Via Donald R. Winslow

The Fulbright Scholar Program is offering 23 lecturing, research and lecturing/research awards worldwide in journalism and communications for the 2005-2006 academic year. Amy Flickinger at the Council for International Exchange of Scholars is the source of this information and the point of contact.

Awards for both faculty and professionals range from two months to one academic year. Some are at host institutions, while a number of the grants are open “All Disciplines” awards that allow candidates to propose their own project and determine their own host institution affiliation. Some foreign language skills are needed in some countries, but most Fulbright lecturing assignments are in English. Grant awards are available in Algeria, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Singapore, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, and the West Bank.

The application deadline is August 1st. U.S. citizenship is required.

To learn more about the particular awards and other grants in journalism and communication, other eligibility requirements, and an online application, please see this web site or this web site. Or, directly contact Amy Flickinger.

As part of SAJA‘s annual convention to be held from June 17-20th, 2004, we invite you to submit your best photography for our annual photo exhibit. The exhibit will be displayed during the gala dinner on June 19th at Columbia University's Lerner Hall. The slide show this year will be 10 minutes long with a special soundtrack arranged and composed by Sagar Jethani of Blue Screen Music.

Click the PDF you see to the right, for the entry form and a gist of our policies. Please adhere to these rules as it will make it easier for us to showcase your work. Deadline for submissions is May 31, 2004.

If you are curious about the breadth and scope of the work submitted last year, check out this short movie:

Become a member of SAJA. Click here to see how you can quickly sign up. If you are interested in attending the conference and the various workshops, register by May 7 for the early-bird discount.

Getty Images, one of the two power-house photo agencies in the US is facing a barrage of questions from photo editors across the nation about their business dealings conflicting with their editorial decisions. As a wire service, hundreds of newspapers depend on the news feed Getty Images provides. But recently there have been charges that Getty Images which has business relationships with the National Hockey League (NHL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA), has failed to send through their service some poignant and editorially important images.

The most recent controversy sprung from the lack of images from the infamous ice hockey game between the Vancouver Canucks and Colorado Avalanche. Colarado's Steve Moore was sucker punched by Todd Bertuzzi of the Canucks. Moore fell face forward and broke his neck and ended his season. But curiously there were no images of this particular incident on the Getty wire service. Naturally Colorado papers using the service will be miffed.

Is Getty Images censoring their own photographers, on behalf of their business partners – the NHL, the NBA or more recently the Major League Baseball (MLB)? Who looses in the end? Not only do the photographers loose the sale of the image nation or even world-wide, but so does the audience from seeing what happened. While I am open to the idea of promoting businesses, I get antsy when editorial freedom gets curbed in the process. It kills the notion of ‘what you see is what you get' and that's plain troubling. It's time to revisit our Ethics 101 books about this.

Via Phototalk

I am sure this image called “War President” will make the rounds on the Internet. It was created by Joe at American Leftist. Read Joe's commentary here. A larger version of the image can be found here.

Some have raised concerns and leveled criticisms about using the images of US soldiers in this way, but as Joe explains it wasn't created maliciously or out of disrespect for anyone, perhaps even including our commander-in-chief. Satire does indeed have its place in the art world. The image, in my opinion, is a sad testament to our half-baked foreign policy.

Via Sanjiv Sirpal

I love it when members of the audience raise their hand and say – “Yo, check this out!” Sanjiv Sirpal, a photographer, writer, designer – shall we just call him a Renaissance man? – wrote in to suggest a wonderful photo agency based in Delhi called PhotoInk.

I'll let you surf out to the site and check it out, but let me tell you that some of India's best known photographers are represented there. It's great to see a home for social documentary photography in India. Bangladesh has Drik and Pathashala, wonderful, progressive organizations doing great things thanks to Shahidul Alam's leadership.

I was pleasantly surprised to know that Robert Pledge's Contact Press Images was connected to PhotoInk. Devika Daulat-Singh, PhotoInk's director interned at Contact Press Images a while back. These sort of relationships run deep. Students reading this ought to take note – internships do pay in the end. It is what you make of it that either sustains you or cripples you in this business.