"The press is once again not at war, but at work"

 Via Columbia Journalism Review

November 6, 2024

"For now, a few important things seem clear for the press—things we’ve known conceptually for some time, but now hit with a shocking new clarity. The most important is that Trump’s impending second term poses a credible and unprecedented threat to press freedom as America has known it."

John Olsen's "Women's March" Photo Featured In NY Times Magazine Essay

 Via The New York Times

November 2, 2024

 John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection: A 1970 march in New York City on the 50th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, August 26, 1970

How Will White Women Vote? It’s a Question With a Fraught History.

White and Black women have joined together to power progressive causes — from abolition to civil rights — but it’s a tenuous alliance. --Click for full article

This photograph is featured in the current Monroe Gallery exhibition "The Best of Us".

Gabriela Campos Receives Awards At New Mexico Press Association’s 2024 Better Newspapers contest

Via The Santa Fe New Mexican

October 27, 2024

Photographer Gabriela Campos took first place in the feature photo category for “Storm over Ghost Ranch"

Online photo gallery: 2nd, Gabriela Campos, “New Mexico State Police Officer Justin Hare honored at Albuquerque funeral.”

 

Journalists must be allowed to do their jobs safely in Lancaster County and across the US [editorial]

 Via Lancaster Online

October 27, 2024

Lancaster Safety Coalition footage shows a Lancaster city police officer pushing a photojournalist to the ground during protests Sunday, Oct. 20, in Penn Square, near the Lancaster County Convention Center, where Donald Trump was speaking.

Lancaster Safety Coalition

THE ISSUE

“A Lancaster city police officer pushed a photojournalist to the ground (last) Sunday afternoon, causing her to hit her head on the street during a protest of former President Donald Trump’s town hall event at Lancaster County Convention Center,” LNP | LancasterOnline reported. Susan Stava, a New York City-based freelance photographer, was working to capture the scene in Lancaster city’s Penn Square, where local Democrats were protesting Trump’s visit. Video shows a Lancaster city police officer firmly pushing Stava, causing her to fall backward onto the road. Stava said she landed on her camera bag, and a lens was broken.

It took the Lancaster City Bureau of Police all of three days to “investigate” the incident in which a freelance photojournalist was pushed to the ground by a city police officer. Its conclusion: The officer “followed the law including the Bureau’s training, policies, and procedures.”

--Click for full editorial

"Journalists see journalism not merely as a job, but as a calling that’s critical to the health of a democracy. Elected officials should not actively undermine their safety — or stay silent about an incident in which a journalist faced harm."

Eugene Tapahe included in Tiny Gallery Takeover exhibit Land Back

 

Via Tiny Gallery

November 1st, at 8 Stanford Place: opening reception for Land Back: A Tiny Gallery Takeover in Lenapehoking, curated by Jennifer Ley.

In celebration of Native American Heritage Month and Interwoven Power: Native Knowledge/Native Art at the Montclair Art Museum, Tiny Gallery presents Land Back featuring collections from seven contemporary Native artists, including Eugene Tapahe, installed in six Tiny Galleries across Montclair, Glen Ridge, and Bloomfield, New Jersey—all part of Lenapehoking, the ancestral homelands of the Lenape people. 

Art allows us to examine the past, interpret the present, and envision the future, and Ley’s curation of Land Back brings the stories of Indigenous Americans, too often dismissed or overlooked, forward.

One of Tiny Gallery’s missions is to bring artistic voices that may not normally be heard into communities and present them in a new context and we feel incredibly privileged to be able to collaborate with renowned Native artists.

Tiny Gallery

8 Stanford Place

Montclair, NJ 07042

Information here

"As A.I. Becomes Harder to Detect, Photography Is Having a Renaissance"

 Via The New York Times

October 25, 2024

"After at least a decade of focusing almost exclusively on painting, many of the largest and most powerful art dealers are dedicating significant attention and real estate to photography.

It is part of a broader renaissance for the medium that is arriving, perhaps counterintuitively, just as images produced by artificial intelligence become virtually indistinguishable from real documentation."

