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Remembering Horst Faas
Horst Faas, the burly Pulitzer Prize-winning war photographer who risked his life to capture some of the most haunting images from the Vietnam War, died May 10, 2012. He was 79.
An Associated Press photographer since 1956, the native of Germany was the first photographer to win two Pulitzer Prizes. His first award was in 1965 for a photo essay that included an image of a father holding his dead child, as South Vietnamese Army Rangers looked down on them from a tank. His second Pulitzer came seven years later for his gripping photographs of prisoners in Bangladesh being tortured and executed.
As chief of AP's photo operations in Southeast Asia from 1962 to 1974 and based in Saigon — now Ho Chi Minh City — Haas assembled the best young photographers to chronicle the war. Under his leadership, "Horst's army" captured some of the most controversial and iconic images of the war.
In 1968, Faas selected what he later called the "perfect newspicture" from a roll of film taken by the late AP photographer Eddie Adams to send over AP wires. Adams's graphic image of a Viet Cong prisoner being shot in the head received the Pulitzer for spot news in 1969. In 1972, after an editor refused to transmit Nick Ut's photo of a Napalm-burned girl running down a Vietnamese road, Faas sent it instead. The photo won the 1973 Pulitzer for spot news.
Faas was an early supporter of the Newseum, specifically the museum's annual rededication of the Journalists Memorial, which honors newspeople — many of them war reporters and photographers — who died covering the news. A ceremony will be held at the Newseum May 14, 2012. In 1997 and 1998, the Newseum exhibited works from "Requiem," a book Faas co-edited with Tim Page that featured the works of photographers who died in Vietnam and Indochina.
Related Links:Newspaper, City Slowly Recover One Year After Twin Disasters
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It has been a year since the worst earthquake in Japan’s history and a subsequent tsunami destroyed the city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, forcing the six-member staff of the Ishinomaki Hibi Shimbun newspaper to produce daily editions by hand.
For six days, reporters and editors at the small daily used marker pens on poster-size paper to continue publishing a newspaper, despite complete power outages in the city and dire living conditions.
The Newseum documented the newspaper’s heroic efforts on its website April 12, 2011. Seven of the original handwritten copies are now part of the Newseum’s permanent collection of historic newspapers. One is currently displayed in the Time Warner World News Gallery.
In this dramatic documentary produced by students at Sugiyama Jogakuen University in Nagoya City, Ishinomaki Hibi Shimbun editor-in-chief, Hiroyuki Takeuchi, takes readers behind the scenes of the staff’s determination to keep the citizens of Ishinomaki informed during the tragic events.
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David Kramer, president of Freedom House. (Maria Bryk/Newseum)
World Press Freedom Declined in 2011
WASHINGTON — The percentage of the world's population that has access to a free press declined for the second straight year during 2011, according to an annual survey released by Freedom House, which has documented media independence since 1980.
The results were announced May 1 at a ceremony at the Newseum. David Kramer, president of Freedom House, said the Middle East and North Africa had dramatic increases in press freedom.
"The newly opened media environments in countries like Tunisia and Libya, while still tenuous and far from perfect, are critical for the future of democratic development in the region and must be nurtured and protected," he said.
The Newseum's color-coordinated international map, located in the Time Warner World News Gallery, reflects the different levels of press freedom internationally as determined by Freedom House. Countries painted in green have a free press. Those in yellow have partial press freedom. The countries in red allow no press freedom.
In 2011, the press status in 10 countries changed:
- One country — Tonga — changed from "Partly Free" to "Free."
- Five countries — Egypt, Libya, Thailand, Tunisia and Zambia — changed from "Not Free" to "Partly Free."
- Three countries — Chile, Guyana and Hungary — changed from "Free" to "Partly Free."
- One country — Guinea — changed from "Partly Free" to "Not Free."
A new country was formed in 2011 and was added to the world map. South Sudan, which separated from Sudan, has a press that is "Partly Free."
Finland, Norway and Sweden's press were the most free in the world, based on those countries' well-established democratic system of governance.
