Bad News (ongoing)
In the spring of 2020, with COVID-19 marching across the globe, the headlines grew more dire by the day. I read the paper obsessively, thankful that the New York Times has deep enough pockets to report on all angles of the pandemic, including, more recently, its shameful and dangerous politicization.
Though newspapers are the backbone of our democracy, the internet has sucked the financial viability out of the industry, forcing many papers to shut. The pandemic-triggered collapse of our economy will inevitably be the death knell of more. It’s a chilling prospect, especially in this age of profound political division when bad news is labeled “fake” and social media, the favored source of information for so many people, is responsible to none of them.
I love newspapers. I love ink on print. But I’m scared—about the trajectory of COVID-19 and the fate of the news organizations struggling to tell us the truth about it. This series of photographs is about that love and those fears. The project is ongoing.