Join us for pizza and editing as we prepare for the annual CPOY contest. It’s a great opportunity for everyone to meet and look at each others work! It will be in MMTH 127 at 7pm.
WKU Alumna’s work to air on PBS World Channel
A 2018 WKU alumna and photojournalist Brittany Greeson joined a team of four other young journalists during the fall of 2017 in an effort to explore the issues that divide us and the stories that can bring us together for “Crossing the Divide,” an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. The half-hour documentary, which will air on PBS World Channel on September 24th, follows the team as they cross the country documenting the daily lives of average Americans.
“We reported on the idea of divisions in America” said Greeson. “We tried to find topics within that theme in each region.” Greeson, who had worked with GroundTruth in the past, led the Kentucky reporting.
“I don’t believe in the term giving a voice to the voiceless” said Greeson. “I think people already have voices, I think it’s just our job to amplify them.”
Below are a few of Greeson’s photographs from the project:
Thomas Morgan, 32, steadily lifts swaths of tobacco to be hung to dry at the Robinson Center for Appalachian Resource Sustainability in Quicksand, Kentucky, on Monday, September 27, 2017. | Brittany Greeson
Layers of rock are seen towering above a busy highway just outside of Pikeville, Kentucky, on Saturday, September, 29, 2017. | Brittany Greeson
Lizzie Jones, 17, proudly wears her father’s employee of the month jacket from his time working at the coal mines nearby a shelf of her family’s relics of the coal industry at her home in Eastern Kentucky, on Sunday, September 24, 2017. Jones’ father passed away from black lung in 2014. In January of 2017 her mother, who also worked in the coal mining industry, passed away. Jones said she has plans on moving into the home they once shared and has developed a complex relationship with the coal. | Brittany Greeson
Crossing the Divide will air on PBS World Channel on September 24th.
Greeson’s work can be found at https://www.brittanygreeson.com
Through Our Eyes Week 1
Below are some of our favorite photos from this week’s Through Our Eyes. Each week the selections are chosen by WKUPJ students. Stay tuned for more to come!
First Place
Jennifer and Cameron share ice cubes and a few kisses on a hot evening in Tevistion, California. Both their parents emigrated from Oklahoma with the rest of the “Black Okies” in mid-twentieth century to work the fields of the Central Valley. Jennifer moved to the cities briefly but has been forced to return to her family’s crumbling home to raise her two children, Naynay and Jordan. | Gabe Scarlett
Second Place
Aderemi Ogunleye, formerly a resident of Nigeria, West Africa, poses for a portrait after Oath of Allegiance to become a naturalized citizen of the United States at Central Library on Tuesday, June 19, 2018. | Ebony Cox
Honorable Mention
More than a week after the arrest of her father Jose (who is a green card holder), Natalie Garcia tries to console her daughter Marley outside their home in Arleta, California from which Jose was taken. He had been watering his lawn and preparing for a shift driving for Uber, one of his three jobs, when ICE officials detained him for deportation for a charge from two decades ago. Since his arrest, Marley has slept in his bed and lays out his clothes each day to pretend that he is there. “I put his perfume on sometimes,” Marley explains. “I close my eyes. I cry.” | Gabe Scarlett
Isla mujeres. | Fahad Alotaibi
My sister Gabrielle carries our brother on her hip after we swam in our backyard pool. In the 6 months I spent away, she turned 15, started high school. She has long legs and a boyfriend who drives his truck to our house to visit her on the porch. I am grateful, though, when she asks me to braid her hair, to make her macaroni and cheese or drive to the Dollar Store for finger nail polish and candy bars. She tells me this is temporary, she will have a license and her own car soon enough. I wish this away, selfishly clinging to her girlhood, hoping to keep her with me on the porch. | Morgan Hornsby
Jadon came from Texas with his family to swim in the waters off Santa Monica Beach. June, 2018. | Gabe Scarlett
For 16 years, Ally VanHook has been practicing and performing in dance. Her childhood consisted of constant training and showcases while growing up in Somerset, KY. Now a sophomore at WKU, she plans to use her double major in Dance and Marketing. | Bailey Cooke
Jimmy Hurt throws his 15-month-old in the air to get her to smile at the Field of Flags at Oaklawn Memorial Gardens on Monday, July 2, 2018. | Ebony Cox
