Publisher's Letter
by Dirck Halstead


Welcome to the August 2000 edition of The Digital Journalist.

Welcome to the August 2000 issue of The Digital Journalist.

On June 8th, 1972, the world exploded around a 9-year-old girl on a road north of Saigon. A few seconds later, A UPI photographer pressed the shutter release on his Leica. Those moments bound Phan Thi Kim Phuc, who had just been covered by flaming napalm from a South Vietnamese bomb, and Nick Ut together in an odyssey. Our contributing Senior Editors, Marianne Fulton and Horst Faas have gathered together the elements that brings us through the past 28 years from a Pulitzer Prize to the publication of the new book "The Girl In The Picture"

Lansdowne Road is a short street in downtown Bombay, which runs from the 5-star Taj Mahal Hotel to Regal Circle, one of South Bombay's main roundabouts. It is also where many street people come to try to make a living from the tourists. London-based freelance documentary photographer Robert  Appelby discovered a tribe which are called by many Indians, "The Rubbish People."  We present his story, along with his audio commentary .

This month we debut our new look. Designer Jad Melki has been working with our webmaster, David Snider for the past two months to give us a face lift with new style, yet preserving all the features that you have gotten used to over the past few years. We have created our new look with the help of Macromedia's Flash software. To fully enjoy The Digital Journalist, we encourage you to download the Flash Player.  We think it makes The Digital Journalist an even greater pleasure to read. We hope you like it. 

In our editorial this month, we look at the explosive and uncertain role of magazines, newspapers, and television as they try to position themselves for the new world of broadband convergence.

Our TV editor Amy Bowers has been spending a lot of time these past few months at Los Alamos. First it was the fires that drew her there as a freelance network producer, then it was the case of the missing files. She gives us a report from New Mexico.

In our camera corner, photographer Chris Mason takes us on location in the Carribean with the Nikon Coolpix 990.

Jim Colburn gives us a look at what the press is really doing at the National Conventions...having their own convention!

One of the most rewarding things for us is the sense of family  we get from our readers. In his Nuts and Bolts column, Bill Pierce thanks you for all the nice messages he has been getting about his old dog Marilyn. A lot of you really care.  We regret to tell you that Marilyn had to be put to sleep last month, but Bill was there to the end, and he shares that moment with  you.

We hope you enjoy this issue


A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM THE DIGITAL JOURNALIST

The Digital Journalist Inc. is proud to announce the launch of the Digital Vision Network (http://dvnetwork.net), the portal site for a community of visual storytelling websites that offer something for everyone who is interested in, uses or wishes to learn to use digital technology to create visual stories.

The network features as its flagship site Dirck Halstead's monthly online magazine The Digital Journalist, home of the Platypus (http://digitaljournalist.org) and also Roger Richards' e-zine The Digital Filmmaker (http://digitalfilmmaker.net), aimed at both amateur and professional filmmakers who are emerging because of the availability of the new digital products. Soon to come will be our interactive streaming video sites, DVFlix and PlatypusTV, both being created using Macromedia Flash technology.

The Digital Journalist is the creation of Dirck Halstead. For 29 years he has been Time's White House photographer. In 1999, he took the photograph of President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky that won "Cover of The Year" in the magazine industry. Halstead created the "Platypus Workshops," which to date have now trained 100 top photojournalists in the language of television.

The Digital Journalist and The Digital Filmmaker have united with the goal of creating a hot core that will harness, regenerate, and expand some of the incredible energy that is being made available as media itself goes into the next explosive cycle.


The Assignment Sheet - Journals from the Working Press - August, 2000
 

The August Issue of the Assignment Sheet will have journals from five photographers plus a tribute to a classic
gentleman who has graced the NY journalism scene for over 40 years. Vic DiLucia, the consummate pro, who began his newspaper career as a photographer for the old NY Journal American, then with the NY Post, and is now retiring from the NY Times, will be featured in a special journal.

Lynn French, a camerawoman from WRAL in Raleigh, NC, takes us down memory lane and questions whether the earlier days of tv news had more substance than what we see on the tube today.

Joe Jaszewski shows us his youthful enthusiasm as this young photo intern at the Idaho Statesman (Boise) not only explains why he can get excited about covering the mundane while the regular staffers get to do the big stories, he shows us with some wonderful photographs.

Leslie Mazoch, who recently graduated from college and has begun working at the Brownsville (TX) Herald, is learning the frustration of trying to be a well rounded journalist in a field dominated by word people.

My journal documents an exciting day aboard the USS John F. Kennedy with the Clinton Family as they reviewed the 4th of July OpSail. Having the proper credentials makes all the difference in the world.

Susan Markisz shows us a different aspect of covering the hooplah on the 4th, without credentials, and her photos show what a determined photographer can do on the fringes.

There are a couple of new SnapShots hanging from the bulletin board and I urge anyone who has something for future SnapShots to send them to me with some caption info at newspix@optonline.net.

Be well,

Dick Kraus

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