From the evidence we can draw a clear conclusion: Partners in the Capa Consortium, including Magnum’s members and its administrators, do not scruple to contaminate the record with misinformation, outright lies, falsified “evidence,” and whatever fanciful elaborations they feel like making up concerning Robert Capa’s D-Day experiences and the subsequent fate of his negatives. […]
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Staking Out the Claim In his unauthorized, workmanlike 2003 biography Blood and Champagne: The Life and Times of Robert Capa, Alex Kershaw, describing the motives behind the founding of Magnum Photos, wrote as follows: “Since 1945, Capa had been active in the American Society of Magazine Photographers. He had eloquently […] We agreed to meet Morris for lunch once, him and his “bodyguards.” His issue was in fact our lack of “tact” in the way we cast light on the “Falling Soldier” story. He listened to our arguments. I must say I got a little frustrated, saying that we would fight to the end … my producer was wiser, and conceded. […] Cornell Capa’s intervention, as well as that of ICP’s lawyers, was rather brutal. They sent us threatening injunctions. We soon understood they would do whatever it took to stop us from making the movie. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
Alternate History: Robert Capa and Magnum (1)
Magnum has straightforwardly become a privately owned capitalist venture, with the photographers as stakeholders. When Patrick Zachmann denounced me in Athens, therefore, he did so to protect his own investment and those of his business partners, as any elementary Marxian analysis would conclude. […]