Dirck Halstead joins Do1Thing
Dirck Halstead is the Editor and Publisher of The Digital Journalist. He began his photojournalism career during high school. At the age of 17, he became LIFE magazine’s youngest combat photographer, covering the Guatemalan Civil War (the editors at LIFE had no idea how old he was). After attending Haverford College, Halstead did a two-year stint as a roving photographer in the U.S. Army. He went on to work for United Press International (UPI), covering stories around the world for more than 15 years; and was their picture bureau chief in Saigon during the Vietnam War.
Halstead accepted an independent contract with TIME magazine in 1972. Covering the White House for the next 29 years, he was one of only six photographers asked to accompany Richard Nixon on his historic trip to China in that same year. His photographs have appeared on 47 TIME covers. During this period he was also a “Special Photographer” on many films, producing ad material used by major Hollywood studios.
In 1992, he played an instrumental part in the formation of Video News International (VNI), which started what is now the Platypus movement, teaching still photojournalists to cross the barrier between print and television.
Halstead is now a senior fellow in photojournalism at The Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. He has won the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) Picture of the Year award twice; the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the fall of Saigon; and two Eisie Awards from the Columbia University School of Journalism. In 2002, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the White House News Photographers Association (WHNPA); and in 2004 he was honored with the Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award. The University of Missouri presented him with the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism in 2007.
