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Photo Editor, POLFOTO,Copenhagen;
stringer/photographer Associated Press, Copenhagen
”Reporting starts at no,” my professor said in one of our first classes on a hot August day in 2001. Sig Gissler’s many ”Gisslerisms” are priceless, but that one in particular has served me well. The attacks of September 11, 2001 happened only weeks after classes had started. By the end of that day the students were filling stories nationally and internationally. Just a few days before, Vice Dean David Klatell had called the Journalism School a ”boot-camp” for journalists. I often wonder if he knew then how accurate that description would be.
You frequently hear the word ”no” as a reporter. At the J-School you learn how to get around it. You discover that the toughest editors are also the best. You learn to ask ethical questions, and try to answer them. You may one day be the only one in the newsroom asking those crucial questions.
At Columbia’s Journalism School you learn on the job and on the street. I had never really picked up a camera before I came here, let alone photographed breaking news or interviewed traumatized survivors. Until then I had worked as a movie critic and an editor in Copenhagen, Denmark. Today, I have focused my career on photojournalism. Remembering how the school arranged debriefings and lectures on covering trauma, and helped the students professionally and personally after the attacks, I know Columbia was the right choice. That day and that year at the Journalism School changed my life, both as a person and as a journalist.
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