For a second consecutive year, North Korea's press was ranked the world's worst. The country controls all aspects of life for its 25 million citizens — including access to news. All media outlets in North Korea are run by the state. Internet access is rare, and content is strictly controlled.
Freedom House is an independent watchdog organization based in Washington, D.C., that supports democratic change, monitors the status of freedom around the world and advocates for democracy and human rights.
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Jamal Albarghouti holds the cellphone he used to video the Virginia Tech shootings. (Jerry Grossman/Newseum)
5 Years Ago in News History: Massacre at Virginia Tech
On the morning of April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, a student at Virginia Tech university in Blacksburg, Va., shot and killed 32 students and faculty members before taking his own life. It was one of the deadliest mass school shootings in modern U.S. history.
As events unfolded, Virginia Tech graduate student Jamal Albarghouti was walking across campus when he heard gunshots. He used his cellphone to capture the chaotic scene as police responded.
Albarghouti downloaded his video to the iReport section of CNN's website. It was soon broadcast around the world. The video received approximately 1.8 million views that day, confirming the impact that user-generated information had on breaking news.
While covering the shocking massacre, NBC News found itself in the middle of a media firestorm. On the day of the shootings, Cho mailed a package containing photographs and video to the network, which received it two days later. NBC shared the "multimedia manifesto" with law enforcement and aired carefully selected excerpts on its evening broadcast. Virginia Tech students and the victims' families criticized the network for publicizing Cho's video confession.
Virginia Tech was later fined and charged with failing to provide a timely warning about danger to the campus. The charges were overturned in March 2012.
This year, students will attend classes on the day of the anniversary, the first time in five years.
Albarghouti's cellphone is on display in the Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Gallery. Details about the massacre and its role in the evolution of instant global media will be featured in the HP New Media Gallery, which opens April 27, 2012.
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Joseph Pulitzer (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division)
2012 Pulitzer Prizes Awarded
The best in journalism was honored April, 16, 2012, with the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize, journalism's highest honor.
Awards are given in 14 journalism categories, though there was not an award this year for editorial writing. The public service award — which comes with a prestigious gold medal — is given to a news organization. All other winners receive $10,000 each. This year, the Pulitzer Prize for public service was awarded to The Philadelphia Inquirer for its exploration of violence in the city's schools.
In a sign of the new media landscape, David Wood of The Huffington Post was awarded the Pulitzer for national reporting. Woods covered the physical and emotional challenges facing wounded U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the first Pulitzer for the seven-year-old online news publication.
Politico, the online publication that covers politics, also won its first Pulitzer for Matt Wuerker's editorial cartoons on partisan politics in Washington.
Reporter Sara Ganim and the staff of the Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa., won for local reporting for its coverage of the sexual abuse scandal at Penn State University.
The award for breaking news photography went to Massoud Hossaini of Agence France-Presse for his image of a girl crying in fear in the aftermath of a suicide bomber's attack at a crowded shrine in Kabul.
Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post won the award for feature photography for his images of an honorably discharged veteran struggling with a severe case of post-traumatic stress.
These images will be added to the Newseum's permanent and traveling exhibits of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs. The exhibit catalog, "The Pulitzer Prize Photographs: Capture the Moment," showcases the photographs and reveals the stories behind them.
Since 1917, Columbia University has recognized remarkable achievements in journalism, arts and letters, thanks to a bequest from crusading publisher Joseph Pulitzer. In his will, he endowed the university with $2 million for a school of journalism and "prizes or scholarships for the encouragement of public service, public morals, American literature and the advancement of education."
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Courtney L. Surls. (Maria Bryk/Newseum)
Surls Named Newseum Senior Vice President of Development
WASHINGTON — Courtney L. Surls, vice president for development for the University of Southern California, has been named senior vice president of development for the Newseum.
Surls’s appointment was announced by James C. Duff, president and chief executive officer of the Freedom Forum and chief executive officer of the Newseum. The Freedom Forum, which operates the Newseum, champions the First Amendment as a cornerstone of democracy.
