The Mexican Suitcase Unveiled

Lost for years, some of the negatives of Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour found in the "Mexican Suitcase" are starting to be shown. 

Oh, how I'd like to see the whole set ...

Rural Health Care in North Georgia

Over the last few months, the students in Documentary Photography have been working with students in Prof. Patricia Thomas' Health and Medical Reporting class to look at health care issues in the rural counties around Athens. A few moments ago, the final package went live on The Grady Journal.

Working in teams, 22 students produced eight videos, eight audio slide shows and eight text stories covering everything from aging to teen pregnancy. Go take a look and leave a comment, they'd love to hear them. 

Speaker: Chris Weston, Feb. 18

Make sure this is on your calendar:

Chris Weston, managing editor at the Greenville (S.C.) News, will be doing a talk on "Transforming Newsrooms Amid Disruptive Innovations." It'll be in the Drewry Room on Wednesday, Feb. 18, at 12:15. See Sophie Barnes in room 233 by Tuesday so you can get free pizza.

Weston is a good friend to Grady and a guy who has an excellent grasp on how journalism is changing and needs to change to survive. Highly recommend you get to this.

The Migrant Mother's Daughter

CNN has a story on the daughter of the Migrant Mother, Dorothea Lange's iconic image from the Great Depression.

The Red & Black Weekly News Update

The student paper here at UGA, The Red & Black, has started doing a weekly news update - a short video highlighting what's coming up in the week's paper. Each one has gotten a little smoother, a little more polished. They've played with the format a couple of times and the newest iteration came out this week with a walk-around-the-newsroom idea.

Does it work? 

YouTube Tries Journalism ... Again

Google and YouTube have announced a video journalism contest, co-sponsored by the Pulitzer Center and Sony. First prize is a Sony VAIO laptop and $10,000 to do another story.

There are some flaws in the plan, but this may be the start of Google (who owns YouTube) pushing into the concept of  "citizen journalism." 

(Thanks to colleague Kaye Sweetser for the link.)

David Burnett at the Olympics

His take on the mid-way point of covering the games, as much introspection as reflection.

"The Girl in the Window"

Lane DeGregory and Melissa Lyttle, of the St. Petersburg Times, have published the horrifying story of Dani, a seven year old feral girl - essentially abandoned in her own home - and the efforts of a family to help her.

Steve Myers of the Poynter Institute has an interview with Lyttle and DeGregory about the story and how they approached it. 

A 14 Year Journey

Scott Strazzante and MediaStorm have published his story looking at the transition of a farm into a sub-division, as told through the farm's family and one of the new home's families.

It is awesome.

The story is great, it is well told and it is beautifully shot. Every time I tell my students to shoot more, I will now have an example of why: the pairing of images, similar in composition, from both sides of this story, are amazing.  

And One More ...

Not as blatant as the Iranian missile mess, but maybe as sensational as some of Weegee's work ... further research has shown that the image of a baby with two legs casts on may not be what it originally was reported. 

I could launch into a bit about not knowing the sources of your information because of the automation of the news-gathering process, but most of you have heard this before ...

Weegee in the Times

Weegee was the first real spot news photographer in a lot of people's eyes. Born Usher Fellig, when his family came through Ellis Island he changed his name to Arthur, he prowled the streets of New York City from the mid-1930s through the late 1940s, always first on a crime scene with his Speed Graphic and cigar. 

The New York Times has a piece on him, worth reading through to the end.

Joint Grady College-Greenville News Project

As some of you know, we did a Maymester multimedia journalism course that was a joint project with the Greenville (S.C.) News. The News reached out to us a year ago and has been offering a lot of informational support, particularly to our multimedia classes.

The managing editor there, Chris Weston, came to me in the fall and asked about doing a project looking at water issues across the Georgia-South Carolina border. In early May, ten students started learning how to shoot video, what to shoot and were then sent out with story ideas generated by the News' staff. After a week in the field, they came back in and learned how to edit.

Weston and I planned on having the students produce five stories. This morning, the paper posted nine that the students put together.

The News loaned us three staffers for parts of the project - business reporter David Dykes, who headed up the series; chief photographer Owen Riley, who spent a day shooting with the class in South Carolina; and Adam Wickliffe, the multimedia editor, who joined Riley in Athens for the final class to help polish the stories.

I need to thank Kent for letting me put the class on the books, Conrad for his invaluable assistance and the journalism department as a whole for their support. And, of course, all the folks up in Greenville who helped put this together.

The stories and videos are online now.

Nine of them, reported, shot and edited in three weeks.

Nothing like exceeding expectations.

The Long Train Ride Home

As most of you know, we just passed the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Robert Kennedy. CNN has posted a photo montage with narration by Magnum photographer Paul Fusco commenting on what he saw out the train windows.

NPR has an interview with Bill Eppridge, who made the infamous image of Kennedy lying on the floor, being held by a waiter.

Wicked Awesome Primary Results Map

Damon Kiesow up at the Nashua Telegraph tweeted this a few moments ago: it's an interactive map of Indiana with county-by-county results from Tuesday's presidential primary.

How cool is that?

Community Building

Something I can't really talk about with any level of expertise (yet), but something I think we need to talk about: Internet communities.

My reason for being a journalist was always community based - in order to succeed as a democratic institution, I believe it is imperative that we understand our community. And that's where journalism comes in.

Steve Yelvington has a post up about how news organizations need to rethink their approach to the Internet and he goes into the way-back machine to pull thoughts from Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville's Democracy in America.

Which now has me thinking I need to read that (maybe again, I don't remember reading but it seems as if I should have) and that there may be a way of promoting the sense of community better. I'm not sure how (yet), but I'm working on it.

The Homicide Blog

Not much here in the way of photojournalism, but CNN.com has a story up on Jill Leovy who, for the last year, worked on the Los Angeles Times' Homicide Blog.

Street level reporting at its truest form, Leovy went and talked with families and friends of more than 800 homicide victims over the last year.

Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War

Reuters has put together a multimedia package looking at the first five years of the war in Iraq. The introduction piece is a nice summation of what Reuters has been doing to cover the war, specifically talking about using local journalists as opposed to parachuting in folks. (The intro runs just under five minutes, watch your audio - the video clips are jarring.)

Zogby Says: Traditional Journalism is Out of Touch

Or at least, that's what their latest poll says. This interests me greatly:

The survey also found that while most Americans (70%) think journalism is important to the quality of life in their communities, two thirds (64%) are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities.

There's lots of other info on where folks are getting their news, as well. But it is refreshing to think that 70% of those polled still believe news is important, even if they can't get what they think is good journalism.

"The Capa Cache"

This is amazing ... 70-year-old negatives, long since thought lost, from Robert Capa have turned up in Mexico, according to a New York Times article.

How To Publish When There's No Power

After the ice and snow storms that blew through the midwest last week, a lot of smaller publications were left in the dark. With no power in their offices, and possible no access to their presses, how were they supposed to get the news out? Several papers picked up everything and headed home where they had power and continued to publish.