Elections will be held in November for both the odd-numbered Regional leadership and the new six at-large Board Directors.
To find your region's candidates, log in, follow the Quick Links, or scan through the file to find the candidates for your region. You must log in to cast your ballot.
The candidates for the leadership of NPPA's National Board election are listed below, with their bios and headshots. Regional Director Candidates will be listed separately.
Each eligible member may cast one ballot for each position, or provide a write-in candidate for each position. Members who are unable to cast their ballots via the NPPA web site may request a paper ballot from the National Office by calling (919) 383-7246, ext. 14.
First, a brief history of my career and involement with the NPPA:
The NPPA has played a very positive part in my development as a photojournalist and an important part of the development of my staff. WHO-TV has been named Small Market Station of the Year twice in the NPPA's Best of Photojournalism competition.
As a TV photoj I've covered stories in 12 countries and about 40 states. All of those stories had local angles of some kind. I shoot and edit almost every day, run a live truck, fly in the helicopter and do it all knowing I have more to learn every day. Working in Iowa I've covered every presidential campaign since 1980.
The NPPA has to move and adapt to both what current members need and to what the visual journalist of the future needs the NPPA to be. I think the NPPA can be a great resource for both news photographers and for those who fill other roles in print, broadcasting and internet news organizations as well as those who work as freelancers. I think my experience in seeing how much the business of news coverage has changed during my career gives me a perspective few others have in terms of knowing how adaptable a journalist has to be and how adaptable the NPPA has to become.
The NPPA also has to be seen as valuable to all its members. An NPPA membership has got to be worth $110. It's up to the Board of Directors to ensure that the membership card is worth the money to still members, to TV members, to members who freelance, to members who work in multimedia. I will work to see it is worth the money.
The educational programs of the NPPA need to be examined and new programs that address timely changes need to be developed. They need to be a combination of seminars where members meet face-to-face with instructors and webinars that can serve members at their convenience. The NewsVideo Workshop and the Multimedia Immersion are examples of what the NPPA is doing right. The Virtual Video Workshop is a good first step in the way of webinars.
The NPPA runs some great contests. They all rely on volunteers and participation by the members. Those contests have been changing for the better and will continue to be fine-tuned.
I married Deb just two weeks before I started at WHO, also in 1977. Nathan was born in 1985 and Michael in 1987. We also have Dallas and Mo, two dogs from shelters, in our home.
I have been working as a Video Editor at The Seattle Times since October following nearly three years as a staff photographer for The Bellingham Herald. I graduated from Ball State University in 2004, spent a year at various internships, and a year as a freelancer based out of Beijing. As a student, I helped lead BSU's student NPPA chapter and helped organize our annual contest. As a professional, I am a regular volunteer at The Kalish picture editing workshop and the Bellingham Visual Journalism Conference.
I am deeply grateful to the members of the photojournalism community that have mentored and guided me. Though I can never fully repay them, I can return the favor by helping those in need of assistance now. I am running for this position as an advocate for those who have lost their jobs and for students who are starting their careers. I want to serve our community by focusing NPPA's resources into programs that assist its members and promote the needs of our photojournalism community. I want to serve those who need NPPA the most.
I am Jeff Grichen and I would like to represent you on the NPPA National Board of Directors.
I have been a photojournalist since 1989 and have been an NPPA member for almost 18 years. During that time I served as the Region 10 associate director and director (1999-2005). I also served as the local chair for the Flying Short Course in Los Angeles in 2001 and was the co-chair of the Short Course for the last two years.
When I was Region 10 associate director I created and maintained one of the first regional web sites (www.nppa10.org) and I continue maintain it today.
Photojournalism has gone through tremendous changes in the past few years. Not only have staff reductions seen the industry lose incredibly talented shooters, but those who remain have seen their workload and stress increase.
I believe now, more then ever, we need a strong, ethical, professional organization. We need an organization that can defend us when laws are passed that violate our rights, but also can can help train us for the future.
