In the end, it seems fittingly ironic that the Occam’s-Razor explanation for all of Capa’s missing D-Day negatives turns out to be the scissors of the censor. The legend of the lost negatives resulted from nothing more or less than the needs of Capa’s outsize ego. […]
|
Follow me on Mastodon:
@adcoleman@hcommons.social
 |
Neumüller’s article falls way short of the ‘profound analysis’ proffered by his editors, or the ‘comprehensive analysis’ or ‘scientific context’ he himself reaches for. In many respects, Neumüller’s failure to deliver a coherent, documented, detailed, and, above all, believable narrative was inevitable from the start. He comes to the task with the wrong skill set. […] Moritz Neumüller’s active suppression, in his article, of the public complaints levied at Halliday … obscures the fact that a deep-seated and long-standing professional jealousy, and a concomitant battle over the psycho-geography of London, lay at the heart of Halliday’s entire campaign against Butturini. […] The Mercedes Baptiste Halliday narrative legitimised Gian Butturini’s detractors, and kept them respectable. On paper, it superficially resembled a clear, ideological position, fuelled by a defiance of racial injustice. In actuality, it was a subterfuge, a mere foil – albeit one cut from noble principles – to hide the pettiest and basest of motives: the green-eyed monster of professional jealousy. […] For all of Moritz Neumüller’s profuse appeals to impartiality and critical objectivity, the very notion that Gian Butturini’s book LONDON had not only offended, but offended widely — indeed, globally — remains an untested one, founded not upon documentary evidence, but on faith, or magical thinking, alone. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014All content of this publication is © copyright 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 by A. D. Coleman unless otherwise noted. All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without prior written permission. All photos copyright by the individual photographers. "Fair use" allows quotation of excerpts of textual material from this site for educational and other noncommercial purposes.
Published by Flying Dragon LLC.
|
