Not OSHA Or Any Other Acronym
Not OSHA Or Any Other Acronym
Pulitzers Awarded Today
I’m not OSHA or the EPA
It’s rather amazing how my presence can slow down construction projects. Last week on my way to have lunch with an Uptown merchant I grabbed a camera to make a photo of workers cleaning awnings on West College. As I began to make photos the worker spraying cleaner came down the ladder.
I wrote it off as him taking a break or having completed the most immediate task. Went to lunch on Jimmy V’s patio and watched to see when the worker returned. As soon as he was back on the ladder I returned to my car, grabbed the camera, and turned to make a photo. Again, he immediately came down the ladder.
This behavior was something I’m familiar with. It happens all the time. Typically, the fear is that I am OSHA.
Thinking about having a t-shirt or business card made that reads:
NOT OSHA - NOT THE EPA
NOT THE INSPECTOR
NOT THE SUPERVISOR
I AM A NEWS PHOTOGRAPHER
I eventually made a photo after reciting what would be on my t-shirt in response to a question from the job supervisor.
Pulitzer Prizes Awarded
The Pulitzers were named today. The New York Times lists them all.
Photographers from my old employer, The Associated Press, won Feature Photography for “poignant photographs chronicling unprecedented masses of migrants and their arduous journey north from Colombia to the border of the United States.” Here are the photos.
Steve Waldman’s tweet sums up the status of award-winning journalism today.
Ohio Newspapers
Ohio lost 30 newspapers between 2022 and 2023, with 16 community papers in the Columbus area alone closed by newspaper owner Gannett. This has made Columbus one of the cities with the highest loss of papers per capita in the country, according to the Medill School of Journalism’s 2023 State of Local News report.
This decline is part of a longstanding trend, with the entire country witnessing a decrease in local news for decades. Since 2005, the nation has lost approximately a third of its newspapers, and Ohio has seen half of its newspapers disappear.
Tim Franklin, Senior Associate Dean of the Medill School of Journalism, has noted that the decline of local news is a pervasive problem, with Ohio being especially affected.
California lost the most daily newspapers, while New York, Illinois, and Texas lost the most weekly newspapers. The decline of newspapers in one state can impact residents in other states, as government agencies depend on local news for identifying and managing public health crises and environmental disasters.
Almost 200 out of 3,143 counties in the United States have no newspaper. Another 1,449 counties have only one newspaper, typically a weekly, and over 2,000 have no daily paper.
Print readers are declining rapidly, with weekday circulation dropping from 122 million to 73 million over the past 15 years. This decline is driven by changes in reader preference and business decisions of newspaper owners, leading to the pullback of metro and regional newspapers from outlying areas. The closure of over 1,700 weeklies has also contributed to the decrease in weekly circulation since 2004.
From Other Places
The Girl in the Kent State Photo by Patricia McCormick of The Washington Post tells the poignant story of 14-year-old Mary Ann Vecchio and Pulitzer winner John Filo. Filo won the Pulitzer for his photo of Vecchio reacting to the May 4, 1970, shooting death of Kent State student Jeffrey Miller. Neither escaped the tragedy of the shooting and Filo’s photo of it.
Stock photographers are facing a new threat from generative AI, which can create realistic images from text prompts. While some photographers fear obsolescence, stock companies argue that consumers still prefer real photos. Companies are integrating AI tools, but many photographers worry about the impact on their livelihoods as reported in The Wall Street Journal.
While the trailer doesn't mention a remarkable aspect of Lee Miller's life, the film seems to depict the emotional impact experienced by war photographers.
She bathed in Hitler’s bathtub as told in Patrick Witty’s superb newsletter “Field of View.”
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