​October 18-22

"A Global Moment in Time:
Photojournalists Document Challenges and Opportunities in the COVID Era"

This hybrid “Global Moment in Time” year-long special initiative included a virtual component hosted by World Partnerships in October 2021 and an in-person component in October 2022. For the virtual symposium, this group was so geographically diverse that we had to do two programs in one morning/evening to capture all the participants! For this in-person culmination of the year-long project, we welcomed 67 photojournalists from 51 countries for the in-person project (and they brought their cameras!) 

For the entire year of this unique IVLP project, photojournalists from around the world have been creating indelible images of their towns, countries and regions as each struggled with the societal, economic and human effects of the pandemic. This program examined  the role of photojournalism in civil discourse, public opinion, and public understanding of how COVID-19 has disrupted society, as well as how it has brought people, communities and organizations together.

​The group created a virtual photo gallery (with a bio of the journalist and stories of each image), organized 12 virtual panel presentations of images and stories, and wrote and edited a coffee table book. 

Their Tampa Bay program had four main components:
Photojournalists creating images of St. Pete's Shine Mural Festival artists at work!
“Trauma in the Newsroom: How Journalists Can Manage Stress”
A workshop on “Trauma in the Newsroom: How Journalists Can Manage Stress” was led by the Poynter Institute's Al Tompkins, senior faculty for broadcast and online, and Rev. Sidney Tompkins, a retired Methodist minister and licensed psychotherapist. The workshop with centered on the stresses and strains journalists feel in their daily work and lives. Over many years, Al and Sidney Tompkins have worked with hundreds of our IVLP journalists on the topic of managing stress and trauma for working journalists.  Journalists have been on the front lines of the pandemic, subjecting themselves to severe stress and trauma. This session provided advice for coping with the stresses of the job and methods for recognizing the symptoms of traumatic stress. This begins with taking care of yourself. As Al Tompkins says in these sessions, "The work you journalists do is vitally important. Please take care of yourselves, and come home safely every day so that you can continue your much-needed, essential work tomorrow."
SHINE Mural Festival 2022
The City of St. Petersburg and the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance partnered with World Partnerships to bring the photojournalists to the 8th Annual SHINE Mural Festival and create a "Global Moment in St. Pete!"  Returning for its eighth year, October 14-23, 2022, the SHINE St. Petersburg Mural Festival will once again ignite the City of the Arts with a diverse collection of public art from renowned local, national and international mural artists. The festival, which has received widespread international attention, is an outdoor art exhibition aimed at celebrating art for art’s sake.  During SHINE, 18 new murals including 3 community Bright Spot murals and 2 painted vehicles will be added to the art districts and surrounding neighborhoods of St. Petersburg’s downtown. Our global photojournalists, guided by SHINE Director Jenee Priebe and Ms. Celeste Davis, City of St. Petersburg Director of Arts, Culture and Tourism, explored this year's murals in progress and many murals from previous festivals! Journalists also enjoyed an outdoor boxed lunch at world-famous Sunken Gardens, St. Pete's own piece of paradise...
"The Impact of Photojournalism on Civil and Social Justice"
​Award-winning photojournalists Rev. Ken Irby and Mr. Boyzell Hosey led a two-hour interactive workshop focused on how photojournalists create "Global Moments in Time".  Irby, the St. Petersburg Police Department’s first Director of Community Intervention & Juvenile Outreach and senior pastor of the 126 year-old congregation at Historic Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, was responsible for the creation of the Poynter Institute's internationally recognized Photojournalism program in 1995 and a member of the Pulitzer Prize jury for photojournalism. His presentation and discussion focused on capturing "global moments" in pandemics, conflict zones, and everyday reporting, with a case study on the George Floyd video that "changed everything." Boyzell Hosey is senior editor for visual storytelling at ProPublica, and was formerly deputy editor and director of photography at the Tampa Bay Times. He discussed his very personal story of heartbreaking loss of his family members from Covid-19, and the healing powers of visual storytelling in the aftermath. 

World Partnerships thanks its community partner the St. Petersburg Police Department for hosting this workshop.
Closing Program Synthesis Session
After their year-long journey together, the photojournalists gathered one final time for a synthesis session to assess the impact of this special initiatives on their work, their lives, their careers, and their perspectives on the US. The session was led by Mike Deeson, 12-time Emmy Award-winning former senior investigative reporter for WTSP-10, Tampa Bay's CBS affiliate, and documentary filmmaker. The group had a lively two-hour interchange on changes in perception, new insights into their profession, a new "global network of mentors and colleagues", and ideas for future collaboration. US Department of State Program Officer Ms. Tatiana Rodzianko acknowledged the uniqueness of this year-long program, and recognized the photojournalists for their incredible work and contribution to an understanding of the impact of the pandemic worldwide. Ms. Rodzianko also hosted a closing lunch, before the group scattered to downtown St. Pete and the Dali Museum, the Imagine Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Florida Holocaust Museum. And a final sunset on the beach.