The NPPA's Women in Visual Journalism conference will be returning this year in Dallas, TX. Join us October 22-23, 2022. The speakers are some of the best in the business, and will be on hand for critiques. Television reporters, still and tv photojournalists, online journalists, freelancers, documentary filmmakers--this conference has something for every type of visual storyteller. There are so many ways to tell stories—this event embraces them all—because we are better together.
Registration Info
NPPA Members $75
Non Members $100
NPPA Student Members $10
Student Non-Members $20
Location
The Dallas Morning News
1954 Commerce Street
Dallas, TX 75201
Where to Stay
NPPA has secured a room block at the Hampton Inn & Suites Dallas Downtown. Book by Oct 4th to recieve the discounted rate.
Event Schedule
*(Subject to change; details and descriptions to come)
Friday: Gather with people who arrive early!
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Harwood Tavern
333 S Harwood St, Dallas, TX 75201
Saturday:
8:30 am Check-In
9:00 am Welcome
9:15 am Opening Keynote with Mireya Villarreal (ABC News)
10:30 am Creating Your Brand
Neima Abdulahi (Independent Journalist/WXIA)
Tashara Parker (WFAA)
11:30 am Lunch/Feedback
1:00 pm Ask the Managers
Nicole Fruge (San Francisco Chronicle)
Pu Huang (Texas Tribune)
Jill Karnicki (Houston Chronicle)
Leslie McCardel (WFAA)
Robin Whitmeyer (FOX 4)
2:15 pm Uvalde: Covering Crisis and Mental Health
Acacia Coronado (Associated Press)
Victoria De Leon (KENS)
Lisa Krantz (University of Missouri)
Briana Sanchez (Austin American-Statesman)
3:30 pm Stills Breakout Session:
Project Planning and Pitching with Marie De Jesus
Video Breakout Session:
Storytelling at its Finest
Noelle Walker (NBC 5)
Teresa Woodard (WFAA)
4:30 pm Make Your Mark with Megan Mitchell (WLWT)
6:00 - 9:00 pm Networking Night!
Easy Slider
2701 Main St, Dallas, TX 75226
Sunday:
8:30 am Diversity in the Newsroom
Nicole Fruge (San Francisco Chronicle)
Lola Gomez (Dallas Morning News)
Maria Guerrero (NBC 5)
Nataly Keomoungkhoun (D Magazine)
Kelly Wiley (KXAN)
10:00 am Investigative Reporting
Beth Peak (NBC LX)
Kelly Wiley (KXAN)
11:00 am Lunch/Feedback
1:00 pm Let’s Make a Podcast! (Dallas Morning News)
Erin Booke
Sarah Blaskovich
Claire Ballor
2:00 pm Closing Keynote with Paula Bronstein via Zoom on covering Ukraine and Afghanistan
Questions?
For any event related questions please contact Julia Robinson. For issues concerning registration contact [email protected].
Speakers
Mireya Villarreal
National Correspondent, ABC News
Mireya Villarreal is a Dallas-based National Correspondent for ABC News, covering timely stories predominantly in the South. Since joining in December 2021, she has reported across all ABC programs and platforms, including “World News Tonight with David Muir,” “Good Morning America,” “ABC Prime Live” and “Nightline.”
Recently, Mireya was the first network correspondent on the ground and on-air during the Uvalde massacre that left 21 people dead. Initially, she and her team spent a week in the area covering the tragedy and has since been back several times as a part of the network’s Uvalde 365 initiative.
Previously, Mireya served as a national correspondent at CBS News for seven years, covering the Western and Southern regions. She has reported on a wide range of stories, including the Texas weather crisis, COVID-19 vaccination efforts across the South, and immigration along the border. While working for CBS, Mireya was also the first network journalist to investigate and report on sexual harassment allegations at Fort Hood in the disappearance and murder of Vanessa Guillen.
Prior to CBS News, Mireya was the lead investigative reporter at KTVT in Dallas. She began her career as an associate producer in South Texas, quickly transitioning to an on-air role in Laredo, Texas, as the first woman to serve as a sports anchor at KGNS. She also spent time as an investigative reporter in San Antonio at WOAI-TV and KRGV-TV in South Texas.
