Attacks on the Press in 2023

 Via Committe To Protect Journalists

January 18, 2024

Attacks on journalists’ lives and liberty remained at near record-levels in 2023, with the Committee to Protect Journalists documenting 320 journalists imprisoned for their work as of the December 1 date of its annual prison census — near the global all-time high of more than 360 a year earlier. Israel made a rapid ascent on the 2023 list, becoming the sixth-worst jailer of journalists after the start of the Israel-Gaza war on October 7.  Click for full interactive article

David Butow talks about "BRINK" on the Ryan Pyle Podcast

 Via Ryan Pyle Podcast

January 6, 2024

View David Butow's fine art prints here.

Three years on, little justice for press assaulted on Jan. 6

Via Press Freedom Tracker

January 2, 2024

This Saturday marks three years since we watched, horrified, as rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to halt the democratic process of counting electoral votes. Nearly 20 journalists were assaulted and thousands of dollars in news equipment was destroyed in the riot.

Three years after the failed attempt to halt the democratic process of counting electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, the Department of Justice has charged more than 1,100 people with criminal activity that day. Yet it has charged only a few of those who committed assaults on journalists, attacked as they covered the rapidly escalating events in Washington, D.C.

Nearly 20 journalists were assaulted — dragged over a wall, punched in the face or had a camera stolen. Tens of thousands of dollars in news equipment was also destroyed in the riot.

Of the six people who were charged with assaulting journalists, most were for the mob assault of Associated Press photojournalist John Minchillo, who was pushed, punched, dragged through the crowd and thrown over a wall. Four people have been charged with his assault — two pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison; two others are working their way through the justice system.

One of the men charged in the assault of photographer Minchillo was also charged in the assault of documentary journalist Nick Quested. Quested was filming the riot from the steps of the West Plaza when the man grabbed his camera and attempted to pull him down the stairs.

New York Times photographer Erin Schaff was inside the Capitol when a crowd attacked her. In her account for the outlet, Schaff wrote that when the rioters realized she worked for the Times, they became angry, stealing and breaking her equipment: “At this point, I thought I could be killed and no one would stop them. They ripped one of my cameras away from me, broke a lens on the other and ran away.” A woman was charged with inciting the assault on the photojournalist and sentenced to prison.

Schaff’s wasn’t the only news equipment targeted by rioters. She was one of four journalists who had gear like camera lenses, broadcast cameras and recording devices damaged during their assaults.

Most large-scale harm of news equipment occurred when rioters attacked a media staging area. A Reuters cameraman was filming as rioters ripped apart the staging area, breaking news equipment, piling it up and attempting to set fire to it.

A man, later charged with destroying equipment belonging to media outlets including The Associated Press and German public-service broadcaster ZDF, tackled the Reuters journalist to the ground. He subsequently pleaded guilty to two assault charges and was sentenced to four years in prison and three years of supervised release.

Five other rioters have been charged in relation to damaging news equipment; at least one has been sentenced to pay ZDF more than $30,000 in restitution.


For 15 other journalists documenting events in and around the Capitol on Jan. 6, no criminal charges have been filed in their assaults:

Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, a freelance photojournalist on assignment for The Washington Post, was hit by crowd-control munitions fired by law enforcement multiple times.

Independent journalist Douglas Christian told the Tracker he was harassed, pursued and punched by rioters near the Russell Senate Office Building.

PBS NewsHour correspondent Lisa Desjardins told VICE News that someone grabbed her and tried to wrest her phone away.

Independent journalist Nate Gowdy told the Tracker he was standing on a railing photographing rioters storming the Capitol when a man threatened him and shoved him off.

Independent journalist John Harrington told the Tracker he was assaulted and harassed multiple times by rioters. He said he was hit in the head with what he believes was a fire extinguisher and also hit with a chair thrown by a rioter in a scuffle with police officers.

Slate reporter Aymann Ismail said he was pushed by a Capitol Police officer as a way to slow down the crowd of people behind him who were trying to force their way into the Capitol Building.
Reporter Vincent Jolly was livestreaming for Le Figaro when a man knocked his cellphone out of his hands, destroying it.