“Courtney has an outstanding record as an innovative and energetic leader in the most ambitious university fundraising campaign in the country,” Duff said. “We are delighted that Courtney will join and lead our development team at the Newseum. She has both the skills and the enthusiasm for our civic education mission to help propel our greater outreach initiatives.”
Surls, 45, played a leadership role in the advancement efforts of the University of Southern California, one of the top fundraising universities in the country. She was integral in the development of fundraising programs and infrastructure to support the $6 billion capital campaign launched by USC last year.
Surls will join the Newseum this summer. She succeeds Mary Kay Blake, senior vice president of development for the Newseum since 2007.
The Titanic Sinks
On April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic, on her maiden voyage to New York
from Southampton, UK, struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean and sank within three hours. During the evacuation, there weren’t enough lifeboats to hold everyone on the ship. Most of the lifeboats were only partially full when launched.
More than 2,200 passengers and crew were on the Titanic; more than 1,500 perished. Among the dead was William Thomas Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. The controversial British journalist pioneered the use of newspaper illustrations, sensational scoops and big headlines.
Early newspaper headlines about the disaster were big and bold, but they also were inaccurate.
In their race to get the latest information, newspapers carried conflicting accounts.
The Los Angeles Express falsely reported that all the passengers were safe. The New York Herald declared that 675 passengers, mostly women and children, were saved.
One reason for the confusion was the limitations of technology. In 1912, the fastest way to spread news was through Morse code on a wireless radio. But wireless messages often became distorted, especially over long distances or in poor weather. The RMS Carpathia received distress calls from Titanic’s wireless radio 35 minutes after the collision and sailed to the site to rescue survivors.
Though the exact count may never be known, the tally for Titanic’s 2,208 passengers and crew: 712 were saved; 1,496 died. The Carpathia reached New York three days after the rescue.
A selection of more than 30 graphics and historic front pages reporting on the Titanic disaster will be in the Today’s Front Pages glass display cases on Pennsylvania Avenue April 13 to 20. Some of those newspapers are featured with this story.
The story about the Titanic, and an exhibit on how reporting errors are made, are displayed in the News Corporation News History Gallery.
An “Inside Media” program, “The Titanic: 100 Years Later,” will be held Sunday, April 15, 2012, in the Knight TV Studio on Level 3 at 2:30 p.m.
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Mike Wallace. (Courtesy CBS)
Remembering Mike Wallace
Mike Wallace, renowned journalist and founding co-editor of the groundbreaking newsmagazine "60 Minutes," died April 7, 2012. He was 93.
Perhaps no other reporter was more feared for his reportorial and interviewing skills than Wallace. During his 38 years as a correspondent for "60 Minutes," he exposed hypocrisy in business, commerce and government. A classic Wallace question: "Tell me something — how much in the way of kickbacks and rebates do you get involved with, and why?"
Wallace scored the big interviews with reclusive celebrities and politicians. On camera, he brought singer Barbra Streisand to tears and was scolded by first lady Nancy Reagan when he quizzed her about the $2 million she and President Ronald Reagan received for a visit to Japan.
Coors Brewing Company once touted Wallace's investigative clout in an ad claiming: "The four most dreaded words in the English language are 'Mike Wallace Is Here.'
Wallace began his broadcasting career in radio. He hosted quiz and adventure shows before discovering in 1956, as host of a CBS program called "Night Beat," his rare interviewing talent. Asking the tough questions would become his signature style in 1968 when he, along with correspondent Harry Reasoner, became the original hosts of "60 Minutes."
In an interview with People magazine in 2006, Wallace said he didn't think the show would fly.
"I thought [late executive producer Don] Hewitt was crazy, and I said, 'It will never work.'"
More than 40 years after its launch, "60 Minutes" remains a top-rated program that has received numerous awards and prompted several imitators.
Wallace retired from the show in 2006 but maintained a correspondent emeritus role at CBS News.
Wallace was a frequent participant in Freedom Forum and Newseum events. In 1998, he and fellow "60 Minutes" correspondents appeared at the Newseum to commemorate the program's 30th anniversary. At that time, Hewitt presented the Newseum with scripts from the program's first broadcast. One of the scripts, along with an exhibit on Wallace's life and career, is displayed in the News Corporation News History Gallery.
