The June issue of The Digital Journalist is out and they are running my piece on camera phones and the London Bombings. It is always great to find others interested in similar issues. I think camera phones raise a lot of serious questions about news gathering and information seeking in society.
This month's Digital Journalist is excellent. If you aren't on the mailing list I am posting Dirck Halstead's letter to his readers so you can get an idea of what's being offered.
A good photojournalist is one who can make a commitment. It is
commitment to the story that drives him or her. Sometimes the
commitment is brief; in other cases, the commitment can last a
lifetime. Such is the case with Philip Jones Griffiths. When he first
went to Vietnam in 1965 to cover the war, he had no idea that story
would continue for the rest of his life. In 1966 he published his
first photographs of that war in a book that stands as one of the
greatest volumes in photojournalistic history, "Vietnam, Inc." Long
after the last battles, Philip continued to return to Vietnam to
document the lives of the people who had been contaminated by Agent
Orange, the defoliant that the U.S. Air Force sprayed over the
jungles. Last year, we presented that body of work on The Digital
Journalist, and it became an important book. In this issue, we look
at the breadth of his reportage from that war-weary country over the
past 40 years, in our cover story, "The Vietnamization of Philip
Jones Griffiths." The introduction is by our Executive Editor, Peter
Howe. While the still photographs in the essay depict Vietnam at
peace, in our streaming video interview that accompanies the story,
Philip talks about his work while Vietnam was still at war. It is an
inspiring look into the heart of a master photojournalist.
With summer upon us, in our second feature, "Hollywood Splash," we
decided to just jump into the pool with photographer Veronique Vial,
who has chronicled the aquatic high jinks of her Hollywood celebrity
friends as they cool off at home.
For the past five years, Amy Bowers, who became Amy Marash when she
married ABC "Nightline" correspondent David Marash, has done an
incredible job of editing our "Dispatches" section. She has built a
loyal following of photographers who have contributed stories from
all the news fronts of the world. Since she moved to New York, Amy
has become ever busier doing freelance production for NBC and
traveling around the world with Dave. She realized she could no
longer handle the "Dispatches" section on a monthly basis. We will
miss her. But we are pleased to announce the appointment of Marianne
Fulton as our new "Dispatches" editor. Marianne has been a senior
editor for The Digital Journalist since 1998, and is the former
curator of the George Eastman House. She wrote a seminal book on
photojournalism, "Eyes of Time: Photojournalism in America," for
which she was named Person of the Year in the Leica Medal of
Excellence competition. She has lectured worldwide on 20th-century
photography and photojournalism. She served twice as judge for
Pictures of the Year (the only curator to do so) and for Women in
Photojournalism. Fulton is on the advisory board of the W. Eugene
Smith Memorial Award. We welcome her to this new position.
Contributors to our "Dispatches" section can reach her at
[email protected].
In her first "Dispatches" section, Marianne has chosen three stories:
a report from Uganda by Francine Orr; Spencer Platt, a regular
contributor, from Getty Images talks about his experiences in
Bolivia; and Lucian Perkins contributes his diary from a major
project he did for The Washington Post on Finland.
History was made in photojournalism during the recent subway and bus
bombings in London. For the first time, both The New York Times and
the Washington Post used front-page pictures that were made with
camera phones. Dennis Dunleavy, assistant professor of Journalism at
Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Ore., looks at what this
breakthrough means as we create a new generation of
"citizen-journalists."
We are proud to announce that our Editor for Europe, Horst Faas, is
this year's recipient of the German Society of Photography's
prestigious Dr. Erich Salomon Award. The award honors Horst's
extraordinary career as a photo reporter/picture editor, as well as
his charitable projects, such as the IMMF workshops that he organizes
and finances for young photographers (see last month's Digital
Journalist). To coincide with the award, a comprehensive exhibit of
Horst's lifework opened June 3 in Frankfurt, Germany. "Visible War"
celebrates his incalculable influence on modern photojournalism. The
curators of "Visible War," Michael Ebert and Julia Wallstab, report
on the remarkable man, and exciting history, behind the exhibit.
In this month's issue, "E-Bits" Editor Bev Spicer takes on the
subjects of the past, present and future. She presents EPIC 2014, a
futuristic video about the fusion of media and information systems
tailored specifically for each individual. She also touches on the
issue of transparency, and reminds us of past efforts to increase
security with the classic, and now laughable, U.S. Civil Defense
film, DUCK AND COVER.
Our regular columnists, Bill Pierce, Terry Heaton, Mark Loundy, Ron
Steinman, Chuck Westfall and Jim Colburn provide, as always,
thoughtful and provocative reading.
There are two journals in "Assignment Sheet" for your reading
pleasure this month. Both are the work of a pair of retired news
photographers. Actually, the first contributor is Tom Hubbard, who is
also an emeritus professor at Ohio State School of Journalism and
Communications. His journal, "A Lens on an American Icon," goes back
to the early '60s and talks about covering a press conference with
the renowned American poet, Robert Frost. The interview grew
belligerent and Hubbard tells us about the two different Robert Frost
that he encountered in front of his lens that day. Dick Kraus,
retired Newday (Long Island, N.Y.) photographer, goes back to the
same era in his ongoing "Through a Lens Dimly" memoir with "Frootz
and the Gang." Kraus recalls the zany crew of news photographers with
whom he worked in those Damon Runyonesque days when newspaper
photography was a lot more fun.
The Digital Journalist will be at the Visa Pour L'Image festival in
Perpignan at the end of August, and we invite you to stop by and see
us at the booth we are sharing with The Digital Railroad.
We hope you enjoy this issue.
Dirck Halstead
Editor and Publisher
[email protected]