Ohio University will play host to several national figures this week as part of the fourth annual Schuneman Symposium.
The symposium will begin at 3:10 p.m. Tuesday afternoon with a screening of One Thousand Pictures: RFK’s Last Journey, a film by Jennifer Stoddart, in Baker University Center Theatre. The film features photographs from Paul Fusco, a ’57 OU alumnus.
Fusco will join Will Hopkins, Clarence Page (’69), Laura Flanders and the Rev. Jesse Jackson in multiple speeches Wednesday.
R. Smith “Smitty” Schuneman sponsors the symposium with an annual $33,000 donation. Schuneman has funded the program since its inception and is committed to funding it for 15 years.
“People like Schuneman would argue that journalism students don’t hear enough about photojournalism,” said Bob Stewart, director of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. “He is, in effect, trying to get both sides of the coin to talk to each other.”
Every year, the symposium focuses on photojournalism and new media. This year’s event, titled “Impact: Words and Pictures that Matter,” emphasizes the effect of photojournalism on modern media, Stewart said.
Stewart collaborated with George Korn, director of telecommunications at OU, to invite Jackson to the symposium.
“(Jackson) has been the subject of a lot of media coverage in terms of his involvement in social movements,” Stewart said.
Jackson, whose dialogue is titled, “From the Other Side of the Lens,” said coverage has contributed to the national attention of recent cases such as the slaying of Trayvon Martin by neighborhood-watch volunteer George Zimmerman.
“The real difference about Trayvon Martin — he takes the cover off the book of racial profiling and violence,” Jackson said. “But it’s just the cover, not the book. The book is full of pages; the profiling and violence is pervasive. It’s all across the country.”
Page, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, said photography is a powerful way to present the narratives found in news articles.
“I decided to pick the topic of how images affect politics because politics is 90 percent perceptions, and images are more effective at forming perceptions than just about anything else,” Page said.
Flanders, who will give a talk titled, “Seeing is Sharing: Breaking News via New Media,” is the founder and host of GRITtv with Laura Flanders. She is also active in social media.
bv111010@ohiou.edu
