The Forgotten Leader
By Megan • Jan 15th, 2008 • Category: News for Creatives (archives)David Schonauer reports for Pop Photo:
“How David Hume Kennerly Reinvented Political Journalism in Gerald Ford’s White House.
David Hume Kennerly takes some pride in his own sense of balance, which makes the obviously swollen left hand hanging at his side particularly irksome for him. “I’m normally very coordinated,” he says with the slightest wince as we sit at a table outside a Manhattan restaurant. An hour before our meeting, Kennerly stepped off a curb on a downtown street corner and slipped, spraining his wrist. “I went through the Vietnam War without a scratch,” he says, “but I may not survive New York City today.”
Kennerly has a home in Los Angeles — he recently made a portrait of his neighbor, the playwright David Mamet — but he’s a veteran bicoastal media figure who is regularly in Washington, D.C., to photograph politicians. He’s here in New York today to meet with editors at NBC News, for whom he will be covering the 2008 presidential campaign. Over the course of his long career he’s been adept at straddling media, from television news (contributing editor for Good Morning America from 1996 to 1998) to film (executive producer of The Taking of Flight 847, a 1989 movie of the week) to books (Sein Off: The Final Days of “Seinfeld,” 1998) to magazines (he’s a contributing editor to Newsweek).
Once, a long time ago, he worked for a newspaper wire service — that was when he was covering Vietnam for United Press International. His work there won him a Pulitzer Prize. But what he is probably still best known for is the job that he took in 1974, when he became the White House photographer for President Gerald Ford.”
Megan is a creative producer at Wise Elephant.
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