She has won numerous awards, including several AP awards, three Lone Star Emmys®, and was part of the team that won the 2020 Edward R. Murrow Award for best newscast for in-depth and exclusive coverage from the United States-Mexico border. She was also part of the team that put together a special on the impact of COVID-19 on the Latino community called Pandemia; the project won NAHJ’s 2021 Al Neuharth Award for Investigative Journalism.
Mireya is a mother, highly involved in non-profit work in her community, and passionate about mentoring young journalists.
Paula Bronstein
Independent Photographer
Paula Bronstein is a globally recognized award-winning photojournalist best
known for her work documenting humanity, covering compelling issues with
extensive expertise in many of the world’s conflict regions. She has been the
recipient of numerous awards throughout her long career that spans four
decades, including being nominated finalist for the Breaking News 2011
Pulitzer Prize. Paula is well known for her extensive work in Afghanistan, she
is the author of the internationally acclaimed photo book “Afghanistan:
Between Hope and Fear” University of Texas Press, 2016. Paula was previously a Senior Staff Photographer covering Asia for Getty Images. Paula has been freelance since 2013 and her work has been published globally and exhibited in numerous countries. She is the 2022 winner of the Anja Niedringhaus award and the 2022 IPA Deeper Perspective Photographer Of the Year.
Briana Sanchez
Photo Editor/Photographer, Austin American-Statesman
Briana Sanchez is a visual journalist based in Austin, Texas. She currently works at the Austin American-Statesman, previously the El Paso Times. She is a Chips Quinn scholar, has worked at the Fergus Falls Daily Journal, the West Central Tribune, and the Argus Leader. In 2015, Brianainterned at the St. Cloud Times as part of her Chips Quinn scholars program.
She lived in Minnesota for two years, South Dakota for two years and has lived in Texas for the past four years working as a photojournalist covering the border and central Texas.
Briana is an award winning journalist with images that have appeared in USA Today, Reuters, Associated Press, New York Times and news outlets throughout the country.
Kelly Wiley
Investigative Reporter, KXAN-TV
Kelly Wiley is an award-winning investigative reporter at KXAN-TV in Austin, TX. In Texas, she has taken on investigations ranging from abuse inside Texas schools to gaps in oversight of the state's home building industry. Most recently, she published a four-part series into the state's teacher shortage. She has been honored with two Suncoast Emmy awards for her investigations into a Florida diocese. Kelly got her start in Augusta, Georgia as a multi-media journalist and anchor before joining the investigative team at WJXT in Jacksonville. Kelly was born and raised in Columbia, SC and is a graduate of the University of South Carolina.
Beth Peak
Content Creator, NBCLX
Beth Peak is a Content Creator for NBCLX based out of Dallas and an investigative photojournalist. She’s worked in Denver, Cleveland, Louisville, and Anchorage. Her investigative work includes police transparency, digging into federal data surrounding COVID bonuses and nursing homes, chasing down corrupt judges in parking lots, and looking into cold case homicides. Her work has helped change laws in Kentucky and Ohio. She’s picked up a fair share of Emmys and Murrows along the way. Beth specializes in taking a video poor, mundane story and making it sing, finding ways to make paperwork and data look good on TV, and walking the line between photographer and producer.
Noelle Walker
Reporter, KXAS/NBC 5
Before coming to North Texas, Noelle was a reporter and fill-in anchor in San Francisco and a freelance correspondent for the NBC Network and MSNBC. Noelle has also worked in Los Angles, Minneapolis and Santa Barbara covering everything from feature stories to major news events, including the 9/11 attacks in New York City. She has been recognized for work with several Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards for writing and reporting.
In her spare time, you’ll find Noelle out on a run or urban hike, or trying out a new restaurant. She also likes to cook. She’s known in her previous newsrooms for her secret chocolate chip cookie recipe, which she’ll gladly bake, but never share!
Erin Brooke
Dallas Morning News
Erin Booke is the food editor at The Dallas Morning News, where she has worked for 18 years. Erin is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, is a native Houstonian, and now lives in Plano with her husband, 9-year-old son, and spoiled cattle dog.