In 1998, "60 Minutes" celebrated its 30th anniversary with a program at the Newseum that featured producer Don Hewitt; correspondents Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley, Andy Rooney, Morley Safer, Lesley Stahl and Steve Kroft; and the "60 Minutes" production team.
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Andy Rooney. (Courtesy CBS News)
Andy Rooney's Desk, Typewriter at Newseum
WASHINGTON — For 27 years, "60 Minutes" pundit Andy Rooney sat behind the desk he built himself and talked about everything from umbrellas to newspapers and crowded elevators. He even had a segment about the contents on his desk.
On March 29, 2012, the family of the Emmy Award-winning commentator donated to the Newseum the contents of Rooney's office at CBS, which also served as his "60 Minutes" set. Rooney's walnut desk, one of his Underwood #5 typewriters, books and bookshelves were part of the donation to the Newseum's collection of historic artifacts.
"We embrace the opportunity to hold these pieces in the public trust," said Carrie Christoffersen, director of collections. "The first exciting step in that means the detailed work of unpacking and cataloguing the 40-plus boxes, bins and parcels of material from the space Rooney occupied for 27 years."
In 1985, Rooney moved from an office on the sixth floor of the CBS building to the seventh-floor office he occupied until his death last November at the age of 92.
Rooney's regular essays — "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" — began July 2, 1978. The first one was about people who compiled lists of people who died in traffic accidents over the holidays. His last one — the 1,097th — was delivered Oct. 2, 2011.
"I wish I could do this forever," he said. "I can't, though."
There are no immediate plans to display Rooney's artifacts.
Related Links:Remembering Bert Sugar
Bert Sugar, the flamboyant writer and historian whose extensive knowledge of sports in general and boxing in particular made him a journalism legend, died Sunday in Mount Kisco, NY. He was 75.
Wearing his trademark fedora and holding a cigar between his fingers, Sugar was an instantly recognizable figure. He was the editor and publisher of Boxing Illustrated and Ring magazine and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Sugar was at ringside covering some of the greatest boxing matches of all time. In a special edition of USA Today in 2010, he called the third rematch between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier "one of the greatest one-sided fights in boxing history."
In a 2007 Newseum-produced video titled "Press Box," narrated by Ahmad Rashad, Sugar called Grantland Rice one of the first great American sportswriters.
"Grantland Rice was one of the most important writers, not only his great lines … but what he could do to sports. Having Grantland Rice at an event made it the event," he said.
Sugar also talked about the press's role in protecting Yankee slugger Babe Ruth, who he called a "circulation builder."
"An old friend of mine … told the story of the time, on a train ride from St. Louis to Chicago, here comes Babe Ruth racing through the middle of the train, buck naked. About three steps behind him, equally naked, is a woman brandishing a knife. … One of [the reporters], looking at his cards looks up and goes, 'Oh, there's another story we won't cover.'"
Sugar was the author of more than 80 books and had a law degree and an MBA from the University of Michigan.
HP New Media Gallery opens April 27 at Newseum. (Sam Kittner)
HP New Media Gallery Opens April 27 at Newseum
WASHINGTON — The Newseum, in partnership with technology giant Hewlett-Packard, will open its 15th gallery on April 27, 2012.
The 2,500-square-foot HP New Media Gallery will be the first major gallery opening at the Newseum since 2008.
“The HP New Media gallery will give Newseum visitors a chance to step into a three-dimensional social network,” said Paul Sparrow, senior vice president of broadcasting at the Newseum.
The gallery features five groundbreaking interactive experiences and two video presentations that illustrate the evolution and progression of global media:
- Eight HP tablets in the “Check-In” station allow guests to snap a picture of themselves and post it to the gallery, email to a friend and/or publish on the Newseum’s website.
- In “Choose the News,” visitors can flip through the latest news stories and build a customized tablet-based news page. The news pages are published to a large video wall powered by the HP Photon Engine solution.
