Hell's Angels sent to purgatory
By Hal Foster
Foster, who is working this summer with World-Herald interns, has a doctorate in journalism from the Univer-sity of North Carolina. He worked at the Los Angeles Times and was head of the journalism department at Auburn University.
While attending UNL, I worked summers at the World-Herald. At 19 years old, I was doing general assignment reporting, and some Hell's Angels called the paper to complain about police harassment.
Hell's Angels were rare in the Midwest, so I decided to interview them to see whether there was anything to their beefing. If not, I still might be able to do a feature story. I arranged to meet two of them. They snarled a lot about the police but even a college boy could see they were trumping up their harassment claims. Still, I thought the Angels were colorful enough for a feature.
After the interview, they agreed to a photo. (Many World-Herald reporters carried 4x5 SpeedGraphics with them in those days.) I asked them to hold up one of their black leather jackets so readers could see the dragon design on the back. Each Angel held up his side of the jacket, with both looking into the camera.
As I peered through the lens, I noticed the bigger guy was holding onto his side of the jacket with his palm - but with four of his five fingers in back of the jacket. In other words, he was flipping the bird. Both Angels were rough characters, so I decided not to challenge them.
After I'd written the story and prints were developed, I took the photos to Carl, who was then the night news editor. I said, "Carl, we've got a problem with the photos. One of the guys is flipping the bird. I didn't want to get in a fight with him and his buddy by telling them I knew what they were up to."
Carl looked at the photos, chuckled and said: "We'll fix these characters. Come with me."
He led me to artist John Hartog, and said: "John, you see the problem with this guy's hand. Can you paint another finger in there?" John brightened, knowing exactly what Carl was getting at - but I wasn't sure.
About 10 minutes later, John brought the touched-up photo back. He had painted in a second finger right next to the index finger so that the Angel was flashing a World War II-style "V" for victory sign. We had a great chuckle about it. "Wouldn't you like to see those Angels' faces when they rush to a coin box tomorrow morning to look at the photo and see how we outfoxed them?" I asked Carl.
I was half-expecting an angry phone call the next day from the Angel we'd foiled, but it never came.
Almost four decades later, I remember this story as an example of both Carl's genius and his sense of humor. And when I ask college students whether news people today should retouch photos, I tell them this story - and they absolutely love it.