Photojournalist Chris Jones of 100 Days in Appalachia told the Tracker he was confronted by rioters inside the Capitol for being a journalist and was picked up and dragged out of the building. Later in the day, a flash-bang grenade fired by Capitol police exploded right next to him, damaging his camera pouch.

Christopher Lee, a freelance photojournalist on assignment for Time magazine, said rioters identified him as a journalist and started to grab and remove him from the Capitol.

CNN photojournalist Ronnie McCray was assaulted by a rioter who also smacked his camera.
Freelance journalist Christopher Morris said he was assaulted at least four times, with rioters “pushing, shoving, some kicking [and] pulling” on him.

VICE News cameraman Chris Olson and international correspondent Ben Solomon were attacked by several rioters on the steps of the Capitol. A man attempted to smash Olson’s camera, damaging the handle grip, and another gave Solomon a “good hard shove to the throat.”

Members of a WTTG television news crew were assaulted and harassed by a woman who was later arrested and charged with multiple criminal counts by the DOJ for her actions during the Jan. 6 riots. While the charging document describes the woman as “kicking two members of a news team” none of the charges filed were directly related to their assaults.

View the exhibition: January 6, One Year Later

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts & Design presents a selection of works from photographer Stephen Wilkes’ “Day to Night” series at Grand Central

 Via Art Daily

December 30, 2023

Central Park, View from Essex House, NYC, Day To Night ™ © Stephen Wilkes. Courtesy MTA Arts & Design.

"Day to Night" explores the circadian rhythms of New York's iconic landmarks and vibrant city life

NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts & Design is now presenting a selection of works from photographer Stephen Wilkes’ mesmerizing “Day to Night” series at Grand Central Madison. Iconic New York landmarks, including Coney Island, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, and Washington Square, are rendered anew thanks to the artist’s unique approach to photography, creating images of familiar destinations across the Big Apple that span the course of an entire day.

-"This Fragile Earth Day To Night", a special virtual exhibit, is on through January 21, 2024 at monroegallery.com -

“These fascinating photographs showcase New York City at its very finest, reminding residents and tourists alike of our spectacular city’s tremendous vitality and its unique ability to inspire awe, delight, and wonderment,” said Sandra Bloodworth, Director, MTA Arts & Design. “Those passing through Grand Central Madison will immediately recognize several renowned locations created in Stephen Wilkes’ unique image-making style, which captures the essence of a single place from dawn until dark.”

The ongoing “Day to Night” series explores the temporal and circadian rhythms of daily life in landmark locations from around the world. Working from a fixed camera angle, Wilkes takes up to 1,500 images over the course of a day then edits the best moments of the entire day, using time as his guide. These select moments are then digitally blended into a single photograph.

The photos on display at Grand Central Madison were chosen by MTA Arts & Design and the artist to reveal a range of New York City views, including the bustling landscapes of Rockefeller Center during the holidays, Central Park in its colorful fall glory, and Coney Island at the peak of summer. Together, these images serve as a lasting reminder of the energetic environs, both natural and human-made, that make New York City such a lively place to spend time. The exhibition is curated by MTA Arts & Design and generously sponsored by Duggal Visual Solutions with installation support by OUTFRONT Media. The photographs will be on view until Spring 2024.

“It is so special for me to share these New York ‘Day to Night’ images within the stunning Grand Central Madison cultural corridor. New York has always been a source of great inspiration and my ‘Day to Night’ project began as a love letter to New York City. I was drawn to photograph the most iconic locations within the city, views that are part of our collective memory, but seen in a totally different light. I photograph from locations and views that are part of our collective memory,” said Westport, Connecticut-based artist Stephen Wilkes. “I capture what I see, the fleeting moments of humanity and light as time passes. Photographing a single place for up to 36 hours becomes a meditation. It has informed me in a unique way, inspiring deep insights into the narrative story of life, and the fragile interaction of humanity within our natural world.”

Located at the south end of the concourse by the 42nd Street entrance, MTA Arts & Design Photography at Grand Central Madison was inaugurated in 2023. The curated exhibition series is installed in ten large-scale lightboxes and rotated periodically. The Photography initiative is part of the larger Grand Central Madison “cultural corridor,” a new venue for artistic expression curated by MTA Arts & Design. In addition to temporary photography exhibitions, the corridor includes lively permanent mosaic commissions by Yayoi Kusama and Kiki Smith and five large LED screens that display a widerange of temporary digital artworks from the MTA Arts & Design Digital Art Program, an annual open call initiative for digital artists. Taken together, these unique and publicly accessible artistic endeavors are a reminder of the enduring power of public art and its ability to connect people from all walks of life.

