David Friend, Vanity Fair’s editor of creative development and formerly Life’s director of photography, will present his book Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11 for the CLSC on July 29.

Watching the World Change is a unique and powerfully affecting account of the most universally observed news event in human history: the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Friend tells the stories behind the images that altered our sense of the world forever — from the happenstance shots taken by bystanders as the north tower was struck to the now-iconic tableau of three firefighters raising the American flag at the site that would soon be known as Ground Zero. Author and journalist Christopher Hitchens said of Watching the World Change: “At last we have a book that looks steadily through the lens and does not flinch, but which cancels voyeurism by its care and measure and by the multiplicity of its perspectives.”

Friend won Emmy and Peabody Awards as an executive producer of the CBS documentary 9/11. He has covered conflicts in Afghanistan and Lebanon, and, as an editor, broke the “Deep Throat” story in 2005, revealing that Mark Felt was Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s secret Watergate source. As a writer, Friend contributes frequently to Vanity Fair, American Photo and The Digital Journalist Web site. His humorous articles and cartoons have appeared in The Washington Post, Discover, The Common Review and Salon; his poetry has appeared in The New Yorker. Friend has also served as curator for photography exhibitions in galleries around the world. A graduate of Amherst College, he is currently working on a book about the culture wars of the 1990s . . . short bio

David Friend, Vanity Fair’s editor of creative development and formerly Life’s director of photography, will present his book Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11 for the CLSC on July 29.

Watching the World Change is a unique and powerfully affecting account of the most universally observed news event in human history: the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 . . . full bio