Anthony, would not give his last name, 45, grew up as a Eight Tray Crip but now lives life with a drug addiction. “I am to old to be throwing up my gang set, but my life now is great, I’m a crackhead and I love every moment of it, until I get the next one,” Anthony said. | Michael Blackshire
A Cal Firefighter walks back to a safe zone after the smoke from the Holy Fire causes major him to evacuate the given area in Lake Elsinore, California. The Holy Fire blaze burned 23,136 acres across across Orange and Riverside Counties. | Michael Blackshire
Major Brett Ringger sets up to examine Isaac Dunn, 9, of Morgan County while his sister Mercedes Dunn, 3, watches at the Lee County High School on Monday. The eye examination is one of the health services offered as part of Operation Bobcat, a military training mission to practice medical set up for times of emergency, conflict or disaster. | Silas Walker
Chauncey Adams, 7, takes shelter from the sun under the play structure at Castlewood Park on Thursday, July 11. According to the National Weather Service, on Thursday, the heat index reached 103º F. Near by in Louisville the heat index on Thursday reached 107º F. | Silas Walker
Molly Richardson, 5, of New Jersey jumps onto CJ Visser, 10, of Lexington during the Lexington Junior League Charity Horse Show at the Kentucky Horse Park on Saturday evening. | Silas Walker
A member of the congregation waits in the entryway of First Baptist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1960, Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in this building, gathering over 1,500 Oklahomans to hear his message. | Morgan Hornsby
A portrait of Mackenzie on a weekend visit with her mother, Alyssa Yarnell, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Alyssa lost custody of Mackenzie while facing drug addiction, but recently graduated from a local rehabilitation program called Women in Recovery. Alyssa is now sober with a job and apartment and is fighting for legal custody of her daughter. | Morgan Hornsby
Alicia Forbit swims in the Arkansas River after visiting her husband Chris in Dick Conner Correctional Center. Since they were married in the visiting room of the facility two years ago, Alicia has spent every Saturday with him. Chris has been incarcerated for 8 years. “The hardest thing about all of this is the things that we miss out on doing together, and always feeling like a piece of me is missing. We continue to live life, go to the river and swim, to the water park, on picnics, all the things that everyone else does, but in the middle of the fun, there is always a flash of “Chris would be doing this if he was here,” Alicia said. | Morgan Hornsby
Fleischaker/Greene Award for Courageous International Reporting
Mexican Journalist to Receive WKU’s Award for Courageous International Reporting
The School of Journalism & Broadcasting at Western Kentucky University will welcome Mexican journalist Marcela Turati to campus September 27
as the recipient of the third annual Fleischaker/Greene Award for Courageous International Reporting.
Turati is a reporter for the magazine Proceso, where she reports about human rights, social development and the impact of drug violence and its victims. She is co-founder of the network Periodistas de a Pie (Journalists on Foot), dedicated to training journalists to improve the quality of their journalism and to defend freedom of expression, and she recently founded the organization, Fifth Element Lab (www.quintoelab.org), devoted to strengthening investigative journalism in the country.
contact Teresa Jameson in the School of Journalism & Broadcasting office, at 270-745-4143
Southern Circuit tour of independent filmmakers presents “Hillbilly”
Featuring bell hooks, Ronny Cox and Billy Redden from Deliverance, director Michael Apted, activists and writers Frank X Walker, Crystal Good, and Silas House, and musicians Sam Gleaves and Amythyst Kiah, hillbilly arrives at a crucial moment, confronting depictions of Appalachian and other rural people on a broad, national level.
It introduces audiences to a nuanced, authentic Appalachia that is quite conscious of how it has been portrayed and the impacts of those portrayals. The documentary deconstructs mainstream representations while asking crucial questions: Where did the hillbilly archetype come from and why has it endured on-screen for more than a hundred years? How does it relate to the exploitation of the land and people who live there? How do Appalachian and rural people view themselves as a result of these negative portrayals, and what is the impact on the rest of America?
Q&A with producer Sam Cole afterwards.