Click for full article

“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent, in dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

 Via Columbia Journalism Review

October 23, 2024

Los Angeles Times editorials editor resigns after owner blocks presidential endorsement

Mariel Garza, the editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times, resigned on Wednesday after the newspaper’s owner blocked the editorial board’s plans to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told me in a phone conversation. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

On October 11, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the newspaper for $500 million in 2018, informed the paper’s editorial board that the Times would not be making an endorsement for president. The message was conveyed to Garza by Terry Tang, the paper’s editor.

The board had intended to endorse Harris, Garza told me, and she had drafted the outline of a proposed editorial. She had hoped to get feedback on the outline and was taken aback upon being told that the newspaper would not take a position.

“I didn’t think we were going to change our readers’ minds—our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters,” Garza told me. “We’re a very liberal paper. I didn’t think we were going to change the outcome of the election in California.

“But two things concern me: This is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what. And an endorsement was the logical next step after a series of editorials we’ve been writing about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, about his threats to jail his enemies. We have made the case in editorial after editorial that he shouldn’t be reelected.”

--Click for full article

Review: "hope and fighting for improvement are central features of The Best of Us "

 Via Pastiempo

The Santa Fe New Mexican

October 18, 2024

Gabriela E. Campos

A nursing station in the Frost 19 unit, Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, Santa Fe, NM, December, 2020

Here's your weekly roundup of some of the must-see, must-do, must-know things that need to be on your radar this week.

PICTURE THIS

‘Best’ Practices

In one image, three masked, exhausted-looking medical professionals slump at a desk, one’s head leaning on another’s shoulder. Two others show American societal matriarchs Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt — the former serious, the latter smiling. Yet another shows a Black man with “Vote” painted on his face during a march in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.

All are part of The Best of Us, running through mid-November at Monroe Gallery of Photography. The gallery describes the featured images as “depicting the ideals and diversity of the human experience which explore the characterization of extraordinary and everyday people who renew our faith that all things are possible and exemplify our ideals.”

In other words, hope and fighting for improvement are central features of The Best of Us — distinguishing it from some previous Monroe Gallery exhibitions. Photojournalism is the gallery’s bread and butter, and the fruits of that craft can be compelling but challenging.

The Best of Us hangs on the gallery’s walls, while the virtual project The Campaign can be viewed at monroegallery.com/VirtualProjects. It coincides with the election season, ending November 24. Images include a rapturously smiling woman wearing an “Obama, You’re Fired” shirt meeting then-presidential candidate Donald Trump; former President Barack Obama talking and gesturing as rain falls; and former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney gazing at their watches simultaneously, a painting of Abraham Lincoln behind them. — B.S.

details

9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, through November 17

Monroe Gallery of Photography

112 Don Gaspar Avenue

505-992-0800; monroegallery.com

Ed Kashi EXPOSES How Photography Shapes Our View of the World

 Via Planet of One

October 12, 2024

In this insightful interview, award-winning photojournalist and filmmaker Ed Kashi dives deep into his journey from a first-generation American with Iraqi roots to becoming a globally renowned storyteller through photography. He reflects on the pivotal moments that shaped his career, from discovering his passion for photography at Syracuse University to capturing the raw realities of global conflicts and social issues. Kashi shares his thoughts on the challenges of photojournalism, the emotional toll of documenting human suffering, and the importance of empathy in his work. He also discusses his commitment to highlighting the positive stories that often go untold, particularly in underrepresented communities. This conversation is a powerful look into the life of a photographer who has dedicated his career to chasing narratives, both profound and personal.

The Long Path Toward Establishing Indigenous People’s Day, a Day to Honor and Recognize the First Peoples of America

 Via Smithsonian Magazine

October 11, 2024

The Long Path Toward Establishing Indigenous People’s Day, a Day to Honor and Recognize the First Peoples of America

Native American Indians are committed to making Indigenous Peoples Day a national holiday in 2024.

This Monday, October 14, many Americans will celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day by recognizing the history and contributions of Native peoples. President Biden’s administration has officially recognized Indigenous Peoples' Day since 2021, but it is not yet a federal holiday. Thus, for the fourth year in a row, the United States will officially observe Indigenous Peoples Day alongside Columbus Day. However, The Indigenous Peoples' Day Act, reintroduced in Congress on October 2, 2023, would potentially designate the second Monday of October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day nationwide. The bill currently has 56 cosponsors in the House of Representatives and 11 cosponsors in the Senate.


