John Paul Filo (; born August 21, 1948) is an American photographer whose picture of 14-year-old runaway Mary Ann Vecchio screaming while kneeling over the dead body of 20-year-old Jeffrey Miller, one of the victims of the

Kent State shootings The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre and the Kent State massacre,"These would be the first of many probes into what soon became known as the Kent State Massacre. Like the Boston Massacre almost exactly two hundred years bef ...

, won him the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had ma ...

in 1971. At the time, Filo was both a

photojournalism Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such ...

student at

Kent State University Kent State University (KSU) is a public research university in Kent, Ohio. The university also includes seven regional campuses in Northeast Ohio and additional facilities in the region and internationally. Regional campuses are located in A ...

, and staffer of the '' Valley Daily News'', which became the '' Valley News Dispatch'' - now a satellite paper for the '' Greensburg Tribune-Review''.

Biography

After winning the

while working for the '' Valley Daily News'' (a Gannett paper) of the

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

suburb of

Tarentum, Pennsylvania Tarentum is a borough in Allegheny County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is northeast of Downtown Pittsburgh, along the Allegheny River. Tarentum was an industrial center where plate glass and bottles were manufactured; bricks, lumber, s ...

, he continued his career in photojournalism, rapidly finding work at the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newsp ...

, the ''

Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...

'', and as a picture editor at the ''

Baltimore Evening Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...

''. He eventually rose to a picture editing job at the weekly news magazine ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

''. He is now head of photography for

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

Taking the picture

The Kent State shooting by members of the

Ohio National Guard The Ohio National Guard comprises the Ohio Army National Guard and the Ohio Air National Guard. The commander-in-chief of the Ohio Army National Guard is the governor of the U.S. state of Ohio. If the Ohio Army National Guard is called to fede ...

occurred at

in the city of

Kent, Ohio Kent is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the largest city in Portage County. It is located along the Cuyahoga River in Northeast Ohio on the western edge of the county. The population was 28,215 at the 2020 Census. The city is counted as ...

on May 4, 1970, and resulted in the deaths of four students. At the time John Filo was in the university student photography lab when the shots rang out. He quickly ran outside and below recalls what happened: To take the picture John used a

Nikkormat Nikkormat (Nikomat in Japan) was a brand of cameras produced by the Japanese optics company Nippon Kogaku K. K., as a consumer version of the professional Nikon brand. Nikkormat cameras, produced from 1965 until 1978, were simpler and more affo ...

camera with Tri-X film and most of the exposures were 1/500 between 5.6 and f 8 depending on whether the sun was behind a cloud or not.

Altered photo

In the early 1970s, an anonymous editor airbrushed the fence post above Mary Ann Vecchio's head out of Filo's Pulitzer Prize Winner photograph. Since then, the altered photo has circulated and has been reprinted in many magazines. Numerous publications, including ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

'' (Nov. 6, 1972, p. 23; Jan. 7, 1980, p. 45) and ''

People A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of propert ...

'' (May 2, 1977, p. 37; April 30, 1990, p. 117), have used the altered image without knowing it.

Meeting with Mary Ann Vecchio

In 1995, Filo met Mary Ann Vecchio for the first time, when both were scheduled to appear at an

Emerson College Emerson College is a private college with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts. It also maintains campuses in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California and Well, Limburg, Netherlands ( Kasteel Well). Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as ...

conference commemorating the 25th anniversary of the shootings. The two met again on the Kent State University campus, at the 39th commemoration in May 2009, where they both spoke.

References

External links

with John Filo
by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s {{DEFAULTSORT:Filo, John 1948 births Living people People from Harrison Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania American photojournalists Journalists from Pennsylvania Kent State shootings Kent State University alumni Pulitzer Prize for Photography winners 20th-century American journalists American male journalists