March 2003: Vol. 82, No. 2March 2003: Vol. 82, No. 2 |
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David Marck was waiting tables at a Birmingham barbeque joint two days before Thanksgiving 2001, when he got a phone call. The voice on the other end said: "Get your stuff together and be at your unit by Saturday."
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 Marck spent three days covering the Army's last large-scale operation against Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. |
After an introductory page of smaller photos and editorial copy summarizing how "The Best Pictures of the Year" issue came together, Time readers turned to an extended photo essay on "A Year in Conflict" and saw a ghostly double-page shot of U.S. Army forces moving against Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. The photo—which shows soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division silhouetted against a purplish sky—was taken by Marck during active duty and circulated worldwide by the Associated Press.
Marck joined the army after a year on a theatre scholarship at a small college near Birmingham. He had decided to transfer to Auburn, and was two weeks from moving when he got the call to active duty. Marck's father was in the army for 22 years, so the military route was a natural when he needed a way to pay for college.
Sgt. David W. Marck, who worked for his high school newspaper, discovered a career for himself at the Army's Defense Information School, an intense four-month journalism program that the army says is tantamount to two years of comprehensive college-level courses—including reporting, photojournalism, and layout.
"I fell in love with photojournalism,' says Marck, who was sent to Afghanistan for three days to cover Operation Anaconda, the last massive maneuver against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. He says he was among a handful of journalists who had full access to everything.
 Marck's photo of U.S. Army forces moving against Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters kicked off Time's "A Year in Conflict." |
"We had to keep the lid on everything until after it happened," says Marck, "and then had to pool information and images." Marck showed his photos to a Getty Images photographer and landed the lead photo in Time before he knew what was happening. "What are the odds, right?" says Marck. And that contact led him to UGA. The Getty photojournalist, Joe Raedle, happened to be good friends with Jim Virga, the photojournalism lecturer at UGA's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Marck was considering a transfer to UGA when he went overseas, and meeting a friend of Virga's clinched his decision.
After his second semester at the University, he's involved with ROTC and deejaying at the student radio station. After graduation, he would like to cover world-wide conflicts for a major wire service. Marck's most enjoyable experience in Afghanistan was "getting to go out with civil affairs soldiers when they offered humanitarian assistance," including food, clothing and medicine. [The Afghans] have an entirely different outlook on life, and it makes you appreciate the society we live in."
Rolling Stone: UGA is no. 1 among rockin' campuses
In the Feb. 20 issue of Rolling Stone, the legendary rock 'n roll magazine ranked Athens and UGA No. 1 on its top 10 list of "Campus Scenes That Rock." If the synopsis of the local music scene ("An unceasing wave of acts serve up modern music non-stop,") seemed a bit straight-laced by Rolling Stone standards, the recognition was welcome nonetheless. Illustrated with a photo of the band that put Athens on the music map—the B-52's—RS went on to say: "So if three local bands break up on Monday, there are four more stepping in by Tuesday."
Red & Black mainstay wins national award for column writing
Columnist on the rise
When the news bug gets in your blood, it never leaves. Or so it would seem for Hilary Hilliard, a senior from Warner Robins whose mother, Barbara, was a columnist for the Macon Telegraph while she was pregnant with Hilary. Now that Hilary has won first place in the 2001 National Mark of Excellence contest in the general column writing category, Hilary's family jokes that she was a columnist before birth.
Hilary got interested in journalism after her junior year of high school when she attended a newspaper camp at UGA's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. She wrote her first Red & Black story the week before her freshman year, and has worked at the student newspaper ever since. Conrad Fink admitted Hilary into his editorial writing class specifically to give her experience for writing Red & Black editorials. She is taking his sports writing class this semester—the only girl to do so—simply so she can experience one more class with the award-winning professor.
 Hilliard's first R&B editorial appeared the week before the start of her freshman year. |
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"The Red & Black has taught me how to work in a newsroom and it has made me a better reporter and a better editorial writer," says Hilary. "I didn't even know what an editorial was until I took Conrad Fink's class. He taught me it's not just venting an opinion, it's backing it up with facts."
Besides the Mark of Excellence Award, which is sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists, Hilliard has also won two William Hearst Foundation Awards. She placed third in 2001 for a Red & Black column, and seventh in 2002 for an editorial in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Hilary has been around so long that she predates the paper's editorial adviser, Chris Starrs (ABJ '82). She was opinions editor when he came on board in August 2000. "She is one of the people I really got to work with on style and ideas," says Starrs, who entered a series of three Hilary columns in the SPJ contest.
Hilary is looking for a post-graduate internship to improve her reporting skills, but her credentials already are excellent. After working for the Macon Telegraph's teen board in high school, she landed consecutive summer internships there while in college. Last summer, she was a Morris Communications management intern.
"We saw all sides of a newspaper company," says Hilary, who attended private meetings, visited newspapers scattered across the country, and even got up at 2 a.m. to deliver papers. Her favorite aspect of the summer was the opportunity to wear a jumpsuit and run the presses. "I have so much respect for people who work underground all day with no windows," she says of the press workers. "They are more passionate about running the presses than reporters are about writing the stories."
Hilliard dreams of someday becoming a syndicated columnist. "It's a hard shot and a lot of work," she says, "and I will work more toward opinion writing. I think there may be other career paths for me, but they will always end up in journalism."