The NPPA has gone through changes recently too, and more changes need to be made to make it more streamlined and responsive to its members. I have been around the NPPA long enough to see how it works and away from it long enough to see how it doesn't.
To put it simply, I believe in the NPPA, from regional photo nights to the Multimedia Convergence to the national policy level.
I have been a staff photographer at the Long Beach Press-Telegram since 1997. In my eleven years at the paper I have covered everything from the Cambodian community in Long Beach to high school sports to gang ridden neighborhoods to the annual running of the Long Beach Grand Prix. And, a few NBA Championships and a World Series in between.
I started my career working for the American Red Cross as a disaster relief photographer while still in college. I also worked for the community editions of the Orange County Register from 1994 to 1998. In addition to numerous freelance jobs.
In 2005 I covered the destruction of the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Last year I traveled to Southeast Asia to document a rural Cambodian girl as she traveled to the U.S. for life-altering heart surgery.
I attended California State University, Fullerton, where I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Photo Communication.
Michael P. King (read platform statement here) is a visual journalist at the Green Bay Press-Gazette (Region 5) specializing in multimedia production. Before working in Green Bay, King was a staff photojournalist at The Post~Crescent in nearby Appleton, Wis. He recently served as vice president of the Wisconsin News Photographers Association, and is a past president of Ohio University’s NPPA student chapter, NPPAOU. King joined the NPPA as a senior in high school and through his formative years was fortunate to take advantage of many great NPPA programs like the Flying Short Courses. He recently attended the 2009 Kalish Workshop at Ball State University.
The proudest moment of my photography career was when the NPPA presented me with the Humanitarian Award for my work in helping my severely injured New York Daily News colleague and past president David Handschuh after he was thrown several hundred feet during the collapse of the World Trade Center tower. I was also honored for having helped carry two firefighters out of the debris that day.
It was on that fateful 9-11 that I vowed that I would devote myself to both the advancement of our profession and the assistance for our colleagues. Anyone that knows me, realizes I’ve kept my word. I am calling upon all my fellow NPPA members to cast their vote for me for national director.
Currently, I am the two-term director of Region 2. Many of you are aware that I am a staff photographer for the New York Daily News and an adjunct professor of City Tech of the City University of New York. As a street photographer, like most of you, and a proud teacher and mentor of this great medium we call photography. I look forward to continuing to serve my fellow photographers in this industry that I love.
Some of the things that I’ve achieved:
I have numerous plans and ideas that I intend to move forward in the coming years with your support. Among those ideas include:
If you choose to elect me as a director, these things can be acomplished. But I need your support and the support of our leadership. Hopefully, you will support my dedication.
Please let me to continue my work by giving me your vote in November.
Dear Colleagues of NPPA:
For two decades, the National Press Photographers Association has been vital to my career as a photojournalist, photography editor and visual journalist. I'd like to reciprocate its members’ generosity by serving a full term as a National Board Member guiding NPPA through these most challenging times of our industry.
I've stayed with the NPPA through its peaks and successes, as well as its low points. At my most recent staff position as photography editor at The Daytona Beach News-Journal in central Florida, I was the primary point-person in our 200-person newsroom and four regional bureaus, in Volusia and Flagler counties. I fell victim to the industry's current cycle of downsizing and was laid-off in 2008. Personally, I feel the pain nearly 20,000 journalists have lived through over the past year alone. I am currently freelancing while seeking a media-related position.
The coming years are going to be critical to the survival of not only NPPA, but all journalism organizations. With industry downsizing and consolidation, our members will be confronted with critical financial choices: put food on the table or continue to maintain a relationship with NPPA.
In most situations that would be an easy call to feed your family, but, we as NPPA members must maintain a positive attitude towards our chosen career path and consider the future of the NPPA which has served photojournalists for over five decades. Faced with dwindling membership, the NPPA Board of Directors must retain current members and expand its reach into college and high school communication programs to recruit new talent and members to NPPA to sustain the organization through the doldrums as journalism sorts out its future path from print to online presentation.
