Michael Shaw Archives
5,619 Posts
Culture Focus Photo September 3, 2014

On that Photo of the Police Dog Funeral

The image made me pause for a moment and consider how quick we are to draw comparisons, to generalize and to judge.

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Business Focus Photo August 31, 2014

On the NYT Mag "Abortion by Mail" Cover

The significance of the new NYT Mag cover (if you read the article) is to simultaneously describe, announce and usher in the next incarnation, and a still greater degree of discretion and control for women over their reproductive destiny.

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Fashion Focus Photo August 28, 2014

Obama Fluff, Perfectly Suited

Actually, Obama's summery change up was nothing short of a rescue.

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Media Focus Photo August 27, 2014

Readjusting our Eyes After the Bloody Summer We've Had

As we stagger toward the merciful end of this cataclysmic summer, what's instructive is context, or how much the eye sees what its been conditioned to see.

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Ferguson MO Photo August 26, 2014

What That Picture From Michael Brown's Funeral Does That Few Photos Ever Do

If we're talking about the tone of a news photo, which we often do, we're either addressing its visual gradations or it's emotional quality, not something audible.

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Visual Practices & Ethics Photo August 25, 2014

On Publishing Photos of a Public Execution by Hamas Fighters: Still More Ethical Questions

As we’ve been asking in instance after instance over many months now, where is the line between news and propaganda? between reporting and enabling? between editorial responsibility and corporate self-interest when it comes to publishing such material?

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Ferguson MO Photo August 24, 2014

Ferguson: White Fantasies

I was completely captivated by this white male cop helping the white female cop strap on her helmet, the trunk and the doors of the patrol car protecting "the couple" like a dressing room.

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Ferguson MO Photo August 23, 2014

Why I like the Businessweek Scott Olson Ferguson Cover

Perhaps it’s because of how it breaks from the unrelenting theme of the white police force versus the young black male.

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Ferguson MO Photo August 21, 2014

The Video of the Killing of Kajieme Powell and the Killing of Michael Brown

Don't let people label this a freak coincidence considering how tweaked St. Louis police must be over the anger in the streets in Ferguson.

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Iraq and Afghanistan War Photo August 20, 2014

Enabling ISIS, the VICE Videos and the Execution of AFP Videographer James Foley

Where are the ethics and the boundaries when the media engagement is so passive, even acquiescent, and the product, so indistinguishable from propaganda that the insurgents feel they can have their way with the exposure?

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Ferguson MO Photo

Losing Michael Brown to the Spectacle? — #Ferguson and the #Press

If the images and the tension, as seen through the photos and the media lens, felt more raw and spontaneous last week, I'm finding myself scaling back my diet of reporting and waiting for news.

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Ferguson MO Photo August 19, 2014

On that Picture of Obama Dancing During the Ferguson Turmoil

Until white right-wing critics suddenly become the official arbiters of political correctness, let's just say the President has many roles to play in public.

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Photo August 17, 2014

News Photos, Victims of the Propaganda War

To the extent armies, governments, political parties and police departments have become active and increasingly sophisticated visual combatants and critics, the difference between news photography and propaganda is being lost.

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Ferguson MO Photo August 15, 2014

Irony of Ironies: Ferguson PD Offers Surveillance Pics of Michael Brown as “Smoking Gun"

Because when you step back, this photo impugns the intent of the Ferguson police and just lends more credence to the fear that they, along with that "named officer," have blood on their hands.

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Race & Ethnicity Photo August 14, 2014

On that Incredible Screen Shot of the Ferguson Protester Marked in a Police Laser Sight

In a single picture, it captures the double-bind, the bait-and-switch, the potentially lethal double-cross that can happen like-that on any doorstep or at any traffic stop.

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Media Focus Photo

On the Snowden WIRED Cover Issue: Still Missing

At the expense of releasing to the public more "raw data," it's as if WIRED and Platon redact from us the actual man experiencing his actual and ongoing trials.

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Ferguson MO Photo August 13, 2014

Beyond the Hoodie: Michael Brown's Extended Arms

After the Michael Brown killing, the symbolism that emerges as standing for the systemic dehumanization of young black males is the gesture of extending one's arms to the sky.

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Ferguson MO Photo August 12, 2014

If it Loots, it Leads: Stereotyping the Police Shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson

For these acts and images to do more than express the release of anger over one more senseless killing is still another textbook example of America's racial and class polarization.

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