divorce proceedings commence

emraphoto

emraphoto

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pitch story on civilian casualty rates in modern conflict... (insert silence). use own money, beg, borrow and steal to travel to Syria

have direct access, with photographs to support, to Boko Haram in Nigeria... (insert silence). use own money

pitch story to cover story of conflict minerals from source to our phones/ipads/landfills. fuelling Africa's bloodiest conflict in modern times... (insert silence)

cover the civilian population in Iran, a population very similar to us, in hopes of invoking a little sanity before we start dropping bombs on them... (insert silence) begin fundraising, begging, borrowing and (hopefully not) stealing

live within 30 minutes of Torri Stafford murder trial here in Ontario, have camera and willing to tweet the most gory details possible of the poor young girls final hours? off to work you go!

my divorce from photojournalism is nearing completion
 
i haven't funded a single trip in the past 3-4 years from traditional media sources. most of it has been through the generosity of individuals (some here) and crowd funding, print sales etc.

it is a very troubling and frustrating situation right now. my wife has begun demanding a divorce from the whole thing... she will support my work until the end but she doesn't have a kind word in her body for the modern media machine.

a month or two back i had work run coast to coast in Canada. every major paper in every major city. i was paid a grand sum of $200?!?

over the past week, where i live, the press has been reliving the final, grim hours of an 8 year old girl in every outlet, tv channel, tweet, Facebook posting and everywhere in between. my wife's mother phoned this morning, in tears, asking if i knew anyone who could stop it? it's an embarrassment to the profession.

i will never stop. my wife, family, friends and supporters won't let me. i suppose the frustration can get a bit overwhelming at times... to the point where i bitch, and i am not a bitcher by any stretch.

well, back to the begging part of the day.
 
for context...

the death toll in the DRC, although arguable, is somewhere around 5.5 million.

total deaths in Torri Stafford case: 1

coverage of DRC conflict in past month, in my region: nil

coverage of Torri Stafford case: almost complete blanket, daily
 
PS

Joseph Kony is not in the DRC nor is he in Uganda. in case anyone cares, he has been in the Central African Republic for a few years now with the LRA being run from within it's ranks.

any good journalist/photojournalist who has actually been in the region (DRC) could tell you that... now if someone would just ask them.
 
Oh! Filing for irreconcilable differences against the news industry.

Yep -- it's been going downhill since the 80s, but the slope get steeper in the late 90s. It's what the Market decides, not what's in the Public Interest!
 
emraphoto said:
PS

Joseph Kony is not in the DRC nor is he in Uganda. in case anyone cares, he has been in the Central African Republic for a few years now with the LRA being run from within it's ranks.

any good journalist/photojournalist who has actually been in the region (DRC) could tell you that... now if someone would just ask them.
Click to expand...

That would be way too easy. The media are lemmings. But you know that.
 
emraphoto said:
for context...

the death toll in the DRC, although arguable, is somewhere around 5.5 million.

total deaths in Torri Stafford case: 1

coverage of DRC conflict in past month, in my region: nil

coverage of Torri Stafford case: almost complete blanket, daily
Click to expand...

Sickening. But nothing new:

Romeo and Juliet - a story of some stupid git that managed to commit the silliest suicide ever, over a misunderstanding. Running in hundreds of theatres world wide for four centuries.

Shakespeares Kings - several great stories of political bloodshed. One of them every other year, usually for a few days only, on a heavily subsidized festival...
 
john, please don't, you're the best man for the job. rarely have I seen passion and attitude even remotely comparable to yours in your field.
that said, I suppose taking a break and focusing on other things is quite reasonable.
 
Knowing what the Stafford trial is about it makes me sick to be part of a species that desires this information over all those others you listed John...

"Journalism" has been taken over by Tabloidism... *sigh*

Dave
 
Apart from the Stafford case reference, situation in NL isn't much different at all.

Enter populism, the poor-of-mind mans means to make a stand. Where opposition to anything intelligent is a goal in itself.

Good reporting and culture are not wanted anymore.

An NL intellectual journalist I always admired committed suicide on his 54th birthday a few weeks ago, not wanting to endure the lack of direction in both upcoming populism and the establishments response to it. Sad thing is that given the circumstances it probably was his best option to make a stand for his beliefs. Shame on the modern NL society 😡
 
In their book, "The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business" (2001), Thomas Davenport and John Beck show how the law of supply and demand has moved away from raw materials and labor to human attention.

Sounds like your experience is straight from the front lines of this battle.

The other part of the problem lies in the role communication and information play in the rather arbitrary assignation of value in the New Economy (Derivatives exemplify this trend). There is a lot of systemic interest in the production of conventionalized half-truths and non-truths.

It's amazing you've held out as long as you have.

Admiration and friendship!
 
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