Part 1 of our interview with author David Shields about his pictorial novel War is Beautiful in which David looked at over 2000 New York Times front-page war photos between 1991 and 2014. What David found after reviewing the common themes and constructs of these photographs made him stop reading The Times. The pictorial guide is available for purchase here: http://www.amazon.com/War-Is-Beautiful-Pictorial-Conflict/dp/1576877590. It’s a must-see! Part 2 will be available beginning 12.10.205.

Highlights:

• How a childhood stutter taught David to listen for subtext

• How The Times’ need to sell papers has dictated its art direction

• Why The Times is wrong to claim its centrist views

• Why The Times and the US government have an unsaid collusion with each other

• Why we should all look beneath the surface about things in life

Why we shouldn’t trust someone who claims to have no agenda

• David’s reaction to the recent front-page imagery of the Paris Bombing aftermath

• How we can learn to view things with a more skeptical-eye

• Why David feels war photography should have a more hard-earned beauty