judge decided on would be put into effect while the appeal process is going on. The judge, when he said the company was acting illegally, said that the company would have to reinstate our 2017 contract and would have to bargain in good faith to get a new contract, and they would also have to reinstate the other union’s health care. Right now, the injunction is sitting in a district court waiting for a judge to look at it.
Q: Do you have cool photo moments or specific stories you covered that were particularly interesting?
A: My junior year at Ohio, I was taking a video class, and I was really interested in recidivism within the prison system. I reached out to a re-entry coordinator in the local community, and he connected me with one of the local correctional facilities. I would go in and talk to some of the guys there, see what their experience was like, how many times they were in the system, why they thought that was, and the difficulties they would have after coming out of the correctional facility. I followed this one guy, while he was in there, and then after he left, too. It was really hard finding him after he was no longer at the correctional facility because I knew I could go there, he would be there, and I could talk to him. He was fine talking to me while he was there and being on camera. Afterwards, he just dropped off the face of the planet, it seemed like. He wasn’t returning my calls or anything like that. Finally, the day before my project was due, he texted me, “Hey, I’m so sorry. I’ve been busy with some stuff. I had to go out of state, but you can come to my house today if you want and we can talk.” So I told some of my friends, “Hey, I’m going to this guy’s place, if you don’t hear from me within the next two hours, call the police.” I showed up to his house and I walked in and it is just the craziest place. There was a bathtub in the middle of his room, just one big room, a kitchen in the corner, bathtub in the middle. He was nice. He talked to me, and then as I was leaving, he said, “You know, there’s no one around. I could just, like, kidnap you and hold you hostage right now.” And I was like, “yeah, I guess.” He said “you know, you should probably be more careful about just going to people’s houses.” And he’s really nice. I’m still friends with him on Facebook, but it was just an eye-opening moment for me. Maybe I need to be a little bit more aware of safety and what I’m doing to get a story.
Q: What’s your favorite thing to photograph?
A: I really like photographing sports for the Union Progress. We keep everything really local, so I’ve been doing a lot of school sports. Being able to capture the energy and the emotion that goes into it and how hard everyone works to do what they do with high school sports is really a fun thing to capture on camera.
Q: Do you have any favorite sports images?
A: Championships are always really fun. I think it was OLSH and Deer Lakes in the WPIAL basketball championship. Deer Lakes won in the last seconds of the game. I got a photo at the end of one guy on the ground with his hands on his face, and you can see Deer Lakes in the background celebrating. I like the juxtaposition of that. (see photo in the gallery at end of article)
Q: How hard is it to shoot sports?
A: It’s challenging. It helps to know what’s going on. The more you do it, I think that helps with just understanding what might happen next and being prepared with your camera to shoot that, because it’s really easy to miss the moment. It’s also fun to look at the sidelines and look at not directly at the action, but everything else that’s going on, and getting those little moments within the game as well.
Q:Do you have a favorite sport to photograph?
A: Probably basketball, because it’s easy to see everyone’s emotions on their faces. With football, sometimes with baseball and softball, it’s hard to see people’s faces because they’re wearing helmets or sunglasses or hats. With basketball, it’s a little easier to see everyone’s emotions and everything’s contained in one space. It’s a little easier to get close and get those photos that you need.
Q: What opportunities has working as a photographer given you?
A: Lots of opportunities to learn more about what’s going on around me. I was really excited to get the job at the Post-Gazette because it gave me an opportunity to learn more about my hometown and get out of the Shaler bubble, explore Pittsburgh more, and see different events. I’ve been able to photograph Pirates games and Steelers games and things that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to do if it weren’t for my job. It’s been a lot of fun.
Q: Are there any specific photos you’ve taken that particularly stand out?
A: It was baseball, (Albert Pujols from the St. Louis Cardinals) had some milestone hit. Before he went up to bat, he was standing in the dugout, and I feel like I got a good portrait of him looking all serious. I thought it was a different moment than all of the other wire services like AP Photo and Getty Images were getting of him going around the bases and celebrating. I got the serious photo of him before he got the hit and like him celebrating in the dugout afterwards. (see photo in the gallery at end of article)
Q: Is it harder or easier to tell a story through images rather than words?
A: I think it’s easier because you can look at a photo and, if it’s good, you can immediately see what’s going on and what the story is. Whereas with words, you have to read and comprehend what’s going on through them.