- At the “Story Board,” two 11-foot-wide HP VantagePoint touch walls let visitors read and watch milestone moments in the history of new media. Each wall has six monitors that allow up to 12 people to interact simultaneously.
- The “Game Zone” offers four motion-tracking systems to play the trivia quiz “Dunk the Anchor.”
- Two touch-screen monitors, one featuring live Twitter feeds and the other displaying photographs and content from the "Check-In" stations, instantly connect visitors to social networking.
“New media allows people to connect, to discover and to share,” Sparrow said. “They can connect by posting their photograph to the gallery’s large upper screens. They can discover the milestone events in the evolution of new media by using the touch walls. And they can share their opinions about what is important by creating their own news pages.”
The experience continues after visitors leave the gallery. They can visit a dedicated website to download their photos, participate in daily polls and comment on events of the day.
Rob DeFeo, chief horticulturalist for the National Park Service, announces the peak blooming days in 2012 for Washington's cherry blossoms.
'Early' Bloom for Washington's Cherry Blossoms
WASHINGTON — This year's peak blooming period for the cherry blossom trees in the nation's capital will likely be "early," occurring between March 24-31, and possibly March 22, according to Rob DeFeo, chief horticulturalist at the National Park Service.
Peak bloom means that 70 percent of the trees will be in bloom, DeFeo said. He added that the mild winter would not affect an early bloom.
"It really only matters as to what happens from now on," he said.
The prediction was made during a live press conference March 1 at the Newseum that kicked off the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. The 2012 festival, held March 20-April 27, commemorates the 100-year anniversary of the gift of the cherry blossom trees from Tokyo to Washington, D.C.
As part of the celebration, several museums and institutions around Washington, including Dulles airport, the National Building museum and the convention center, will be colored in pink. The Newseum illuminated the First Amendment tablet on its façade in pink lights.
The Cherry Blossom Festival is expected to attract more than 1 million visitors.
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In 1920, Florence Harding became the first woman to vote for her husband for the presidency. (National First Ladies Library)
Women and Politics: The Power of Spouses in Presidetial Campaigns
In 1920 — the year women gained the right to vote — Florence Harding became the first woman to vote for her husband in a presidential election. Her action also marked the first attempt by a political campaign to “sell” a candidate’s spouse. The Republican National Committee used Mrs. Harding’s adroit social skills to attract female voters. She cultivated a friendly relationship with the press and was instrumental in creating some of the first staged photo-ops.
“Mrs. Harding is the only candidate’s wife who came more than half way to meet newspaper reporters,” The New York Times reported.
In previous campaigns, candidates’ wives were mostly props, standing beside their husbands, surrounded by children. But Mrs. Harding took a more aggressive stance, helping to create images that humanized the couple and set the standard for future campaigning couples.
Today, the private and public lives of candidates’ spouses — who are just as likely to be men — receive almost as much media scrutiny as the candidates themselves. And their appeal to voters is often just as important.
Eleanor Roosevelt was perhaps the first candidate’s wife who was as politically active as her husband. She joined the League of Women Voters in 1920 and later accompanied Franklin D. Roosevelt on the presidential campaign trail. Her outspokenness and promotion of racial equality garnered enemies, but she remained her husband’s trusted adviser until his death.
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was pregnant with her second child during her John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign. Young, glamorous and a fashion trendsetter, she participated in TV and newspaper interviews and taped radio commercials in foreign languages. Mrs. Kennedy, who worked at a newspaper before marrying, also wrote the nationally syndicated column “Campaign Wife.”
When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, his promise that voters would get “two for the price of one” with his Yale-educated wife Hillary Rodham Clinton polarized voters. Some revered Hillary as a role model; others reviled her as an assertive career woman. In 2008, President Bill Clinton’s star power helped presidential candidate Hillary raise millions as she sought the Democratic nomination.
Elizabeth Dole was considered Bob Dole’s secret asset during his 1996 presidential campaign. The former White House official and two-time cabinet member was better liked than both her husband and his running mate. She used her down-home star power to help bridge the gender gap and get women to vote for her husband. As the first spouse to have a full-time campaign travel operation separate from her husband’s, Mrs. Dole appeared in places the candidate could not.
