Randy Cox
Visuals Editor, Portland Oregonian
“My father was a Rolleiflex man, having picked up the photography bug as a soldier during WWII. At an early age I began to recognize the smell of fixer from his basement darkrooms. I think I was 12 when he got me my first
Kodak brownie and I was hooked on photography from them on.....
“Graduating with a BJ degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, I went to work as a staff photographer at The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. Then I took my first photo editing job at the tiny Coffeyville (KS) Journal where I began to edit and design pages. There I married a wonderful woman I'd met in journalism school, Joany Carlin. She worked at The Journal as a photographer, sometime religion editor and
sometime news editor.
“In 1980 we took new positions at The Morning Call in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I was the photo editor; Joany was a photographer. That's when it dawned on me that the photo department and art department weren't working well with each other. That struck me as incredibly dumb. The visual departments at a newspaper, I reasoned, ought to be working hand-in-glove with each other rather than arguing with each other. I took up editing, management, and as much as possible, design full time.
“In 1984, my good friend Marty Petty, lured me to the Hartford Courant as assistant managing editor for photography and graphics. Together, Marty and I built that staff and built a name for that newspaper.
“After nine years Joany and I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she worked fulltime for The Tribune. I freelanced, consulted and designed part-time for the paper. During 1995 and 1996, I worked as the professional-in-residence at The Reynolds School of Journalism at The University of Nevada/Reno.
“In 1997, Joany and I left New Mexico to join the staff at The Oregonian. I've served for ten years as the senior editor/visuals and have been honored to help build the photography, graphics and design staffs into some of the best in the country. Along the way, I've shared in a few awards from POY and SND and attended my share of conferences and workshops as a faculty member including The Electronic Photojournalism Workshop, The Missouri and Mountain Workshops and The Stan Kalish Picture-Editing Workshop. And, I was very fortunate to be able to edit the annual Pictures of the Year “Best of Photojournalism” book five times.”
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