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Friday, 07 June 2024

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I think eliminating well-known pictures is not compatible with the stated project here. For a photo to have defined an aspect of the modern era to a large group of viewers, it clearly MUST have been widely seen, and hence well-known.

As a former journalist, I have growing doubts about the Times. I don't think the paper is well-edited anymore, and ideas like this one, on photography, are something somebody spitballed in an editors' meeting and somebody else put together in a few hours.

Another example, from today: Somebody wrote a column about travel. I read it, and was about to comment, but the comments were closed after (as I recall, this may not be exact) about 70 comments. Now, the article has vanished altogether -- I can't find it anywhere on the NYT site.

What happened? The author launched into an extensive discussion of carry-on versus checked baggage. As it turned out, one of the recommended carry-ons cost $4,600. This was so ludicrous that although there were only 70-odd comments, one of those commenters wrote a funny note ridiculing the Times for it's recommendation -- and the comment had something like 1,800 "likes" when I read them.

This is just bad research, bad editing; it reeks of an article that was thrown together without much thought. The Times is a "progressive' thought-leader? A $4,600 carry-on?

I could write a book about this, but I won't. Let me say that when newspapers got into financial trouble back in the 90s, with the rise of Internet advertising, there was a critical management shift. Before the shift, newspapers were generally reporter driven. That is, they had a group of "beat" reporters who covered specific beats like cops, education, courts, suburbs, city government, state government and so on. The reporters became very knowledgeable about their beats. There was also a group of (usually) more senior reporters called "general assignment," who might catch anything. And there were sports reporters and columnists and so on.

On any given day, the reporters (especially those with beats) would be calling back to the city and national desks with breaking stories. Other stories that popped up from other sources would be assigned to the general assignment people.

This worked very well, but in the eyes of management people, wasn't very efficient, because on some days, reporters wouldn't write anything -- because there wasn't much going on, on any particular beat.

To increase efficiency, papers became more editor-driven. That is, editors would sit around in meetings and think up stories and assign them, and reporters were then working all the time. If a beat reporter didn't have much going on, he or she might be sent out to the suburbs to do something. The problem was, editors don't know much more about what's going on in a city than the average guy in the street. Maybe even less -- because editors essentially commute back and forth from their homes to their offices. They have no knowledge of their own of what's happening in the city, and the reporters who used to tell them, were now only responding to what the editors dreampt up.

The photo story and the travel-bag story have all the characteristics of editor-generated ideas that somebody slapped together by calling a few people and maybe doing some internet research. It's basically filler. I don't think any knowledgeable photo expert (Mike, Kirk) would have put together that list. I don't think any knowledgeable frequent traveler would use a $4600 carry-on. Would they?

This kind of thing isn't limited to the occasional story -- these things are all over the place, and they're a waste of time.

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How about:

25 Zeitgeist Photos for Americans, 1955–2010

Napalm girl needs to be included. It’s iconic and burned on the minds of a generation. Other than that, I’d find it very hard to think of singular images not already mentioned that define an era if grouped in such a small collection.

Another element almost missing by necessity is that much of historical imagery paints a bleak picture of mankind, while in reality the world is a much better place now than it was in 1955, with almost every major statistic - from hunger to poverty to healthcare - drastically improved.

I think your re-titling of the list is the most significant change - as Jayanand Govindaraj said (better than I did), the NYT list was very american-centric. And I like some of the choices you've made. But here are a few extras, or alternatives, that illustrate fundamental global changes in the way all of us live, including Americans:

a) a fully loaded container ship - this would represent globalisation, which worked with the industrialisation of Asia to destroy general manufacturing in the USA (and Europe);

b) a wind-farm (or a solar power farm) - this would represent climate change;

c) a face mask - this would represent both the risks that we all face from fast-spreading diseases, and the varied political responses to the measure to combat them.

I'm not at all bothered by the identity of the photographer (if they would even be known) - it's the images and what they represent that count.

Larry Burrows' 'Reaching Out.' Yes, it is an American moment but it graphically and heartbreakingly marks a dent on the perceived invincibility of the mighty United States.

https://www.life.com/history/life-behind-the-picture-larry-burrows-reaching-out-vietnam-1966/

Agree with JC. Journalism simply does not exist in the form it once was and should be any longer.

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