Message From John Arthur Managing Editor LAT

The around the clock coverage of last week's fires in Southern California by the LA Times photo department was appreciated by more than the newspaper's millions of online and print viewers. The photos, produced by more than 20 staff photographers who covered the fires and evacuations, were also sought by the International Herald Tribune, which circulates globally, the Bild newspaper in Germany that claims the largest circulation in Europe and Der Spiegel, Europe's largest weekly news magazine. In addition Veja, the largest magazine in Latin America, ran an image shot by Wally Skalij and another by Irfan Kahn.

Staff photographer Robert Gauthier's photo of a firefighter graces the cover of this week's Time magazine. Photos by Gary Friedman and Brian Vander Brug were used prominently inside. Swiss Press requested nine of our photos and expected to publish all of them. Photos by Don Kelsen, Al Seib, Genaro Molina, Richard Hartog and Barbara Davidson, among others already mentioned, were included in that package. People Magazine also used a photo by Wally Skalij and another by Gary Friedman. We’ve put some of the photos up on TimesLink for you to see. As more of them come in, we’ll get them up.

On TV, the Today show and Telemundo have licensed LA Times fire photos and Karen Tapia Anderson was interviewed on NBC News about her pictures of the firefighters who sought emergency shelter when they couldn't outrun the flames. The moving report ran on Friday's night's NBC national news and was repeated at 11 p.m. on KNBC.

It's nice to see a national and worldwide audience once again being exposed to the terrific work of our photo staff.

John Arthur
Colin Crawford