Over the past twenty years, I've seen the way NPPA can educate and support its members through national (Photojournalism Summit / Convergence workshops, Flying Short Course, still & TV national clips, multimedia, BUP, BOP, Job Board, Business Practices); regional (Northern and Southern Short Course, regional clips) and student (CPOY, college chapters) efforts.
During my first term as associate director, I coordinated the portfolio reviews at the Flying Short Course stop at Garner-Webb University and led a session on diversity in the newsroom at Louisville Convergence '08 with fellow NLGJA-member David Poller (San Diego Union-Tribune).
I am actively pursuing a Navigating the Downturn workshop location on the Gulf Coast or South Florida by the end of 2009.
Here are my goals in my term as National Board Member:
Prior to accepting my position amid the Central Florida sun, sand, surf, hurricanes, tornadoes, bikes and cars, I was a staff photographer and director of photography at The Citizen, in Auburn, NY. When not dealing with bleeding Orange (Syracuse University basketball), and white-out blizzards, I served as Region 2’s regional newsletter editor (Flashpan) in addition to volunteering at campus NPPA events.
I earned a photojournalism undergraduate degree at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, where I also volunteered for the campus NPPA student chapter. I continued through graduate school, earning a dual master's degree in Media and Business Administration from Newhouse and The Whitman School of Management.
Getting the word out, listening, and making everything local will only enhance the value of NPPA in the eyes of our members, co-workers, students, educators and ultimately our readers and viewers.
Please feel free to call or e-mail if you have any questions. Thank you for your time, and as always I remain, Respectfully yours, Jim Michalowski
My name is Merry Murray and I want to share with you just some of the reasons why I love the NPPA.
I’ve been an NPPA member since I was in college. I really wasn’t sure what I was joining at the time, but I was told by several working photographers that I HAD to join.
So I did.
There’s nothing like opening your mailbox and seeing that brand new issue of News Photographer magazine in there. I’m able to meet new people and get caught up with old friends.
I went to my first workshop in Norman. That led to a job in Lexington, Kentucky. My news director was not only impressed that I went to the workshop but I paid my own way. For a lot of news directors, having been to the workshop is a huge plus on your resume.
Being a Quarterly contest judge got me my next job in Michigan. Bob Gould was looking for a photographer and called the Region 4 Contest chair. I got that job in part because of the NPPA.
In Michigan I began over 10 years as a regional contest chair in Region 4, 6, & 7. I took over as National Judging Coordinator a few years back, and just last year joined Scott Jensen as the contest co-chair.
I also spent time as the Region 7 Associate Director.
For the past 5 years I have been chair of the TV Best of Photojournalism contest. It is so much fun seeing all of the wonderful stories every year. And watching young photographers grow and improve with each contest.
The photojournalism world is changing. It’s an exciting and nervous time. And I believe the NPPA should be at the front of this change. We’ve already started with events like the Multimedia Immersion, Tony testifying before congress, and the Orphan Works Bill. We need to continue to fight for our freedom of the press.
Now is the time to keep moving forward. We need to be THE web site to go to, THE organization to turn to on the big issues, and THE place to go for education in this ever changing world of photography we all love so much.
One of my favorite things that NPPA offers is the education days. Nothing gets me re-energized more than meeting up with friends I may only see once a year, getting caught up with them, and seeing their latest stories. When I get back to work, I’m ready to go for another year, telling the best stories I can.
I want NPPA to be here in 5, 10, 50 years, as strong as ever, continuing to stand up for photographers, educating them, and continuing to be THE organization that photographers will join and stay with, throughout their career.
We need to work to continue to bridge the gap between between video and still and evolve as an organization.
I want to continue giving back to the organization that has given me so much.
I would appreciate your vote for NPPA Board of Directors.
Smiley N. Pool has spent his 24-year career collecting images that capture critical stories of our time and the memorable moments in individual peoples lives. He's covered the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and 9/11, the travels and funeral of Pope John Paul II, seven Olympic games, professional sporting events like the Super Bowl and NBA finals, visiting dignitaries and presidential inaugurations, and many other major local, national and international news events.
