Dispatches: Photography in context
Almost alone among today’s information-rich, digital age with news media often appearing instantaneously online, the new current affairs quarterly, Dispatches, has chosen to take a different approach – an in-depth photo essay by one photographer combined with expansive political articles. Steve Fairclough finds out why.
The front cover of the debut issue of Dispatches.
When Dispatches was first announced it was described as a ‘magazine’ but the physical make-up of the publication is more akin to an A5 book. Split into a series of in-depth essays followed by almost 80 pages of photography it is a weighty tome both in feel and content. Each issue tackles one critical subject – issue one (published in May 2008) was subtitled, In America, and featured an impressive line-up of writers, including Paul Theroux, and a photo essay by Antonin Kratochvil from VII.
Dispatches is co-edited by the journalist and author Mort Rosenblum and acclaimed VII photojournalist Gary Knight. "We're somewhere between Google and Gutenberg. We really believe there's a place for the printed word," says Rosenblum. The founders of Dispatches passionately believe that there is a void in contemporary news media that tends to strip away the subtlety and substance of a story so, for them, the mission is often about putting events in context.
The Dispatches publishing project has been funded by Simba Gill, the former chief executive of the biotechnology firm Maxygen. Gary Knight explains: “Simba and I agreed to do it in 2006 in a swimming pool near Angkor Wat in Cambodia. For years we had all independently dreamed of creating our own magazine. Mort and I discussed it first about two years ago on a farm in Provence where we live and Simba has been mulling a magazine over for years.”
Godville, Antonin Kratochvil’s multimedia presentation for Dispatches of his journey across the US.
The physical editorial balance within the pages of Dispatches is around 60% words and 40% photographic images but the key is that those 80 or so pages of photography are taken by one photographer on one subject. “I cannot think of another publication that regularly publishes 80 pages of photography by one photographer on the same subject addressing the important issues of our time,” says Knight. “Photography in Dispatches is critical and huge - it would be wrong to consider it in terms of kilograms of paper used or comparing the amount of paper used for bibliographies and words. We believe the balance is good as it is - pictures need words and vice versa.”
Issue one addressed topics such as a trip through New Orleans and other cities by the journalist Muzamil Jaleel (a Sufi Muslim) called, A Kashmiri in America: The Lucky Shade of Brown, and an essay by John Kifner of The New York Times that asserts Americans ignore history at their peril when dealing with the Middle East. Travel writer Paul Theroux and journalist Samantha Power also contributed to the first issue.
US soldiers mark women's hands and the back of men's necks with numbers corresponding to their neighbourhoods and homes layed out on a grid US troops drew of the village. The numbering system allows US troops to tell whether anyone was moving about the village despite a lockdown following a US attack against insurgents who had settled there. Qubah, March 24, 2007.
Issue two of dispatches, themed ‘Beyond Iraq’, is due to be published in October 2008 and will feature a photo essay shot by Noor photographer Yuri Kozyrev over a five-year period. “I think that the concept of substantial photography and writing focused on one issue will remain the same, the way we use the words and images may change from time to time and, of course, the issues we cover will change as we feel the need to focus on whatever we think is important,” explains Knight. “The website is likely to change as we have more time to focus on it.”
So will Dispatches feature work by any photographer or assign particular projects to specific photographers? “We are open to using anyone who combines curiosity, intelligence, integrity and visual creativity at the highest level,” says Knight. “We are likely to stick with the concept of one photographer per issue because what we want is one clear voice, but that could change if the issue we address demanded it.”
Much of the written content in Dispatches puts events in context – for example, how Iraqis in 1917 experienced the British entering Baghdad as ‘liberators’, several generations before Saddam was toppled with a similar message of liberation. So, should the imagery be new or sometimes more historic? “It depends on the issue we cover and what material is available,” says Knight. “In the second and third issue we will be using historical and contemporary imagery together. In the second issue the work is from 2003 to 2008 and by one photographer (Yuri Kozyrev). In the third issue we have yet to make the final decision, but on the table is 80 years of photography.”
But why was it important to make Dispatches a print product in an age when so much of today’s media is going online? Knight explains: “We like both - but print is as crucial now as it has always been. Print has a timelessness that TV or the web don't have and what we are trying to do is curate great work on one issue and present it in a way that we think is appropriate – in this case on paper with the web as a compendium.”
Ali Ismail, 12, is tended to by a distant aunt in Al-Kindy hospital, unaware that the rocket blast that injured him has also killed his mother, father, brother and 11 other relatives in the Jisser Diala neighbourhood. Baghdad, April 1, 2003.
He adds: “A book is edited linearly, one thing comes after another and it is limited in size as the web is not. What is not included is as important as what is. I think there is tendency for us all to think that because the web is new and it's there it is appropriate for everything, and it is not, but it is a great tool for many things.”
To put the print versus web debate in context Knight explains: “I am currently reading a 700-page book on the Korean War by David Halberstam and I would never do that on the web. But next to me is my laptop and when I want more background on the ‘players’ in the book I look them up on the web. That is how I hope Dispatches will be used.”
At €12.50 an issue, the magazine may prove tough to sell to a wider market that is often happy to pick up celebrity-based print products or weekly news magazines at a fraction of that price. At the moment it is only available online through the website. But the founders have ambitious goals for the publication to reach as broad an audience as possible, as they explain in the mission statement: "Our target is not only the professional world watcher but also citizens who want to make difference and students who must deal with crises they inherit."
