WOMEN IN JOURNALISM
PATHFINDER
PRINT: Shutterbabe
Copaken Kogan, D. (2002). Shutterbabe:adventures in love and war. New York: Random House.
Shutterbabe is a memoir by seasoned photojournalist Deborah Copaken Kogan. It chronicles her career, work and personal life from the late 1980s to the beginning of the 2000s. The book begins as the then 22-year-old is covering conflict in the middle east, through the fall of the Berlin Wall, her marriage, the birth of her children, her move from photojournalism to television and (in the 2002 edition) ends as Copaken Kogan and her young daughter watch from her New York apartment as the Twin Towers burn in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. The 300+ page book is broken into three parts and six chapters named after male figures in her life, including her husband and son. Black and white photographs of her work are placed throughout the book with their accompanying stories. The 2002 printing by Random House includes 16 discussion questions and suggested reading by the author. Shutterbabe is not only a personal story, but offers an often terrifying, often funny, first person view of life as a female journalist as she deals with life-threatening danger, sexism, war, battery and death.