Pool was a key contributor to the Dallas Morning News’ coverage of Hurricane Katrina, which won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. He is a seven-time winner of the National Press Photographers Association regional photographer of the year award, as well as numerous other local, state and national awards. His portfolio of work for 2005 was judged runner up for Photojournalist of the Year honors in the Best of Photojournalism competition.
A native Texan who was born in Galveston, Pool is currently the chief photographer and photo coach at the Houston Chronicle. He has also worked for the Dallas Morning News, Colorado Springs Gazette and Austin American Statesman. He was hired full time following his internship at the Austin American Statesman as a college freshman and joined the NPPA in 1985 while freelancing for the weekly Suburban Journal newspapers in St. Louis as high school senior.
Here’s some alphabet soup for you: I have been a state board member and vice president for ASMP; a hired editor for UPDIG and PLUS; membership director of SAA; media and event coordinator for SAA’s Photo Metadata project; an early and sustaining member of EP; a regular correspondent with leaders of APA, PPA, ASPP and IPA; and an advocate helping these groups and more work together through the Imagery Alliance.
But I found my way into these organizations through my 32-year involvement with NPPA. For the past half-dozen or so years I’ve been Business Practices chairman, also working closely with our Advocacy Committee. The other organizations focus on helping creative professionals profit from their work. That’s a reasonable, perhaps noble, goal. But it pales beside NPPA’s mission of helping Americans have vigorous, empowered professionals provide a vital visual component to our Fourth Estate.
As others have noted too many times, our industry faces a perfect storm of problems. In our digital age, professional photojournalists have more competition, fewer opportunities and more responsibility. Fewer of us have jobs. Freelance clients demand we have more skills, more expensive equipment, surrender additional rights and do all this for less money. People’s respect for our employers, our clients – and us – is at an all-time low. Public officials increasingly restrict our access. Nearly every desktop publisher – and too many traditional publishers – believe they should use our work for free.
I believe NPPA needs to focus its efforts on these issues – not trying to stop the march of history and technology, but to channel their progress to benefit our members and the public we serve. And I believe I bring a unique set of experience to helping lead NPPA in that mission.
While also working with other groups, I’ve spent the past decade trying to bolster NPPA’s ability to help our members weather economic changes, if not flourish, in a new climate for photojournalism. In 2006, NPPA leaders bestowed their second highest honor on me: The Joseph Costa Award, named for our association’s founder. It says my “guidance and perseverance” helped “push the NPPA to provide support, education and business tools for independent photographers.”
I helped craft the widely cited NPPA Cost of Doing Business Calculator and have twice compiled links – and a few short essays – that comprise our Independent Photographers Toolkit. I helped lobby our board to adjust our bylaws to allow NPPA commentary on bad business practices, and to fund outreach to other organizations. This helped lead to UPDIG(.org) and PLUS (useplus.org), along with the ill-fated Imagery Alliance. I made sure our leaders came to know others in the photographic community. I also coordinated the drafting and endorsement of NPPA’s Best Practices for the Business of Independent Photojournalism. I reported on issues of rights and rates, offering input on a couple of key media contracts. I debated issues online in a variety of forums. I helped educate folks about business practices, both at NPPA events and a couple schools.
I hope these efforts have helped individuals weather the storm, because there’s no indication we’ve prompted a shift in the hurricane winds. I have found no journalism organization that regularly follows our Best Practices. Those who string for newspapers earn much less than their full costs. Meantime, photojournalism jobs are disappearing. Could it be corporate bean counters can see the obvious: It costs far less to hire freelancers than it does to retain staff.
There’s an old riddle asking how many photographers it takes to screw in a light bulb. The answer is at least a dozen: one to screw it in, and 11 or more to see the new light and say they could do the same. We are slow to respect others, and hence, not quick to engender respect. Many of us think being in the right place at the right moment is luck, when it’s actually due to the three P’s: preparation, persistence and patience. Chuck Scott taught me at Ohio University that you must “plan your luck,” but that lesson has only become truly ingrained as I’ve found some success at capturing wildlife in nature.