In 2008, Michelle Obama connected with voters through her campaign speeches focusing on her working-class roots and family life. The celebratory fist bump she and Barack Obama shared on the campaign trail prompted praise and criticism and was in constant rotation on YouTube and news shows. As first lady, her approval ratings were consistently higher than the president’s.
The story about the role of candidates’ spouses is featured in “Every Four Years: Presidential Campaigns and the Press.”
"Every Four Years" was made possible through generous premier sponsorship from the American Association of University Women.
Contributing sponsorship support is provided by The Washington Examiner.
Nellie Bly in 1880. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division)
125 Years Ago in News History: Nellie Bly Goes 'Insane'
For 10 days in 1887 Nellie Bly, the first female reporter for the New York World, went undercover to investigate deplorable conditions at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on New York’s Blackwell’s Island.
Bly, who was born Elizabeth Cochran (and later added an “e” at the end of her surname), pioneered the use of undercover reporting. She began her journalism career in 1880 at the Pittsburgh Dispatch, where an editor gave her the pen name. Her first articles examined the difficulties faced by working women.
At the World, the exposé on Blackwell’s Island was one of Bly’s first assignments. To cover the story, she checked into a New York boardinghouse where she started to act strangely and pretended to have amnesia. Fellow boarders alerted the police, and several doctors declared her to be insane. Bly was admitted to the asylum on September 25.
Bly’s firsthand account of the asylum’s cruelty and neglect caused a sensation and was widely read. She described spoiled food and harsh living conditions where women were forced to sit silently on straight-back benches all day and were beaten if they did not. Bly also reported that some patients appeared to be sane.
Bly’s exposé led to a grand jury investigation and subsequent mental health reform. Her ordeal was turned into the book “Ten Days in a Mad-house.”
Bly’s story is recreated in “I-Witness: A 4-D Time Travel Adventure,” shown daily in the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Theater. Her story is also featured in the News Corporation News History Gallery in an exhibit on female reporters.
Related Links:- News Corporation News History Gallery
- Walter and Leonore Annenberg Theater
- The World According to Nellie Bly
Melissa Ludtke in an undated photo. (Stan Grossfeld/Courtesy Melissa Ludtke)
In News History: Female Reporters in the Men’s Locker Room
35 years ago, as the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers played for the World Series championship title, history was being made off the field.
Sports Illustrated reporter Melissa Ludtke, seeking the same access to players for interviews as male reporters, was barred by the baseball commissioner from entering the teams’ locker rooms. The exclusion caused her to miss key quotes and her deadline.
Among professional sports organizations, baseball stood nearly alone in allowing female reporters in team locker rooms. Since 1975, the National Hockey League had equal-access rules in place. The National Basketball Association also gave women equal access. At least one professional football team allowed women in the locker room.
Ludtke, a lifelong baseball lover, sued Major League Baseball so she and other female sports reporters could do their jobs.
"My yellow press pass for the World Series said in bold letters that I could be admitted," she said.
In 1978, the court declared it illegal — and a violation of the 14th Amendment — to bar a female reporter from a male athlete’s locker room. Constance Baker Motley, a black female judge, made the ruling. At that time, fewer than 30 women covered sports.
Soon after winning the suit, Ludtke left Sports Illustrated for CBS News. In 1980, she joined Time magazine as a general assignment reporter and later wrote a book about single motherhood. She currently is editor of Nieman Reports, a journalism quarterly published by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Ludtke’s story, along with her press pass from the 1977 World Series, is featured in an exhibit on women and the news in the News Corporation News History Gallery.
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Rob DeFeo, chief horticulturalist for the National Park Service, announces the peak blooming days in 2012 for Washington's cherry blossoms.
Cherry Blossom Prediction Announced March 1
WASHINGTON — When will the cherry blossoms bloom in 2012? A press conference hosted by the National Cherry Blossom Festival and the National Park Service will be held Thursday at the Newseum to predict the peak blooming period.
This event has ended.
When: March 1, 2012
Time: 10 a.m.
