Steve Stroud
Steve Stroud is deputy director of photography for the Los Angeles Times with specific responsibility for national and foreign photography. He also is in charge of the paper’s front-page photo selection. Stroud directed the L.A. Times’ coverage of major news stories, including the peace-keeping mission in the Balkans, the impeachment trial of then-President Bill Clinton, the terrorist attack of September 11th and the ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Besides helping manage the paper’s 47 staff photographers, Stroud has won several photo-editing awards. He was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for the paper’s coverage of a shoot-out in North Hollywood following a botched bank robbery.
A photo editor for 28 yeas, Stroud helped usher in photojournalism’s entry into the digital world while working for the Chicago Tribune from 1982 to 1989. The paper claims the first digital transmission of a photo for publication from a remote site while on deadline.
Stroud’s insights into foreign news coverage stem from his six years as director of photography for Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, Southeast Asia’s largest English-language daily newspaper. During that time he directed the paper’s photo coverage of the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the territory’s return to China. He also established, and was for two years president of, the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association that advocated rights for photographers in Hong Kong and China.