STEPHEN WILKES

Stephen Wilkes was born in 1957 in New York. He received his BS in photography from Syracuse University S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications with a minor in business management from the Whitman School of Management in 1980. Wilkes’ extensive awards and honors include the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Magazine Photography, Photographer of the Year from Adweek Magazine, Fine Art Photographer of the Year 2004 Lucie Award, TIME Magazine Top 10 Photographs of 2012, Sony World Photography Professional Award 2012, Adobe Breakthrough Photography Award 2012 and Prix Pictet, Consumption 2014. His photographs are included in the collections of the George Eastman Museum, James A. Michener Art Museum, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Dow Jones Collection, Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, Jewish Museum of NY, Library of Congress, Snite Museum of Art, The Historic New Orleans Collection, Museum of the City of New York, 9/11 Memorial Museum and numerous private collections. His editorial work has appeared in, and on the covers of leading publications such as the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Time, Fortune, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, and many others.

MTA ARTS & DESIGN MTA

Arts & Design encourages the use of public transportation by providing visual and performing arts in the metropolitan New York area. The Percent for Art program is one of the largest and most diverse collections of site-specific public art in the world, with more than 380 commissions by world-famous, midcareer and emerging artists. Arts & Design produces Graphic Arts, Digital Art, photographic Lightbox exhibitions, as well as live musical performances in stations through its Music Under New York (MUSIC) program, and the Poetry in Motion program in collaboration with the Poetry Society of America. It serves the millions of people who rely upon MTA subways and commuter trains and strives to create meaningful connections between sites, neighborhoods, and people.
MTA

Santa Fe New Mexican's Pasatiempo: Monroe Gallery of Photography’s This Fragile Earth

 Via Pasatiempo

December 29, 2023

By Brian Sanford

Ed Kashi

A worker subcontracted by Shell Oil Company cleans up an oil spill from a well owned by Shell that had been left abandoned for over 25 years, 2004

PHOTOGRAPHY

Documenting damage

In one of the more disturbing images in Monroe Gallery of Photography’s This Fragile Earth, a subcontractor for Shell Oil Company takes a break from cleaning up an oil spill at an abandoned well owned by Shell, holding out his hand. At first glance, it appears to be covered in human blood. Further examination reveals it’s actually covered in Earth’s blood: oil. The untitled image was captured by photographer Ed Kashi in 2004.

Equally troubling, but perhaps more resonant to New Mexicans, is Aftermath of Calf Creek/Hermits Peak Wildfire, taken near Mora in 2022 by Santa Fe New Mexican photographer Gabriela Campos. It features a panoramic view of the charred landscape left by the most damaging wildfire in the state’s history.

This Fragile Earth, which runs through January 21, juxtaposes images showing human-caused environmental devastation and the effects of climate change with others that highlight nature’s magnificence. Among the latter are Taos Gorge, taken by Henry Monroe in 2018, and an untitled image showing a giraffe beneath flying storks at Shaba Game Reserve in Kenya, taken by Bill Eppridge in 1978.

The exhibition’s goal is to motivate awareness and change, say gallery owners Michelle and Sid Monroe. It’s supplemented by a virtual exhibition, Stephen Wilkes: This Fragile Earth, Day to Night, showing that photographer’s images of nature’s splendor. Wilkes, of Connecticut, used a technique in the pieces that captures the passage of time from day to night.

Many of Wilkes’ images show details of locations relatively few humans have visited: Churchill, Manitoba, near Hudson Bay; Ilulissat, Greenland; and Chilko Lake, British Columbia. While humans are only visible in one of the images, others feature caribou, wood bison, polar and grizzly bears, zebras, and elephants. Wilkes gave a talk about the images, as well as his documentation of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, at the gallery on November 30. View it at monroegallery.com.  — Brian Sandford

Ed Kashi - PHOTO TALK - WTF-STOP PODCAST

 Via What the F-Stop Podcast - Life Through Photography

December 28, 2023

Ed Kashi is a renowned photojournalist, filmmaker, speaker, and educator who has been making images and telling stories for 40 years. His restless creativity has continually placed him at the forefront of new approaches to visual storytelling. Dedicated to documenting the social and political issues that define our times, a sensitive eye and an intimate and compassionate relationship with his subjects are signatures of his intense and unsparing work. As a member of VII Photo, Kashi has been recognized for his complex imagery and its compelling rendering of the human condition.

