Andrea Bruce is an award-winning war photographer, whose work has appeared in the Washington Post and National Geographic. She’s spent a decade covering events abroad, from the U.S. invasion of Iraq to the Arab Spring and deadly earthquakes in Pakistan. Now, she’s returned to home to Pamlico County, where she writes “Down in the County,” a local newsletter. PRE’s Ryan Shaffer met up with her in Bayboro . . .
Bruce has been teaching photography and journalism to middle and high school students at an afterschool program. The day I visited, they were reviewing each other’s photos from a football game. Bruce was surrounding by four girls as they each pointed at the screen, relaying what they think makes each photo stand out.
Bruce is hoping the afterschool activity will generate more homegrown journalists in a county that’s considered a “new desert.”
“This is a diverse county and I really wanted to diversify the amount of voices that you see, the people, the visions that you see.”
She’s talking about her own publication, a newsletter covering Pamlico County. It’s called “Down in the County.”
“It’s mostly profiles and like a living history of what this county is … because something that we don’t have really is a very good written history of the people in this place and I think for a lot of people in rural USA, that’s just how it is.”
Bruce began the publication two years ago, just a few years after arriving back in Oriental. I asked her if much had changed since she came back.
“I would say it hasn’t changed dramatically. In many ways, it’s still kind of looks the same.”
Boats in the harbor, historic homes lining tree-laden streets. The rural, sparsely populated county of 12,000 may not have looked different but . . .
“The thing that did change is how politically divided people are, and that you can almost feel.”
More billboards. More bumper stickers. More distrust among neighbors, Bruce said. Pamlico County does have a few news outlets – towndock.net is an online news outlet for Oriental, but the County Compass reaches more people. The Compass is a weekly shopper that mostly relays national conservative voices and conspiracy theories -- like how a Jewish boarding school in Greensboro was allegedly housing unaccompanied immigrant children. The owner of the Compass told The Assembly “I want to print just enough news so that people will pick it up, read it, and the advertisers will get a response.” Bruce says the lack of local journalism is one reason for division, and that Down in the County is an attempt to cover stories that impact people’s daily lives.
“I thought, the only thing I know how to do is journalism, so why don’t I start a newsletter and attempt to get people kind of literally on the same page.”
Down in the County has about 5,000 subscribers. As a photographer, Bruce says it’s the photos that mostly draw people in.
“In a photo, you can capture someone’s attention. You can make them ask questions like ‘oh what’s going on here?’ or you can invite them into the kind of the magic of the situation.”
The newsletter is really a continuation of what’s she’s already done. While in Iraq, Bruce had a weekly photo column for the Washington Post in which she shared photo and a story about a person or place in Iraq. -- like exam day at a girl’s school in Baghdad, or a well-dressed man waiting for the bus next to a cement barrier wall intended to protect people from bombings. Bruce says she brought a “small-town” approach to covering the people of Iraq.
“It seems kind of strange right? Approaching stories like a small town. It’s more like introducing people to each other, like ‘Hello world, this is Halla.’”
Halla is an Iraqi woman who turned to sex work, after her husband was killed amid the violence of Baghdad early in the war.
“I just wanted to introduce people to someone they haven’t heard from before. Up until that point, I don’t remember seeing even a quote from a woman, let alone someone who’s working in Iraq as a sex worker. And her life was dramatically changed by the initial invasion of Iraq.”
Bruce isn’t covering stories like that anymore. She’s hung up the Flak jacket and hard helmet for a quieter life with her 5-year-old in Oriental. She covers the school board meetings and local events for the newsletter, but what she enjoys most are the profiles.
“I’m mostly driven by curiosity of people and what inspires them or what drives them. It makes you realize how people are definitely, they’re not defined by politics. They are defined by like how they grew up and how this land and how what they do as a living shapes them.”
Down in the County remains a one-woman operation, with occasional contributions from others.
