Just saw a story about how the US Government is set to release 44 images “depicting alleged abuses at U.S. prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush White House” that the ACLU has been suing to have released plus a “substantial number of other images, by May 28″. Here it is in the LATimes.

The photos, examined by Air Force and Army criminal investigators, are apparently not as shocking as those taken at Abu Ghraib, which became a symbol of U.S. mistakes in Iraq. But Defense Department officials nevertheless are concerned that the release could incite another backlash in the Middle East.

(once again, I first saw this on the SLOG)

Hot on the heels of the Tribune Company’s beginning the bankruptcy protection procedure, the Annenberg School of Communications website reports that Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton has said that the paper’s online revenue now exceeds the paper’s editorial payroll costs (third paragraph, last sentence). This is being widely noted (most links go to this Recovering Journalist post), and Jeff Jarvis has some followup with numbers.

This seems like good news, and hopefully more papers can soon make the same claim. I’m worried, though, like one commenter on Recovering Journalist, that the good news has come after at least 523 layoffs at the paper this year (Papercuts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Getting the website to cover payroll is likely much easier with 500+ fewer employees. And while I don’t have numbers to back this up, a newspaper requires a lot more money than its payroll in order to operate. There’s continual equipment and material fees, legal fees, and many other expenses involved in putting out the news. The New York Times, for instance, has it’s own Research and Development Group (and here’s a great tour through the facilities with Talking Heads front man David Byrne), which has got to be expensive to operate but which is necessary to forge ahead in the new media environment. Covering the payroll is a part of the picture, and it’s a great step, but in order for newspaper journalism to continue either in print or online, the companies will need more money.

(via APADnews)

I was tipped off to a great new set of photos by Michael Robinson Chavez from this thread at Lightstalkers. I’ve seen his work pop up over the years, but my friend Ethan Welty, who met Chavez at the Foundry Workshop, brought him up again a few weeks ago, and I was very happy to see this new project of his from the Dharavi slum, India’s largest, in Mumbai. Be sure to check out his website too, he’s covered just about every “big” story around the world in the last decade or two.

See his slideshow from the Dharavi slum at LA Times Website.

There is some very solid work in here, immediately reminiscent in tone and even scope of the work of my friend Jonas Bendiksen’s work from his project “The Places We Live” and specific story therein on Dharavi for National Geographic. About both, I couldn’t say it better than the great Bob Black, quoted from the above Lighstalkers thread:

“above all what I loved about the story (as I told Jonas about his new book), your story while about the poverity (sic) and toxicity and squalor of these districts contain inestimable joy, that is the story rather than bathing itself in the horror of the conditions, the desperation of the poverty, refuses to condescend but instead show all the working-walking fullness of their lives, including the joy and celebration…..something that many writers and photographers pass by in their attempt for the despondence and profoundity (sic) of poverty…”

While Chavez’s project could use a more stringent edit (and I must come clean that I’m not so much a fan of the ’staccato’ use of images), I think it is incredibly strong and does not shrink in the light of Jonas’ earlier project, even given the similarities. And if you haven’t had a chance to look at Jonas’ project in full, seek it out on the magnum site. Its another intelligent, insightful and forward-looking project from him. And the book itself (not to mention the Exhibition at the Nobel Center in Oslo, which consists of ‘rooms’ with back-lit projectors) is incredibly innovative with gate-fold pages showing the “four walls” of typical homes in the slums he visited. He’s one energetic, inspiring guy .. I’m sure we’ll have more on him here at Dva as we go on.
Bravo to both.