All posts tagged: vietnam

IWMF Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists Grant for “Burge Victims Speak”

Published by

Thrilled to announce for the first time in my life, I am being given a grant by the International Women’s Media Fund (IWMF) Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists to stay home and work. I’ll be spending the next year at least in Chicago interviewing and photographing survivors of municipal police torture under former Commander Jon Burge, who imported techniques such as electrotorture which he learned as a military police officer in Vietnam onto the streets of Chicago for nearly 20 years to force confessions from 1972 until he was suspended from the force in 1991 and fired in 1993. He later served four years for perjury but still receives a full city pension. Very special thanks to everyone who has lent time, expertise, knowledge, and patience to this project so far, there are many of you to thank and a few of you who would rather I didn’t but know you have helped tremendously and I am filled with gratitude.

The Year in Pictures 2011: Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Czech Republic, Azerbaijan and Turkey

Published by

The Year in Pictures 2011 The annus horribilis of 2011 is coming to a close – a year that will go down as one of dramatic upheaval and revolution alongside 1789, 1848, 1917, 1989, and now, this year. In Egypt, young revolutionaries overthrew the government of Hosni Mubarak after 31 years of subservience to a one-party state bolstered by an omnipresent muhabarata, or secret service, further bolstered by an overreaching military, after Egyptians witnessed similar events in Tunisia lead to the removal of that country’s former leader Ben Ali. Consequently, the domino theory made a surprise return as events in Egypt triggered revolts elsewhere in Bahrain, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Of these, only Libya’s leader fell after rebels received aerial support from NATO war planes; Qaddafi was found hiding in a drainage canal near his hometown of Sirte (or Surt, depending on your news source and spelling) and subsequently dragged through the streets, sodomized with a knife and otherwise tormented before being shot in the head. In the Libyan conflict three photographers lost their lives, …

In Memoriam: Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington

Published by

I am still at a loss for the enormous quantity of injuries to photojournalism in recent months, beginning for this generation with Emilio Morenatti of The Associated Press on August 12, 2009. An Associated Press account of the bomb “planted in the open desert terrain,” according to the American military, left Morenatti without his foot as he traveled in southern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border with AP Television News videographer Andi Jatmiko and a unit of the 5th Stryker Brigade. Again in southern Afghanistan, Joao Silva one of the four founding members of the famous group of South African photographers covering the end of apartheid known as “the Bang Bang club,” was hit by a mine and lost both legs, as reported October 23, 2010 by his employer The New York Times. This spring came the awful and surreal detentions of well known and intrepid New York Times conflict photographers Lynsey Addario and Tyler Hicks alongside reporters Anthony Shadid and Stephen Farrell in Libya. Then obviously and most recently came the tragic deaths a whole …

How to Write a Graduate Student Thesis on Military-Media Relations in the USA! in 120 Days

Published by

(Plagiarizers, be forewarned mine is already officially submitted to the Georgetown Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and yours will only be an imitation at best and at worst get you in really, really big trouble with the man either now or later in life. See: former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.) Photojournalists like to create what are called “gear posts” whereby they empty the contents of their backpack and dutifully record each and every item down to the essence and origin of even the lint in the lining (“specially made in Nepal” or “hair from a lamb we slaughtered in Sudan”). I have no intention of doing any such thing, because I imagine most of you would probably be correct to assume that I wear a scarf with a bit of perfume on it (protective against offensive odors), and carry a whole bunch of lenses and batteries (for making pictures and ensuring I do not run out of power in the process), and other things too like cameras, notebooks, water. With that accomplished …

From the Archive: Being with “The Bad Guy” on a Big Day

Published by

Qaddafi is a topic of conversation in and of himself, and his family an entirely separate discussion as well. He is the center of gravity of his own regime, naturally. The U.S. has announced it is not engaging in regime change (although not quite in those words), but has struck the compound where he resides with a missile. On another war front, Der Spiegel has announced to an e-mail list of its subscribers that in its print edition to hit news stands tomorrow, it will publish three images of U.S. soldiers posing with dead Afghan civilians. The Washington Post writes, “The photos are among several hundred the Army has sought to keep under wraps as it prosecutes five members of the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, for the alleged murders of three unarmed Afghan civilians last year.” The consequences may prove more devastating than the Abu Ghraib scandal. The Guardian follows up with additional details about a dozen members of the unit, already on trial in Seattle and confronting life in prison or the …

Shockingly Powerful Images I Have Never Seen Before of Vietnam Era Buried in U.S. Army Study on Military-Media Relations

Published by

In reading The Military and the Media 1968-1973: The U.S. Army in Vietnam, by William H. Hammond, a U.S. Army study on military-media relations and the shortcomings of the latter half of the Vietnam War, over the last two days for my master’s thesis, I stumbled across some shockingly powerful images I have never seen before of the Vietnam era, one of which was even taken by a U.S. Senator (Thomas Harkin). While the entire volume includes some iconic images, real relics, and outstanding insight, these three images stood out enough to share already with viewers of my new online photo journal, where in chronicling a “visual evolution” I have placed a few limitations on myself: 1) 1-3 images a day, 2) one must be of my own creation, 3) tearsheets have no price; they are always welcome. Here are the images that struck me most from Hammond’s volume for the U.S. Army:   “Several state governors’ responded to the turmoil by ordering Army National Guard units to occupy university campuses. On 4 May [1970] …

Thesis Bibliography: The Relationship Between the Military and Media in a Time of War – Three Case Studies (Second World War, Vietnam, Post-September 11 Conflicts) of America in Multi-Year Conflicts

Published by

(NOTE: An updated bibliography and account, “How to Write A Graduate Thesis on Military-Media Relations in the USA! in 120 Days” posted April 14, 2011.) Over the next five months, I will dedicate no small part of my time to the task of studying the relationship of the U.S. military and the American media during a time of war. I will examine three case studies of multi-year involvement in foreign conflict from the Second World War and Vietnam era to the present, post-September 11 conflicts. My work will first be collected towards my thesis in the Security Studies program at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. I hope to also see the work evolve into a magazine article. I will amend this list periodically as my bibliography expands. I also hope to collect numerous interviews with current practitioners, editors, communications managers, and military public affairs officers relevant to the study of the relationship between the military and the media as possible between then and now. Historical Rise of the Modern War Correspondent Goldstein, Robert …