Sixteen-year Daily News photographer Jim MacMillan spent a year covering the war in Iraq between 2004 and 2005. It was for his work there that he, along with 10 other Associated Press photographers, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography in 2005.
Now, he’s coming to Temple to teach “Journalism and Psychological Trauma.”
He has a lot of visions for the course, including hopefully producing a body of work worth adding to the studies done thus far on the topic.
“My main objective is to breakthrough the foolhardy traditions of denial and false bravado that have kept journalists from addressing trauma at work, on the job, in their careers,” said MacMillan.
In addition to the war in Iraq, MacMillan has witnessed 9/11, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and countless crime and disaster scenes in Philadelphia, and he has the photographs to prove it.
His work can be found on his Web site at www.jimmacmillan.com.
“It may be the first [class like this] in the country,” said Andrew Mendelson, the chair of Temple’s journalism department. “I think those things are really relevant, not just for students becoming journalists, but for anyone.”
MacMillan has also been involved in two fellowships – Ochberg Fellows at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma and Knight-Wallace Fellows at the University of Michigan – concerning the subject matter of his course.
“Journalism and Psychological Trauma” is listed on OWLnet as Special Topics in Journalism 3800.
“We’ve got a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer teaching a seminar,” Mendelson said. “It’s an opportunity that is rare.”