For the past few years, I’ve been proud to work with several NPPA leaders who understood the three Ps. Our national office now functions more reliably than at any point in recent years. Other organizations – and public officials – are beginning to take us more seriously. We’ve chalked up a series of victories on key issues of access. We have a respected and efficient contest that continues to set standards. We embrace new technology, both to run our organization and to help journalists tell stories. We have solid, affordable educational programs, including an evolving business curriculum. Our magazine, always impressive, continues to improve. We are blessed with dedicated and talented college instructors who have sent us perhaps the most talented and versatile classes of young photojournalists ever. Even with recent increases, NPPA’s dues deliver more value than all those other professional organizations I know.
In short, our challenges represent incredible opportunities. Our profession is changing. And if we can rise to the occasion, we are uniquely positioned to influence what comes next.
I’m proud of what I’ve helped NPPA accomplish – ranging from explaining simple business equations to encouraging our leaders to apply for funds due photographers through the Author’s Coalition. That application has netted us $180,000 for advocacy and education.
I believe we need to pool some of these funds – and our advocacy efforts – with other organizations to help protect copyright and ensure the viability of image licensing. I believe we need to build on our educational strengths to help experienced professionals adjust to change, while filling in the blanks left for students by college curricula often too packed by accreditation requirements to leave much room for business and legal education.
I believe we need to continue examining every program, every effort, every partnership for its ultimate benefit – and cost – to our members. I believe we must continue seeking new funding to support all these programs and the NPPA Foundation. I believe we should measure our professional organization’s strength not merely by the number of awards, certifications, publications and special deals we offer, but also – perhaps more importantly – by how well we blaze the trail to a healthy future for photojournalism. And I see no reason why we can’t maintain our traditional, more tangible benefits while expanding our outreach. I believe we must do both.
Finally, I believe all this boils down to a single word: professionalism. It’s what we offer that most bloggers and Flickr shooters don’t. It’s what our country requires from our Fourth Estate.
I believe everything NPPA does should encourage, engender, promote and reflect high professional standards. We need to stay in front of issues while responding promptly to both setbacks and opportunities.
At age 52, with a newly minted master’s degree from Ohio University, I have a freshly (re)trained eye for lessons learned in a long, varied career – as well as a few new perspectives gleaned from my professors and fellow students. You can see some of my pictures and read more about my background at www.imediasmith.com. You can view a copy of my multimedia master’s project at www.imediasmith.com/mayriverwild.
A staff photographer at the Philadelphia Inquirer for the past 29 years, Gerald S. Williams is a veteran photojournalist with decades of experience all over the world. He is the recipient of over 150 National and International Awards for his images. A Seven-time Pulitzer Prize nominee. He has also been nominated for the Overseas Press Award. He has won awards from World Press Photo, National Press Photographers Association POY, New Jersey PPA, Pennsylvania PPA, Sigma Delta Chi, and countless others.
His images have been featured in numerous publications worldwide including Time, Newsweek, Parade, Good Housekeeping, Der Speigel, Stern, Rolling Stone, Modern Photography, Road & Track, Newsday, The Village Voice, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post and many others including many corporate publications. His work has been featured in several exhibits, permanent collections and published in several books including the bestsellers, “Winning Photographs”, “Christmas In America”, several editions of “The Best of Photojournalism” , the “Best of World Press Photos”, and recently the bestseller “ Game Face, What Does A Female Athlete Look Like”, with his work in its companion exhibit that toured around the world. And this was shown at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, after a record-breaking run at the Smithsonian Institute In Washington D.C. And his work is featured in the 2004/2005 America 24/7 project , New Jersey State book.
He has photographed the famous and the infamous, celebrities , heads of state , and documented the causes and plights of the average woman and man. He has risked his life covering war and its ravages.
