May 19, 2009

NY Times Photobloggin’ and Danny Wilcox-Frazier

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The New York Times unveiled LENS last Friday, their brand-new photoblog. Taking advantage of the wealth of often awesome photography at their disposal, LENS showcases a range of work—from the traffic-driving staple “Photo of the Day” feature, to Stephen Crowley taking viewers inside a media/photo spray with President Obama, to Fred Conrad’s large format photography.

Just a few days out of the gate and they’re serving up an impressive batch of photos, presented in a smart, easy-to-navigate format. The images may not be as giant as on the Boston Globe‘s Big Picture photoblog, but the Times does a knockout job of pushing the range of work presented on a newspaper’s photoblog. Or any photoblog for that matter.

And speaking of the Times photoblog, Mother Jones contributing photographer Danny Wilcox-Frazier gets the full treatment today. Sixteen images from his Driftless work, an intimate look at life in rural Iowa, are showcased on LENS. The work may look familiar. It first ran here in Mother Jones, in the March/April 2008 issue and won the 2007 Honickman/Duke First Book Prize in Photography.

Danny also just finished working with MediaStorm on a six-part, multimedia version of Driftless. The focus on the farm is nice, but Danny really excels at getting in with the locals. The spots on the Town Bar and the Jumping Rock really get under the skin of life in rural Iowa.

 

 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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