Where: New York Times–Ochs-Sulzberger Family Great Hall of News
- Jim Duff, chief executive officer of the Newseum, will give the welcoming remarks
- Rob DeFeo, chief horticulturalist at the National Park Service, will predict the 2012 blooming period
For a complete list of speakers and additional details about the festival, please visit the National Cherry Blossom Festival at nationalcherryblossomfestival.org.
The National Cherry Blossom Festival is the nation's greatest springtime celebration. The 2012 festival, held March 20-April 27, commemorates the 100th anniversary of the gift of the cherry blossom trees from Tokyo to Washington, D.C., and the enduring friendship between the United States and Japan.
National Enquirer
Nothing New in Enquirer's Death Photo of Whitney Houston
When the National Enquirer published on its cover the purported "last photo" of singing superstar Whitney Houston lying in an open casket, fans and many news organizations expressed outraged.
"A line has been crossed," declared Sarah Anne Hughes, a pop culture blogger at The Washington Post.
"It represents the very worst of predatory paparazzi culture," said GossipCop.com, a watchdog on the gossip industry.
By publishing the "world exclusive" photograph of Houston at a Newark, N.J., funeral home, the Enquirer was living up to its longstanding reputation for sensationalism.
In 1964, the supermarket tabloid printed the morgue photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy. The double-truck image of Oswald appeared inside, not on Page One, but its impact was just as controversial. A copy of that newspaper is currently displayed in the Newseum's News Corporation News History Gallery.
In its Sept. 6, 1977, edition, the Enquirer featured a closely cropped, black-and-white photo of Elvis Presley lying in his open casket. In 1980, it featured former Beatle John Lennon in a color "last picture" on the cover.
Enquirer publisher Mary Beth Wright defended the Houston cover, telling FoxNews.com she thought the photograph was "beautiful."
As with the Oswald, Presley and Lennon images, people are wondering how the Enquirer was able to get the photo of Houston at the private family viewing. That question has left one news organization less critical of the Enquirer.
"Don't hate the National Enquirer for publishing the Whitney Houston casket photo," tweeted the Philadelphia Daily News's PhillyGossip. "Hate on the family member/friend who sold it."
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Anthony Shadid (Julia Ewan/Courtesy The Washington Post)
Remembering Anthony Shadid
Anthony Shadid, who twice was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his insightful international reporting on the Middle East, died Feb. 16. He was 43.
Shadid covered the Middle East for The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and The New York Times; the latter nominated him and a team of colleagues for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize on their reporting of the Arab Spring. In its nomination, The Times cited Shadid as a reporter who "brought a poet's voice, a deep empathy for the ordinary person and an unmatched authority to his passionate dispatches." The awards will be announced in April.
Shadid's Lebanese-American heritage and fluency in Arabic aided him in his unencumbered ability to travel widely across the Middle East interviewing people, covering events and capturing the mood of each country. He was The Times's bureau chief in Beirut and was in Syria covering the resistance to the violent regime of President Bashar Assad when he suffered a severe asthma attack.
Shadid began his career in 1995 with the Associated Press, where he was based in Cairo. In 2002, he was shot in the shoulder while covering demonstrations on the West Bank for the Globe. In 2011 he, and other New York Times colleagues, were arrested, beaten and detained for several days in Libya.
Shadid was the author of three books on the Middle East, including "House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East," which will be published next month by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Shadid recently said he took risks to report on the Syrian uprising because the story "wouldn't be told otherwise."
In News History: Dateline: Resurrection City
In the spring of 1968, long before Occupy Wall Street protesters turned city squares into tent cities, hundreds of civil rights activists from across the country occupied the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and set up an encampment of makeshift shacks called Resurrection City.
Resurrection City was the brainchild of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders who planned a Poor People's Campaign to emphasize the plight of America's poor. By marching and staging a live-in on the nation's front yard, they hoped to pressure Congress to pass laws that would stamp out poverty.
Weeks before the march, the unthinkable happened: King was assassinated outside his hotel room in Memphis, Tenn. Grieving organizers decided to continue King's legacy and march to Washington.
On May 12, thousands of protesters — whites, blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans — marched in the streets of Washington demanding an Economic Bill of Rights that would guarantee jobs and end housing discrimination. The next week, Resurrection City was built.
Like the Occupy Wall Street settlements, Resurrection City functioned as a city-state with its own school, daycare and nursery facility, barber shop, general store and health-care provisions. It even had a City Hall — the Rev. Jesse Jackson was mayor.
The campaign received heavy coverage in the black press, as well as in the mainstream media.
"We used to sing a song in our church — 'Take Your Burdens to the Lord and Leave Them There,'" the Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, the new head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said in the May 9, 1968, issue of Jet magazine. "We have decided that we are going to take all our problems, our bodies, our children, the rats and the roaches and everything to the White House and leave them with LBJ."
For six weeks, an estimated 5,000 people called Resurrection City home. It rained continuously, turning the encampment into a muddy, soggy quagmire. Congress ignored the protester's demands. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's assassination on June 6 further dampened their spirits and caused internal dissent.
By the end of June, Resurrection City was bulldozed. Those who refused to leave, including Abernathy, were arrested. An Economic Bill of Rights was never passed.
"I think Resurrection City is remembered as a failure," the Rev. Walter Fauntroy said in a 2008 interview with American Public Media. "But even its failure lifted us to higher ground. At least, that's how I view it."
King's legacy and the civil rights movement are on permanent display in exhibits throughout the Newseum.
Related Links:Up From Slavery: The Black Press
2012 marks the notable anniversaries of two groundbreaking newspapers in the black press and American journalism: Freedom’s Journal and The North Star.
On March 16, 1827, Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm — two black men born free — founded Freedom’s Journal in New York City. Its goal was to counter New York newspapers that ridiculed African Americans and promoted slavery. Its motto: “Righteousness exalteth a nation.”
For the first time in history, an American newspaper was owned and published by blacks.
Freedom’s Journal became the benchmark for an influential and deeply personal black press that helped unite African Americans by giving them a voice, community self-awareness and a prominent role in a changing world.
In the inaugural edition Cornish, a Presbyterian minister, and Russwurm, a member of the Haytian Emigration Society and the second African American to graduate from a U.S. college, laid out their mission in words that spoke for many minority publishers.
“We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us. Too long has the publick been deceived by misrepresentations, in things which concern us dearly.”
Freedom’s Journal vowed to speak out in “thunder tones” until whites and blacks were viewed equally. The newspaper was the first of 40 African-American newspapers from 1827 to 1865 to call for slavery’s end. Its influence was so widespread that it was barred from the South.
A dispute between Cornish and Russwurm killed Freedom’s Journal in 1829. Russwurm believed blacks should return to Africa; he emigrated to Liberia in 1828 where he edited the Liberia Herald and worked as a government official.
Cornish founded The Colored American, where he continued to campaign against slavery. Without newspapers “by and with us,” he said, “we cannot live in America.”
Twenty years later on Nov. 1, 1847, Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave who lectured widely about the evils of slavery, founded The North Star in Rochester, N.Y. The crusading weekly also advocated for women’s rights. Its motto: “Right is of no Sex — Truth is of no Color — God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren.”
The North Star was named after a popular ballad sung by runaway slaves. Few African Americans could read during this time, but many knew freedom songs such as “The North Star” by heart, which gave slaves directions to the free northern states: Follow the drinking gourd and the North Star. The newspaper, along with Douglass’s powerful writing, had worldwide appeal.
“Justice must be done, the truth must be told. I will not be silent,” he said about the paper’s founding.
Douglass also published Frederick Douglass’ Weekly, Douglass’ Monthly, and New National Era, all with funds from British supporters. He kept fighting slavery and racial discrimination even after racists burned his house and newspapers.
The North Star was later renamed Frederick Douglass’ Paper and appeared until 1860.
An 1848 issue of The North Star is currently displayed in the News Corporation News History Gallery. The four-page edition of Frederick Douglass’ Paper, published May 25, 1860, is also in the Newseum’s collection of historic newspapers.
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