The Shot Seen Round the World
De Grane, a frequent Reader contributor, has spent two years photographing inside Stateville. A grant from the Illinois Arts Council supports the project, which he hopes will lead to a Chicago Historical Society exhibition on a century of prison life in Illinois, and to another book. The University of Illinois Press just published his first one, Tuned In, an album of a nation hooked on television.
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“I did neither,” says Godinez. He confiscated it. “I thought by taking the photograph I was acting in the best interests of the inmate.” He stashed it in his desk.
Jose More, chief photographer at the Tribune, offered to buy exclusive local rights to De Grane’s pictures for $250 a print. And More told De Grane that the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain also wanted a print. Could he pass along De Grane’s phone number? Sure, said De Grane.
Should he get the money? we asked Godinez, a specialist in right and wrong. “Definitely not,” the warden said. “He didn’t enter this prison to make money off anything. If he should get that thousand dollars, I think it should go to the victims, and I feel very strong about that. You know, I could make a lot of money with the conversations Speck had with me and the letters he wrote me. But that’s the farthest thing from my mind.”
Barry Bingham Jr. was explaining why he shut down FineLine, the newsletter he conceived so working journalists could read and write about the hard ethical issues of their profession.