Sarah Blaskovich
Dallas Morning News
Sarah Blaskovich is the senior food reporter for The Dallas Morning News. Sarah attended the University of Missouri Journalism School and has minors in fashion and sociology. She's worked at The Dallas Morning News for 10 years. She has two little girls, ages 2 and 6.
Claire Ballor
Dallas Morning News
Claire Ballor is a food reporter for The Dallas Morning News. She previously covered breaking news and local government. Claire attended the University of Dallas and graduated with a degree in English and minors in journalism and international economics. She also had a stint studying Italian cuisine at Scuola di Arte Culinaria Cordon Bleu in Florence.
Victoria Deleon
Natural disasters, social injustice, and mass shootings. Victoria De Leon has covered several crises in just a few years, each time witnessing grief, loss, and pain in the communities she’s served. She’s now a former reporter continuing to advocate for journalists prioritizing their mental health to better tell their communities’ stories.
She was most recently an MMJ at KENS 5 in San Antonio, Texas. Victoria has also worked at KUSA in Denver, Colorado as their Race and Culture Journalist and at KBMT in Beaumont, Texas. Originally from Houston, Texas, she’s happy to be closer to family.
Teresa Woodard
WFAA
Teresa Woodard is a weekend anchor and senior reporter at WFAA-TV, the ABC station in Dallas-Fort Worth. She’s a veteran journalist who started her career in 1997 in radio in College Station, Tex. She then made the move to television and reported and anchored in Waco, Tex., Knoxville, Tenn., and St. Louis, Mo. before landing a job at WFAA – the station she grew up watching every night as a news-loving little girl. Teresa is an Emmy and regional Edward R. Murrow Award recipient. A series of stories on domestic violence reported by Teresa and a team of WFAA journalists won a national Edward R. Murrow Award. She has won Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalism awards for reporting and is a three-time recipient of a Barbara Jordan Media Award, given by the state of Texas to journalists for stories on people of differing abilities. Teresa is a marathoner, a dog lover, a baseball fanatic, and she adores both Bruce Springsteen and George Strait.
Nicole Frugé
Director of Visuals, San Francisco Chronicle
Nicole Frugé is the Director of Visuals for the San Francisco Chronicle, where she leads one of the most diverse metro photo staffs in the nation. Frugé was named the Jim Gordon Photo Editor of the Year in 2019, Photo Editor of the Year in 2018 and the Chronicle's photo editors were twice named the Picture Editing Team of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association’s Best of Photojournalism contest in 2014 and 2017. Before photo editing, she spent ten years working as a staff photographer for newspapers in Texas and Florida. She covered the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, as well as long term documentary stories on social issues and the environment for the San Antonio Express-News.
Acacia Coronado
Associated Press
Acacia covers Texas news and politics for The Associated Press in her hometown of Austin, TX. Before working with AP, she interned with publications including The Texas Observer, The Texas Tribune and The Wall Street Journal. She graduated in 2019 from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor of journalism degree and a certificate in human rights and social justice.
Maria Guerrero
KXAS/NBC 5
Maria Guerrero is a bilingual journalist with over 15 years of experience in local television news. Maria’s career has taken her from Louisiana to the Midwest, Southwest, Pacific Northwest and back home to Texas. She joined KXAS NBC 5 in 2017 as a general assignment reporter. Maria also contributes to sister station Telemundo 39.
Neima Abdulahi
WXIA
Neima Abdulahi is an Emmy-nominated and award-winning journalist who has carved out a niche style of storytelling that pinpoints the dynamic intersection of culture, social justice and entertainment. Neima has earned credibility in the media industry working in top TV markets, serving as the Global News Anchor of Revolt TV along with being an Atlanta-based culture journalist for NBC Atlanta’s 11Alive News. She started her career as a general assignment reporter for FOX46 Charlotte.Her journalistic skills and expertise has been featured on VH1, CNN, MTV, FOX Soul, VIBE Magazine, Right This Minute, Will Packer Productions’ Central Ave show, and several other credible platforms. Over the years, Neima has landed interviews with well-known voices such as Killer Mike, Charlamagne Tha God, Tamika Mallory, ambassador Andy Young, T.I., Senator Cory Booker, Bubba Wallace, Lil Baby, Gucci Mane, and the list goes on. Her unique perspective on the state of the culture helps facilitate necessary conversations with a wide-range of influential figures. Neima is a graduate of Elon University and a proud member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the prestigious Emma Bowen Foundation.
