NJ Trail Lawyers Honor 911 Bergen Record Photogapher Thomas E. Franklin

Ground Zero photographer image honored by lawyers group
April 22, 2004, 2:25 PM EDT
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- A newspaper photographer whose Sept. 11, 2001 image of firefighters raising a flag at Ground Zero has won dozens of awards added another to his collection Thursday.

Thomas E. Franklin of The Record of Bergen County was given a gold medal for Distinguished Public Service Photojournalism by the New Jersey chapter of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

The photograph, which showed three dusty firefighters hoisting a tattered flag amid the rubble of the World Trade Center, has become one of the lasting images of the terror attacks.

"What the picture really means to me is what it's meant to you and to everyone else," Franklin, 38, said after receiving the award and a plaque Thursday.

Also honored by the group were lawyers Larry Stewart, of Miami, Fla., and Leo Boyle, of Dover, Mass., who helped set up Trial Lawyers Care, a nonprofit organization that provided free legal services to victims and families of the attacks.