Kashi’s innovative approach to photography and filmmaking has produced a number of influential short films and earned recognition by the POYi Awards as 2015’s Multimedia Photographer of the Year. Kashi’s embrace of technology has led to creative social media projects for clients including National Geographic, The New Yorker, and MSNBC. From implementing a unique approach to photography and filmmaking in his 2006 Iraqi Kurdistan Flipbook to paradigm shifting coverage of Hurricane Sandy for TIME in 2012, Kashi continues to create compelling imagery and engage with the world in new ways.

Along with numerous awards from World Press Photo, POYi, CommArts, and American Photography, Kashi’s images have been published and exhibited worldwide. His editorial assignments and personal projects have generated fourteen books.

In 2002, Kashi in partnership with his wife, writer + filmmaker Julie Winokur, founded Talking Eyes Media. The non-profit company has produced numerous award-winning short films, exhibits, books, and multimedia pieces that explore significant social issues.

In 2019, The Enigma Room, an immersive installation, premiered at NYC’s Photoville festival and has since been seen in Israel, the Netherlands, South Korea, and New Mexico, USA. The Enigma Room is an experimental multimedia projection created in collaboration with Brenda Bingham, Michael Curry, and Rachel Bolańos.

Kashi is represented by Monroe Gallery, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For print sale inquiries, contact info@monroegallery.com

Ed Kashi's photographs are included in the current This Fragile Earth exhibition, on view through January 21, 2024.

Through the lens 2023: Gabriela Campos

 Via The Santa Fe New Mexican

December 28, 2023

Gallery Photographer Gabriela Campos shares some of her favorite images from 2023.

Kelly Ludeking, a Minnesota ironmonger, spins molten iron while fellow artists throw liquid iron onto a plywood wall behind him during the biennial Iron Tribe gathering March 2 in Las Vegas, N.M. The gathering, started by Highlands University fine arts professor David Lobdell in 2001, has become a can’t-miss event, particularly for professors and students in the West and Great Plains.

Gabriela Campos/The New Mexican

Full gallery here.

TIME's Best Photos of 2023 Includes Gallery Photographer David Butow's Image From The Maui Willdfire

 

Via TIME

December 21, 2023

A girl who, unable to get an abortion, becomes a mother before starting 7th grade; a mass of twisted metal and ash, all that remains of a home in the wake of the Maui wildfires; Bad Bunny, one of the year’s most engaging entertainers, stepping out in a pink mohair coat adorned with a bow: These photographs, all featured in TIME during 2023, constitute a map of where we’ve been and what we’ve seen, connecting us with the greater world. Sometimes we may feel we live and work in isolation, but it’s never true: there are always those facing challenges as formidable as our own, or even more so, and there are joys to be had, too. These are just a few of the gifts great photographs can bring us, a collapsing of the distance between others and ourselves.

We’re reminded how our world is changing around us when we see a flutter of birds over Delhi, a city cloaked with smog that puts both animal health and that of humans at risk. A 14-year-old Georgia teenager named Malayah faces the camera resolutely, a reminder that paying attention to the mental health of young people will make for happier, more well-adjusted grownups tomorrow—the world will be in their hands someday. And a group of citizens light candles for Tyre Nichols, beaten and killed by Memphis police in January, at the community skate park he used to frequent as a youth in Sacramento, Calif. We need to remember our dead, especially those whose deaths fill us with anger—but it’s also important to recall the things that brought joy to their lives, because even for those whose lives aren’t cut down prematurely, time is fleeting.

David Butow: Ruins of a home in the small hillside town of Kula. "What Remains After the Flames: Scenes From the Ash-Colored Streets of Maui," September 4 issue.

