Jill Abramson was in the news.  She had just been fired as executive editor by the New York Times - and was scheduled to soon be commencement speaker down here at Wake Forest University.  I saw an opportunity.
   I called various potential clients - starting with the New York Daily News, as they paid good day rate and I’d shot on assignment twice for them already.  But they - and the other dailies - all were either using wire photos to save money or sending their own staff shooters.
   I went out to eat.  Suddenly, I got an idea: the other competitor of the Times - the New York Post.  I hadn’t thought of them when pitching the story earlier that day - because they’d once tried lowballing me on a proposed assignment as a reporter rather than as a shooter.  But I thought of them now because they’d been where my first photo to run in an NYC daily had run - Kodak’s bankruptcy, a photo they’d bought through a news photo agency.
   I got out my smartphone - which has lots of press contacts in it - and called while awaiting my food.  The photo editor and I agreed on a (better) rate.  
   I hurried through dinner - and went home to arrange credentialing with Wake Forest’s press office and get directions.
   

Jill Abramson gives commencement speech at Wake Forest Univ., May 19, 2014.