OOH LA LA – Two students con Paris Match’s photojournalism prize
Written by duckrabbitAccording to the BJP
‘French magazine Paris Match was the victim of a hoax when it was revealed that this year’s winners of its Photojournalism Award had faked their images.
Every year, Paris Match, which remains one of the last weekly magazine to give predominant space to photography, organises its ‘Grand Prix Paris Match du Photoreportage.’ This year, the prize, which comes with €5000 and ten pages in Paris Match, was awarded to two students attending Strasbourg’s university.
Guillaume Chauvin and Rémi Hubert won for a reportage chronicling the harsh difficulties some poor students encounter while studying at the Strasbourg university.’
You can read the full story in the BJP here, see the photographs on the Paris Match website here and follow a debate on the story at Lightstalkers here.
Fair play to the students. In the judges eyes they produced the best photographs. To me it says something about how style is more important than substance. That’s what’s really being judged here.
Some people seem to think this is another nail in the coffin that is photojournalism. Why? The winners have purely highlighted something that has always gone on in the media. Fakery. People are becoming more aware that we’re constantly being lied to and if that erodes our sense of trust, then good.
Its not the art that counts; its what you do with it.
A duckrabbit hats off to the lads and a fake finger in the eye of Paris Match who threw a tantrum and withdrew the prize fund.
Own goal, idiots (Paris Match)
In their defense, Stan Banos:
Author — duckrabbit
duckrabbit is a production company formed by radio producer/journalist Benjamin Chesterton and photographer David White. We specialize in digital storytelling.
Discussion (2 Comments)
Back in the late 90’s some up and coming director won considerable praise and adulation for his “documentary” on a union strike based very much on the real deal Harlan County. The audience was not alerted to the fact it was faked until the closing credits when the actors were listed.
He died in an accident a couple of years later. Had I gotten my hands on him it would have been sooner- and anything but an accident. He had taken ten of my hard earned dollars under false pretenses. This is, understandably, under different circumstances… However, I’m renting this computer and times a running- I’ll just say it reminds me of when someone perpetrates a UFO hoax, and therefore- all UFO experiences are fake.
For the record- a bit more coherent response (And they were correct in withdrawing their prize money)… http://reciprocity-failure.blogspot.com/2009/07/documentaries-great-and-small.html