John Paul Filo (/ˈfaɪloʊ/; born August 21, 1948) is an American photographer^[2][3][4][5] whose picture of 14-year-oldrunawayMary Ann Vecchio screaming while kneeling over the dead body of 20-year-oldJeffrey Miller, one of the victims of theKent State shootings, won him thePulitzer Prize in 1971. At the time, Filo was both aphotojournalism student atKent State University, and staffer of theValley Daily News, which became theValley News Dispatch and is now a satellite paper for theGreensburg Tribune-Review.

John Filo
Born	John Paul Filo (1948-08-21)August 21, 1948 (age 76) Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania, United States[1]
Occupation	Photojournalism
Notable credit	Pulitzer Prize-winner

After winning thePulitzer Prize while working for theValley Daily News (a Gannett paper) of thePittsburgh suburb ofTarentum, Pennsylvania, he continued his career in photojournalism, rapidly finding work at theAssociated Press, thePhiladelphia Inquirer, and as apicture editor at theBaltimore Evening Sun. He eventually rose to a picture editing job at the weekly news magazineNewsweek. He is now head of photography forCBS.^[6]

TheKent State shooting by members of theOhio National Guard occurred atKent State University in the city ofKent, Ohio on May 4, 1970, and resulted in the deaths of four students. At the time John Filo was in the university student photography lab when the shots rang out. He quickly ran outside and below recalls what happened:

The bullets were supposed to be blanks. When I put the camera back to my eye, I noticed a particular guardsman pointing at me. I said, "I'll get a picture of this," and his rifle went off. And almost simultaneously, as his rifle went off, a halo of dust came off a sculpture next to me, and the bullet lodged in a tree.

I dropped my camera in the realization that it was live ammunition. I don't know what gave me the combination of innocence and stupidity ... I started to flee – run down the hill and stopped myself. "Where are you going?" I said to myself, "This is why you are here!"

And I started to take pictures again. ... I knew I was running out of film. I could see the emotion welling up inside of her. She began to sob. And it culminated in her saying an exclamation. I can't remember what she said exactly ... something like, "Oh, my God!"

— John Filo talking about theKent State shootings^[7]

To take the picture Filo used aNikkormat camera withTri-X film and most of the exposures were 1/500 between 5.6 and f 8 depending on whether the sun was behind a cloud or not.^[7]

In the early 1970s, an anonymous editor airbrushed the fence post above Mary Ann Vecchio's head out of Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph. Since then, the altered photo has circulated and has been reprinted in many magazines.^{[8][9][10][11]} Numerous publications, includingTime (Nov. 6, 1972, p. 23; Jan. 7, 1980, p. 45) andPeople (May 2, 1977, p. 37; April 30, 1990, p. 117), have used the altered image without knowing it.^[12]

In 1995, Filo met Mary Ann Vecchio for the first time, when both were scheduled to appear at anEmerson College conference commemorating the 25th anniversary of the shootings. The two met again on the Kent State University campus, at the 39th commemoration in May 2009, where they both spoke.^{[citation needed]}

• Interview with John Filo by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s