Lauterer, Jock

Jock Lauterer of Chapel Hill, N.C., is a photojournalist and educator who teaches community journalism, photojournalism, and newswriting classes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from which he received his undergraduate degree in 1967. He is the founding director of the Carolina Community Media Project, an outreach initiative in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Prior to returning to his alma mater in 2001, he created and ran the photojournalism program at Pennsylvania State University.

Jonathan Gregory Jock Lauterer was born in Bronxville, N.Y., but lived most of his life through the completion of his college education in Chapel Hill, N.C. He once professed that he began working at the age of seven at the Chapel Hill Weekly --the same newspaper where he was employed as a reporter and photographer during the summer of 1967 after graduating with a double major in journalism and geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Lauterer excelled in photography even while a student at Chapel Hill High School, where he earned recognition from the North Carolina Scholastic Press Association. During his years as an undergraduate, Lauterer participated actively as a photographer and photography editor for the university’s student-run newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel, participating in editorial decisions that reflected the rapidly changing nature of the college campus and current events of the mid 1960s. Lauterer not only contributed significant numbers of photographs, but also influenced the visual treatment of the publication.

Photographs with Lauterer’s byline first appear in the 1 August 1963 weekly summer edition of the Daily Tar Heel. The daily first printed photographs credited to Lauterer in the 1 April 1964 edition, part of a two-page spread covering a Klu Klux Klan rally in Chapel Hill. During the remaining months of the 1963–1964 academic year, the newspaper published his photographs in association with three other stories. This work led the Daily Tar Heel to select Lauterer as its photography editor for the 1964–1965 edition, succeeding James Jim H. Wallace Jr.

There are no photographs credited to Lauterer in the Daily Tar Heel during the following academic year; staff rosters list Ernest Robl as the photographer, with no photography editor. During the summer of 1966, Lauterer accompanied the UNC Glee Club on its five-week tour of Europe. In 1966–1967, Lauterer reemerged as the photography editor, and his images consistently appear in the Daily Tar Heel --including several photographs and a written account of the glee club tour in the 13 September issue. A sidebar accompanying that article states that Lauterer’s sharp and imaginative work has been cited time and time again as a determining factor in the success of the Daily Tar Heel in collegiate press competition.

Ultimately, the relationship between Lauterer and the Daily Tar Heel was mutually beneficial; the range of his work and his readiness to make the campus a part of the larger community was a direction the paper would continue to follow. His experience led him to a long career in community journalism, one that brought him back to UNC--this time as an educator.

In addition to exposure in the student newspaper, Lauterer’s work was featured in a solo exhibition on the UNC campus in Howell Hall in May 1966, and the book Only in Chapel Hill: a Photographic Essay was published for the School of Journalism Foundation of North Carolina by the Colonial Press in 1967.

After his collegiate career, Lauterer went on to become a journalist, editor, and publisher for the McDowell Expres s in Marion, N.C., and the Daily Courier in Forest City, N.C. He redirected his career to become a professor in the Communications Studies department at Pennsylvania State University for more than nine years. In 2000, Lauterer returned to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a teacher and photographer for the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, and the founding director of the Carolina Community Media Project .

Lauterer’s published books include Wouldn’t Take Nothin’ for My Journey Now (1980); Runnin’ on Rims: Appalachian Profiles (1986); Hogwild: a Back-to-the-Land Saga (1993); and Community Journalism: the Personal Approach (1995 and 2000). He also writes regular columns for the Chapel Hill Herald and the Carrboro Citizen .