POYi

Suekyoung Kim

I didn’t even recognize how long I was browsing through POYi. All the pictures were absolutely more than worth to click on. “Final Salute” by Jim Sheeler and Todd Heisler was really well done, needless to say. That story truly included voice, complexity, and context. I could vaguely imagine (I wouldn’t say I totally understand their feelings because it may sound imprudent to people who had lost their beloved.) how Beck had felt when he was heading to deliver Cathey’s casualty notification, how great Katherine’s anguish was, and how hard to get the people’s voice into the story. I couldn’t help but shedding tears as I was reading the stories. A lot of Iraq-related stories are out there, yet “Final Salute” is outstanding among them. I would get scared to ask people in sorrow if I could interview them. Good journalists must face with asking hard questions and creating comfortable environment for interviewees to tell their stories. I learned from this award-winning story that putting the theory into practice is something I have to struggle with.
My second favorite multimedia story was “Christoph Bangert in Iraq.” I liked the way he told the story with photo slide. Barring multimedia award winning stories, world understanding award pictures captivated me the most. Those photos made me ponder some questions. DR Congo, homeless children, and wounded messengers all depict children. Those children in each story are not in the same situation but they all seem to appeal to viewers’ sympathy. Maybe it is empathy, not sympathy. I admit that those pictures were great and I really liked them so much, however, I couldn’t get rid of the feeling of children were used to intensify viewers’ emotions. I may be wrong. Don’t people feel different when they see children begging for money? This may not be adequate analogy but sometime I feel children are used as a means of bringing people to their senses. Another thing that made me meditate was the last picture of “homeless children of Ukraine.” The boy in the picture died two weeks after the photograph was taken. Is it okay to publish a photograph of someone dying? For me, the feeling was different after having read the caption. Knowing someone is dying is something at least to me. In the end, those pictures were great inspiration to me and I want to be able to take high quality photos like those of POYi.