Pu Ying Huang
Photo Editor, Texas Tribune
Pu Ying Huang is the photo editor at The Texas Tribune, where she works with a vast network of freelancers across the state on news assignments and photo stories. Huang was previously a freelance photojournalist in Houston working for a range of national and local outlets. She then spent 3 years in Colombia honing in on Spanish and working on stories about migration before moving back to her home state of Texas. At the Tribune, Huang focuses on producing visuals that highlight the experiences of Texans impacted by state politics and public policy.
Lisa Krantz
University of Missouri
Lisa Krantz is a PhD student and teaching fellow at the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. Her research stems from her personal experiences as a photojournalist for the past 25 years and focuses on the intersection of journalism and trauma, an area she also studied during a fellowship with the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard from 2019-2020 and as an Ochberg Fellow with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma in 2017. She is studying how journalists cover mass shootings, including the impact journalists have on survivors, victims’ families and communities the tragedies occur in, and how covering traumatic events affects journalists themselves. She was a staff photographer at the San Antonio Express-News, Naples Daily News and an adjunct professor at Texas A&M-San Antonio. She is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist in Feature Photography and her work has also been recognized by Pictures of the Year International, World Press Photo, NPPA's Best of Photojournalism and the Scripps Howard Awards. In 2019, she received the NPPA's highest honor, the Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award.
Lola Gomez
Dallas Morning News
Lola Gomez is a visual journalist based in Dallas, Texas. Born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, Gomez moved to the United States in 2009 to reinvent herself pursuing her true passion, a career in photojournalism. In 2013, she graduated with high honors from the Southeast Center for Photographic Studies in Daytona Beach, FL.
Gomez has worked for newspapers in the state of Florida such as the Orlando Sentinel and The Daytona Beach News-Journal covering stories about migrants, the opioid crisis in Volusia County, NASCAR races and the aftermath of several devastating hurricanes, including Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. In 2019 Gomez moved to Texas to work with the Austin American-Statesman where she documented the pain of the Latino community covering the aftermath of the Wal-Mart shooting rampage in El Paso, and the COVID-19 pandemic as she was one of the first group of journalists to caught the virus while covering the health crisis. In late 2020, she joined the team at The Dallas Morning News covering breaking news to high-profile sports, severe weather, and spending time on the US-Mexico border. On a recent storytelling trip to the border, she produced an investigative video about Operation Lone Star, an attempt by Texas Governor Greg Abbott to block migration across the border with Mexico.
Benefitting from these publications in sharpening her photojournalistic skills, Gomez is also gaining professional experience and furthering her education in video, all of which are the building blocks to fulfilling her career's course towards humanitarian- and social-photojournalism.
Jill Karnicki
Houston Chronicle
Jill Karnicki is an award-winning photo editor at the Houston Chronicle. During her 15 years there, she has helped lead a team of incredibly talented visual journalists through every situation Texas can throw at them. She feels she is at her best when she is helping the staff achieve their highest level of work possible all while pushing them beyond their comfort zones to help them grow in this ever-changing industry.
Before coming to the Houston Chronicle, Jill was a photo editor at the Washington Post for two years. Prior to that, she spent 7 years as the chief photographer for three Los Angeles Times community newspapers photographing everything from little league to the Dodgers.
Jill is also a proud dog mom, live music seeker, needlepoint enthusiast, wanna-be violin player, tap dancer, and fan of all people and things that are positive and good.
Leslie McCardel
WFAA
Leslie McCardel is the Executive News Director at WFAA in North Texas. She was
promoted to News Director in 2019 from Assistant News Director, a role she returned to WFAA for in May 2017. Leslie oversees day-to-day operations for the newsroom. Leslie notes her planning and strategy skills are a match for the transformation underway in the journalism industry and her leadership style helps her lead the large and talented team of journalists through this time.