Contact Warren County Public Library at 270-781-4882
2017 Mountain Workshops Exhibition in Morehead, KY
Images and short-form narratives from the 2017 Mountain Workshops will be on display at the Morehead Convention Center, 111 E First St, Morehead, KY 40351 September 9 – 14. The Center is open 8:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. each day. Thanks to Canon USA for providing assistance in the printing process of the gallery show.
Morehead 2017 Mountain Workshops Exhibition Opens
Images and short-form narratives from the 2017 Mountain Workshops will be on display at the Morehead Conference Center, 111 E First St, Morehead, KY 40351 September 9 – 14. The Center is open 8:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. each day.
Morehead, a small town nestled in the shadow of Kentucky’s Appalachian foothills, became the host in October of 2017 to Western Kentucky University’s Mountain Workshops. More than 90 journalism students and young professionals from around the world spent five days expanding their skills under the watchful eyes of experienced teachers and renowned experts in visual storytelling. All the while they were creating intimate documentaries about the people and places of Rowan County.
The region revealed itself to be a surprising mix of minds and cultures, nature and industry, but above all a friendly place where neighbor helps neighbor. The headlines here often revolve around Morehead State University and its nationally recognized Division I men’s basketball team. The university takes great pride in its $15.6 million Ronald G. Eaglin Space Science Center. The future is happening at Morehead State. But most folks here love their history, and they have plenty of it. The area is nearly as old as the United States itself. The first settlers came here from Virginia in 1783, after the end of the American Revolutionary War. In 1854, Morehead became the third community settled in the county and named after James T. Morehead, governor of Kentucky from 1834 to 1836. Mayor Trent said folks here pride themselves on their hospitality, and visitors have been known to find the town so welcoming that they decide to make Morehead their home. “Morehead is really a melting pot for this area,” he said. “From the international students and staff at the hospital to our homegrown population, it all works together. It’s really a testament to the high quality of people we have here.”
The exhibition is made possible by Canon, USA and Western Kentucky University School of Journalism and Broadcasting.
For more information contact Jamie Breeze, Director of the Morehead Conference Center, 606-780-9694 or Miranda Pederson, Mountain Workshops logistics coordinator, 270-745-4206
An Evening with Carol Guzy
Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Carol Guzy of The Washington Post will present a lecture, Bearing Witness: Photojournalism and Emotional Aftershocks, at WKU on Aug. 29 during the opening of a new photo exhibition, Women Photojournalists of Washington, D.C.
Guzy is one of four people to win the Pulitzer Prize four times and the only journalist with that achievement. The lecture and presentation of her work will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Jody Richards Hall Auditorium. Her visit to WKU is sponsored by Nikon.
Guzy also will attend the opening reception for Women Photojournalists of Washington, D.C., at 6 p.m. in the Jody Richards Hall Gallery. Admission is free and light refreshments will be served.
The exhibition will present 21 of the top-ranked images of 2017 taken by women photojournalists who reside in the Washington, D.C., area. The juried exhibition will feature storytelling images depicting women’s issues selected by Diána Markosian, Jenn Poggi and Maggie Steber.
Women Photojournalists of Washington, D.C., will be open through Nov. 27. Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday.
For information about the exhibit or Guzy’s presentation, contact Tim Broekema at tim.broekema@wku.edu.
Contact: School of Journalism & Broadcasting, (270) 745-4144
Stephanie Sinclair lecture
Internationally acclaimed documentary photographer Stephanie Sinclair will be presenting her work at Western Kentucky University on Wednesday, September 12 in Jody Richards Hall auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Ms. Sinclair has photographed a wide range of subjects, but her 15-year “Too Young to Wed” project has focused particular attention on young women throughout the world who are being forced into marriage. One of Ms. Sinclair’s most recent projects, “A Story Half Told,” is about women and men battling metastatic breast cancer.
We are especially grateful to Mary Mannix and Canon for sponsoring this event. Please join us for a compelling evening of visual exploration and discussion! The event is free and open to the public.
Women Photojournalists of Washington, D.C. exhibition
An exhibition of the Women Photojournalists of Washington 2017 contest winners will be on display in the Jody Richards Hall gallery in the School of Journalism and Broadcasting thru November 27. Gallery hours are M-TH, 9 am – 9 pm and Friday, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm. The Gallery is not open on days that WKU is closed.