November 28, 2023
Paige Haehlke
Mark Hertzberg ’72 inducted into Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame
On November 9, Mark Hertzberg ’72 was inducted into the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame for his over 40-year-long career as a photojournalist telling the stories of his community through the lens of his camera.
Hertzberg is just the third photojournalist to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. He worked at The Journal Times in Racine for more than 33 years and retired in 2012, now doing freelance work.
“It’s quite an honor,” Hertzberg said. “It was a humbling feeling.”
Hertzberg’s favorite beat to photograph was the courts, and he was part of the effort to get cameras back into Wisconsin courts in 1978. Frustrated by two assignments during his time at the Beloit Daily News where he was not allowed into the courtroom and no dignified or meaningful photos could be taken of the subjects, he became involved in the effort.
“I have a love of the law, and we had a very good relationship with the State Bar of Wisconsin and the judiciary here,” Hertzberg said. “They knew they could trust us.”
Hertzberg was one of two photographers during the majority of Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial in 2021. Rittenhouse shot three men, two fatally, during the civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August of 2020. Any news agency who wanted pictures of the trial had to request them through either Hertzberg or his co-photographer, and he described the experience as tense and overwhelming.
“When we thought that there was a lull in the action, we would pull the memory cards out of our cameras, download the photos to the computer, and edit captions while we’re also still listening to what’s going on,” Hertzberg said. “We’re hoping we’re not missing a picture. It was a pretty high-pressure thing.”
Hertzberg’s trial photo of the unboxing of the rifle and bullets Rittenhouse used during the Kenosha unrest was selected as one of TIME’s Top 100 Photos of 2021.
Hertzberg has also written and photographed four books detailing Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture work in southeastern Wisconsin. Initially attracted to visual aspects of Wright’s work, he became more interested in its history upon further research. After his coworkers gifted him a mouse pad made by the leading publisher of Frank Lloyd Wright books, he was inspired to develop a thesis about Wright’s work in Racine.
“I thought, ‘Why not?’” Hertzberg said. “I sent the publisher the thesis with my pictures of the work and said, ‘I think there’s a book in here.’ And they wrote back and said, ‘We need an outline and a writing sample,’ which didn’t exist. I wrote a chapter, fashioned an outline, and they gave me a contract. They said, ‘You’ve got four months to finish.’ And it eventually went to three printings.”
Hertzberg first became interested in photojournalism at age 11 when he took President Kennedy’s photo in New York City. An avid reader of newspapers, he had always been drawn to current events, and photojournalism was a natural fit for him.
“Photojournalism was a way to combine my interests in what’s happening in a community—now in the nation and in the world—with a love of photography,” Hertzberg said. “A lot of people take pictures to put in a frame on a wall, and I like to frame my picture with type or with words, whether in print or online. When you’re a photojournalist, your camera is a magic key into people’s lives.”
While Hertzberg has received many awards throughout his career from his peers, what counted more for him was recognition from community members—what he called “refrigerator magnets.”
“I would walk into somebody’s house, whether on assignment or for a social visit, and to see that a picture that one of us on the staff had taken meant enough to them that they cut it out and put it on their refrigerator was gratifying,” Hertzberg said.
When deciding which college to attend after high school, Lake Forest College was the best of both worlds for Hertzberg: a small liberal arts college near a big city. Majoring in international relations, he could be involved in current events, attend baseball games at Wrigley Field, and he even met his wife Cindy at the College. They got married in 1973 in Lois Hall on campus and celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year.
“The atmosphere was ripe at Lake Forest College to further my photojournalism skills and interest in current events,” Hertzberg said. “I just loved the school. It was a wonderful community, and I made a lot of lifelong friends there.”