The photographer whose image of firefighters raising the flag above the rubble at Ground Zero united a nation after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack in New York will speak to West VirginiaUniversity journalism students and the public Wednesday, Feb. 19.

Thomas E. Franklin, a photographer for The Record in Bergen County, N.J., will discuss the impact and aftermath of the photograph at 7:30 p.m. in Room 459 of the Business&EconomicsBuilding on the Downtown Campus. The speech is the second in the 2003 Ogden Newspapers Seminar Series, hosted by the WVU Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, and is open to the public.

The seminar series brings nationally and internationally recognized journalists for Ogden Newspapers Visiting Professor George Espers class, which this year will focus on”Foreign Correspondence: Reporting the World Abroad and Finding the World in Your Community.”

“Tom Franklin’s 9/11 photograph is truly historical. Like all extraordinary war photography, it galvanized a nation in conflict and forever burned the image of unity into the American psyche,”said SOJ Dean Christine Martin.

Newsweek, USA Today and People, among others, featured the photograph on their covers. Franklin and Jennifer Borg, an attorney representing The Record, will speak about the impact the photo had on the nation and how it took the message of America as survivor into the world.

Franklin has been a photojournalist for more than 15 years and a staff photographer atThe Record since 1993. He has won more than 30 national and international awards for his photography.

Franklins now famous image of three firemen raising the American flag above the rubble of the WorldTradeCenter taken on Sept. 11, 2001, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and the winner of numerous awards and special recognition.