By Michelle Lizon
Ruth Fremson, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning photographer from The New York Times, showed students images of conflict, urging them to become more globally aware.
“It”s really important for people to be involved in the world,” Fremson said. “You can”t have your head in the sand.”
A problem is emerging because people are turning toward information that gives entertainment, instead of wanting to see hard news, she said at Wednesday”s lecture, Feb. 22, 2006, in the library auditorium.
Fremson said that although people say they are sick of negative news, they continue to seek it out in the form of entertainment films at the box office.
She said people still tend to have trust in images that can now be altered by almost anyone.
“We have a tendency to believe what we see,” she said. “What is dangerous is our lack of interest.”
She said that people tend to shut off their interest when they are bombarded with all the photography and TV available today.
Instead of following this pattern, she told students to become as aware as possible by seeking the news through numerous sources.
People even complain about The New York Times being biased, she said, but she has a mentality to decide whether they”re staying objective.
“I figure if nobody”s happy [The New York Times] must be doing something right,” she said smiling.
The mood in the auditorium shifted as she started the slide show of her work.
The photos displayed refugees, victims and soldiers with faces of pain, apprehension, fear and curiosity. The quiet remained throughout the display and was unbroken until it ended, starting a continuous flow of questions.
She said in order to really see, it often means going to the area of conflict.
Showing an image of a woman grasping the hand of her dead husband in agony, she said that she froze before taking the picture.
“It”s recording history, and sometimes it”s not pretty,” she said.
Fremson has photographed the cycles of war and conflict in her coverage of events like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Sept. 11 attacks, the Israeli and Palestinian conflict and more recently the war in Iraq.
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