Michael Wilson Wins Joseph Costa Award for Courtroom Photography

 

MUNCIE, IN (April 21, 2011) – Michael Wilson, a staff photographer and videographer for The Ledger in Lakeland, FL has been awarded the Joseph Costa Award for Courtroom Photography at Ball State University’s Department of Journalism’s annual Pulliam Awards.

The award is named for Joseph Costa, founder of the National Press Photographers Association and a former lecturer in the Ball State University Department of Journalism. He was the leading crusader in the effort to allow photojournalists into the nation’s courtrooms on an equal footing with reporters.

Each year, the Department of Journalism honors a photographer who has taken and published an outstanding example of photographic reporting in the courtroom with the award. Wilson was chosen for the award because of the quality of his work in continuing a visual reporting tradition.

To be considered for the award, nominees’ work must have demonstrated impact, drama, emotional content, photographic composition and technical quality. Wilson achieved these qualities with a photograph published on the front page of The Ledger, department chair Jim Willis said.

The image showed an outburst by a victim’s family when the judge declared a mistrial in the Leon Davis first-degree murder and death penalty trial. Anticipating the mistrial ruling, Wilson placed himself in position to capture the reactions of the judge, the attorneys, the defendant and the victims’ relatives in the back of the courtroom.

As the father of one of victims charged the defense table and the defendant, Wilson reacted to capture this storytelling photograph of the man being restrained and subdued by sheriff’s bailiffs. Wilson’s work exemplifies the drama of courtroom sessions.

This is the third time that photographers for The Ledger have won the Joseph Costa Award for Courtroom Photography. Wilson was granted the award in abstentia at the Pulliam Awards ceremony, held in Cardinal Hall of the L.A. Pittenger Student Center at Ball State University.

 

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