Gerald has been elected to and served on the National Board of Directors of the National Press Photographers Association, and its executive committee. Gerald was honored with NPPA’s Sam Mellor Award for outstanding service as an Associate Director. Gerald has organized and has lectured and spoken at numerous Photography seminars and short courses and has been a judge on panels of numerous professional photography competitions.
Gerald in previous years has taught a continuing studies class in photography at Philadelphia College of Art (Now Philadelphia University of the Arts). Some of his students have gone on to their own award winning professional careers as photographers.
Prior to his working at the Inquirer, he was a staff photojournalist at Newsday newspaper on Long Island, and prior to that he was the Assistant Director of the 10pm News at Fox Network’s WTTG-TV Channel 5 in Washington D.C.
He is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology where he earned a B.F.A. degree with honors studying in professional photography.
In addition, he interned at Newsday while a student at R.I.T., and also briefly worked with President Gerald Ford’s personal photographer David Kennerly at the White House, part of a summer while a student.
Presently Gerald has voluntarily separated from the Inquirer after his long successful career there. He is freelancing as proprietor of Williams Photojournalism . He is also teaching a Digital Photography course in the Art Department of Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. Gerald is working on his Master of Arts Degree in Digital Photography as an elearning graduate student of Savannah College of Art and Design.
601 Moore blvd., Clayton N.J. 08312 (cell) (856) 392-7049 , (home and fax) (856) 243-5001 gwilliams6@comcast.net
John B. (Jack) Zibluk, Ph.D., is associate professor of journalism at Arkansas State University, where he is the primary photojournalism instructor in the only accredited photojournalism degree program in three states. He continues to be active in freelance photojournalism and writing activities, and his scholarly activities and publications focus on copyright, privacy and photojournalism ethics.
He is a former NPPA vice president, and Region 7 director. He chaired the NPPA strategic planning committee in 2007-2008. As student internship chair and former national student contest chair, he helped oversee the first effort to put an NPPA contest on-line. He has been a frequent contributor to News Photographer magazine, for which he has written several ethics columns as well as articles on image manipulation, photojournalists and post-traumatic stress and other issues. He won the NPPA Robin F. Garland Educator Award in 2005. He participated in the NPPA Stab Kalish multi-media workshop this year, and he has begun producing multi-media journalism projects and designing and presenting multi-media education programs.
Zibluk began his photojournalism career as student newspaper editor at Southern Connecticut State University. He went on to be a writer, photographer, photo editor and copy editor at several newspapers in Connecticut in the 1980s. After he earned his Ph.D. at Bowling Green State University, where he worked as assistant to News Photographer magazine editor Jim Gordon. He continued to work in the field, including a three-year stint as a part-time photojournalist and copy editor at the Memphis Commercial Appeal from 2000-2003. He also worked at National Geographic magazine in Washington, D.C., as the magazine’s faculty fellow in 2002.
He is seeking to return to the NPPA Board of Directors to encourage attention to and growth in the organization in three overlapping areas: outreach to new members and new and diverse types of members; on-line delivery of educational programs; and a revitalization of the NPPA’’s advocacy activities.
“In a time when photojournalism and visual journalism as a profession has morphed, melted and atomized, the profession needs the NPPA more than ever,” Zibluk said. He explained that he sees many new practitioners from all sorts of non-journalistic backgrounds becoming involved in photojournalism. These include various portrait, studio and wedding photographers, assorted freelancers, part-timers, bloggers and many others.
“So many of these people have no background in ethics and professional practices, and they dilute the profession,” he said. “But they also present an opportunity. They need our programs, our mentoring, our professional practices and our ethics. They need the NPPA.”
“By reaching out to new and diverse members using social media and other forms of on-line outreach, providing programs and educational opportunities on-line, and letting people know we’re here through vigorous, high-profile advocacy on legal, political and ethical matters, the NPPA can revitalize itself and the profession,” Zibluk said.
Because the at-large elected Board members are supposed to serve staggered three-year terms, this initial election will choose two Elected Directors for the full three-year term, two for two-year terms, and two for one-year terms.