NEW YORK, NY (October 3, 2008) – In March 2007 photojournalist James Nachtwey won a TED Prize, $100,000, a third of $300,000 given each year to three individuals who "make one wish to change the world."
Nachtwey used the prize money to document a project that he says has been, until now, hidden from public awareness.
"I'm working on a story the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it," Nachtwey said, "in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age."
Today Nachtwey's story is being unveiled, and in spectacular ways. The pictures will be projected in 50 cities around the world on Friday, including on the Reuters jumbo screen in Times Square in New York, and in Time magazine's global editions that are published today, and in the Boston Globe, and The London Observer, and on YouTube and Wired.com.
Nachtwey's TED Prize story is about XDR-TB (Extremely Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis). XDR-TB could be the world's next great pandemic because the ineffective treatment of tuberculosis has allowed the bacteria to mutate into a strain that is becoming drug-resistant.
Nachtwey's black-and-white photographic essay on the people who have been struck down by XDR-TB, and the doctors and nurses who are trying to treat them, launched online this morning at http://xdrtb.org.
"This is a race between the ability of a deadly, mutated bacteria to spread, and our ability to spread awareness first," TED curator Chris Anderson said.
"Health authorities know what needs to be done, but politicians and the public at large don't have XDR-TB on their radar. That's what James Nachtwey's powerful TED Prize wish is all about. I am so proud of what Nachtwey and the TED community have made possible."
Here is a video fo Nachtwey accepting the $100,000 TED Prize in 2007 and what he told the audience about photojournalism, his mission, and his prize-winning wish.