David Butow's photograph "The landscape of destruction, Lahaina, Maui, seen on August 24, 2023" is featured in the current exhibition "This Fragile Earth", on view through January 21, 2024

Report Warns of Attempt to 'Criminalize' Newsgathering in the US

 Via VOA

December 20, 2023

WASHINGTON — At least a dozen journalists faced arrest or charges related to their newsgathering across the U.S. in 2023, with most working for local media outlets.

The incidents and their impact on the ability of journalists to cover the news are detailed in a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Based in New York, the Tracker has documented what it sees as press freedom violations inside the U.S. since 2017.

According to the Tracker, many of the cases this year involved attempts to prevent journalists from engaging in regular reporting practices — from asking questions to investigating public officials. It cited around 30 cases of journalists or media outlets being summoned and asked to identify a source or hand over reporting materials.

“What was interesting this year was an apparent criminalization of general newsgathering,” said Stephanie Sugars, the report’s author.

The number of cases of journalists arrested is lower than previous years, when the Tracker documented dozens of cases as media covered unrest and large-scale protests. Still, the findings are a concern, the nonpartisan group said.

In one case from October, police arrested a small-town Alabama newspaper publisher and a reporter for publishing an article that authorities said contained confidential grand jury evidence.

While leaking information may be illegal, it is not a crime for news outlets to publish that information, so long as the reporters are not involved in illegally obtaining the materials, press experts say.

In another case, a reporter at an Illinois newspaper was cited for asking city officials too many questions about flooding in October.

“That is normal newsgathering,” Sugars told VOA from New York.

In the Illinois case, the charges were dropped.

In a separate incident in Ohio, NewsNation correspondent Evan Lambert was ordered to stop a live broadcast while Governor Mike DeWine was giving a press briefing in February. Officers then forced Lambert to the ground and arrested him.

The governor expressed concern and said he was not aware of the incident at the time it occurred.

Lambert filed a lawsuit in November over the incident.

Meanwhile, an Arizona judge in April granted a restraining order against a local reporter after the journalist looked into a state senator’s residency claims. Another judge later rejected the restraining order. And in July, two California reporters were accused by a local police union of stalking for trying to contact a police officer at her home.

“Attempts to criminalize routine journalistic activities, such as contacting public officials or the subjects of stories, send a chill through the heart of newsgathering,” Sugars wrote in the report.

It’s unclear whether police and officials in these incidents were unaware of what constitutes normal newsgathering or whether they just didn’t care, Sugars said.

But, she added, that distinction also misses the point.

“Whether they know that it is general, basic newsgathering or not is less important than the fact that they just don’t like it and are using the tools at their disposal to retaliate,” Sugars said.

Another factor that links many of the cases in the Press Freedom Tracker’s report is that most incidents took place at the local level, affecting smaller or regional publications.

That’s likely a byproduct of the decline of local news coverage, according to Sugars.

The U.S. has lost more than one fourth of its newspapers since 2005 and is set to lose one third of all its roughly 6,000 remaining print newspapers — mostly weeklies — by 2025, according to a report by Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative.

“That lack of constant scrutiny has created an atmosphere where local officials feel like they are no longer responsible for answering questions,” Sugars said.

First Amendment experts say such violations make it harder for journalists to do their jobs.

“If you’ve got these instances of law enforcement overreach, again, it impairs the press’s watchdog role," said Gabe Rottman of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, or RCFP.

Rottman, who is director of the RCFP’s Technology and Press Freedom Project, said that it is important for government officials to understand the role journalists play in their community.

Fewer journalists were arrested or charged in the United States in 2023 than in the past few years, the Tracker report found.

Dare to Dissent with Photojournalist Jeff Widener, best known for his image of "The Tank Man"

 Via NPR

December 14, 2023

Sometimes, the most dangerous and powerful thing a person can do is to stand up not against their enemies, but against their friends. As the United States heads into what will likely be another bitter and divided election year, there will be more and more pressure to stand with our in-groups rather than our consciences.

So a group of us here at Throughline decided to tell some of the stories of people who have stood up to that kind of pressure. Some are names we know; others we likely never will. On today's episode: what those people did, what it cost them, and why they did it anyway.

Guests:

Alexandra Lloyd, author of Defying Hitler: the White Rose Pamphlets and fellow by special election in German at the University of Oxford.

Johnathan Eig, author of the biography King: A Life.

Jeff Widener, a photojournalist best known for his image of the Tank Man.

Listen here: