7 JUNE 1979 — Before covering the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, I had rarely seen dead people outside of funeral homes — much less made pictures of them. But in the summer of 1979 I made lots of pictures of dead people. I still see some of them today in my mind’s eye. On June […]
David Coffey (left) accepts the American University-Associated Press Foreign Internship Award from School of Communication Professor Bill Gentile. Coffey, who is finishing a graduate degree in Journalism at AU, is leaving this week for a three-month internship with the AP in Bangkok, Thailand. AP, the world’s oldest and largest news-gathering organization, has a robust domestic […]
It was this time of year three decades ago, in the sweltering heat of a Nicaraguan summer, that I covered conflict for the first time. The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) ousted the U.S.-backed family dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in a war that left some 30,000 dead. That’s Somoza above, outside his bunker in Managua, […]
I’ll be judging the Qatar University VidoetryFest 2009 Film Contest and Festival this month. Below are some comments I’ve prepared for the opening of the event. I’ll be judging the videos, many of them done in the backpack journalism model, online.http://www.youtube.com/get_player
Following are comments I delivered last night prior to the screening of “A Mighty Heart,” about Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent Daniel Pearl. A panel discussion with some of Pearl’s colleagues preceded and followed the screening, held at the Newseum in Washington, DC: “At no time is the free flow of information more important than […]
Now that I’ve posted a definition of backpack journalism, the next question might be, “So what does it take to be a backpack journalist?” Here are the requirements, not necessarily in the order of importance:VISUAL TALENT: The backpack journalist needs artistic talent to recognize compelling images. Images are the engine inside this medium. Edward R. […]