“On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we honor the perseverance and courage of Indigenous peoples, show our gratitude for the myriad contributions they have made to our world, and renew our commitment to respect Tribal sovereignty and self-determination.” President Joseph Biden, 2023 Proclamation on Indigenous People’s Day


Looking back, generations of Native people throughout the Western Hemisphere have protested Columbus Day. In the forefront of their minds is the fact the colonial takeovers of the Americas, starting with Columbus, led to the deaths of millions of Native people and the forced assimilation of survivors. American Indian activists and their allies have long argued that Columbus Day, Columbus statues, and the discovery myth endorse his actions which include enslavement, torture and other atrocities to Native people.


In 1977, participants at the United Nations International Conference on Discrimination against Indigenous Populations in the Americas proposed that Indigenous Peoples’ Day replace Columbus Day as a national holiday. Indigenous Peoples’ Day recognizes that Native people are the first inhabitants of the Americas, including the lands that later became the United States of America. And it urges Americans to rethink history marking a change of course from previous administrations in their proclamations marking Columbus Day, which honors the explorer, Christopher Columbus.

The movement to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day or Native American Day has gained momentum and spread to states, cities, and towns across the United States. The first state to rename Columbus Day was South Dakota, in 1990. Hawai’i has also changed the name of its October 12 holiday to Discoverers’ Day, in honor of the Polynesian navigators who peopled the islands. Berkeley, California, became the first city to make the change in 1992, when the city council renamed Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. In 2015 an estimated 6,000 Native people and their supporters gathered at Randall’s Island, New York, to recognize the survival of the Indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. The demonstration’s success and the worldwide media attention it attracted planted the seeds for creating an Indigenous Peoples’ Day in New York City. According to the website RenameColumbusDay.org:

Approximate cities:  216
Approximate schools:  83
Approximate counties:  20
Approximate states not observing Columbus Day: 29, plus Washington, D.C., have renamed Columbus Day and adopted Indigenous Peoples' Day

Kentucky now has the most cities of any of the states, who have adopted Indigenous People’s Day, thanks to Indigenous Rights Activist Angela Arnette-Garner. Arnette-Garner said, “As a long-time Indigenous rights activist, I have lobbied city, county, and state governments in Kentucky for the passage of Indigenous Peoples Day proclamations (thus far 32 city, county, and state proclamations passed in Kentucky). This, in an effort to help educate people about Indigenous history and culture, encourage truthful dialogue about genocide, expose the shameful legacy of Christopher Columbus, repudiate the doctrine of discovery, and advocate for the decolonization of education. Yet, my ultimate goal in founding the Indigenous Peoples Day movement of Kentucky, is to demonstrate that if widespread support could be garnered in one of the most staunchly conservative states in the country, then establishment of a federal holiday is truly attainable. I fervently hope that Congress takes a serious look at the Indigenous Peoples Day movement of Kentucky.”

Universities and schools across the country are also observing the new commemoration. “Mythology about Columbus and the ‘discovery’ of the Americas continues to be many American children’s first classroom lesson about encountering different cultures, ethnicities, and peoples. Teaching more accurate and complete narratives and differing perspectives is key to our society’s rethinking its history,” stated Renee Gokey (Eastern Shawnee), NMAI Teacher Services Coordinator. In past years, the museum has hosted Indigenous Peoples’ Curriculum Days and teach-ins at the beginning of the school year in Washington DC and New York. Recently a Teach-In for Change was held at the National Museum of the American Indian in the Washington DC to prepare teachers on how to prepare for Indigenous Peoples Day. Links to additional resources are available through these links: National Museum of the American Indian, Native Knowledge 360°, Learning for Justice, and IllumiNative. These resources include curricula, sample lesson plans, books, and videos.

Throughout Indian Country, Indigenous Peoples Day is being observed through prayer vigils, parades, powwows, symposiums, concerts, lectures, rallies, and classrooms, all in an effort to help America rethink American history.


Dennis Zotigh | Dennis W. Zotigh (Kiowa/Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo/Isante Dakota Indian) is a member of the Kiowa Gourd Clan and San Juan Pueblo Winter Clan and a descendant of Sitting Bear and No Retreat, both principal war chiefs of the Kiowas. Dennis works as a writer and cultural specialist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.