San Jose News Outlet Lauds California Education Initiative

In a recent article by Jacqueline Lee, The Mercury News reported on the Pulitzer Center education team's work in Bay Area schools. On January 9, 2017, Palo Alto High School hosted documentary photographer and Pulitzer Center grantee Misha Friedman in a series of workshops for their journalism students.

Lee described Friedman's presentation:

"Friedman told students of an early, difficult assignment: Photograph corruption in Russia.

Friedman could have tried to shoot universal symbols of corruption: gold watches, fancy cars, money exchanged under tables. But that would mean he also had to be in the room when it happens, a dangerous position placing him in complicity, Friedman said.

Instead, he thought to define corruption differently.

'I wanted to photograph the acceptance, not the act,' Friedman said. 'People there accepted those things as normal.'"

Friedman exhibited his photo essays about Russia's corruption during the secondary school presentations in northern California this month. The Mercury News noted that the workshops at Paly were part of an education outreach initiative in the Bay Area including visits to the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, San Francisco. Friedman engaged with students by telling them about how he became a journalist and began covering crises in Russia. His talk is an example of the more than 400 workshops and presentations the education team coordinated over the past year across the United States.

Read the full article at The Mercury News.