As News Director Leslie is proud her team has brought home countless Emmys, one of which was nominated for a National Emmy, several Regional Edward R. Murrow awards, including a National Edward R. Murrow in 2021 for breaking news, four National Press Photographers Association Station of the Year awards in the last five years, and many other recognitions for WFAA’s high level storytelling, investigative journalism, and specialized reporting like health and politics.
Leslie left WFAA in 2015 as the Cross-Platform Content Manager to be a stay-at-home mom to her three kids. Her biggest takeaway during that time was how the average person consumes news. She noticed people were mostly on mobile and that TV was an afterthought. It would be essential for local news to reach people in new and different ways to remain
relevant.
After the July 7 ambush killing of 5 Dallas police officers and the 2016 election she realized her heart was still in Texas and in news. On December 31, 2016 in a game of scrabble she grabbed 4 random tiles. Those four letters were W-F-A-A. It was then she knew it was time to return.
Leslie is an adopted Texan, originally from Southern California. Leslie is the youngest of six and the only girl. She graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with an entrepreneurship degree. She started her news career in production, then producing, while in school at KSBY. She turned down a high salary sales job to follow her passion in journalism. She started her big market career on the assignment desk at KHOU in 2003 and immediately fell in love with Texas. She was hired at WFAA in 2006 and was quickly promoted to the lead assignment desk role and eventually moved into an editorial management role in 2007.
When Leslie is not at work, she and her husband keep a busy schedule for their 14-year old son and twin 12-year old girls. She loves sports, exercise, making people laugh and relaxing with friends and family.
Megan Mitchell
Megan Mitchell is an Emmy-Award winning anchor and reporter. Since 2016, she has anchored the #1 weekend morning news show with a dedicated audience. In 2022, Megan was selected to field-anchor the morning show from Los Angeles for 9 days during the Bengals' historic Super Bowl run. Megan is an LGBTQ+ TikToker with 1.8 million followers and diversity speaker, sharing her story of living an authentic life. She was named Best TV Anchor and Best Journalist by the Best of Cincinnati Awards and a received 3rd Place for Cincinnatian of the year. Megan was named a 2022 LGBTQ+ TikTok Trailblazer. She was also selected to be a 2022 Curve Award Fellow, given to female and non-binary journalists for their work covering LGBTQ+ issues.
In her first job out of college, Megan was the morning anchor in Bismarck, North Dakota. She was the first reporter to break the story of the Standing Rock Reservation’s opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, which caused international uproar. In 2017, Megan's work received first place out of every local news station in the country by the National Association of LGBTQ Journalists (NLGJA) for her documentary covering Two Spirit Native Americans. She received the award for Best TV News Reporter in the state from the North Dakota Broadcast Association and a dozen other local broadcast awards.
She grew up in Brookfield, CT and graduated from Emerson College in 2014 with a B.S. in Broadcast Journalism.
Event Organizers
Katie Eastman
Katie is a reporter at 9News in Denver, Colorado where she shoots and edits her own stories.
Every day she hopes to make you understand the people she gets to meet in hopes of bringing us all closer as a community.
Her stories have won five Emmy awards and earned her numerous accolades within the National Press Photographers Association.
While at 9News, she's had the privilege of riding in a Sno-Cat during a bomb cyclone snowstorm, traveling to California to report from the fire ravaged town of Paradise and meeting kids who truly defy all odds.
Katie worked at the Boston Herald as a video journalist and was running the Boston Marathon in 2013 when the bombs went off. She spent much of her time there telling stories of the survivors, and that race will always hold a special place in her heart.
After graduating from Emerson College in 2011, Katie began her career in Des Moines, Iowa as a reporter at the ABC affiliate, WOI. While there, she got a few cameos on the Colbert Report and became known as the "Intrepid Cub Reporter."
Katie is originally from Maine, and when she's not at work, she's adventuring with her husband, Ciaran.
Tiffany Liou
Tiffany Liou is a Taiwanese American reporter at WFAA in Dallas. With a business degree, she left a cushy corporate marketing job to pursue her curiosity of journalism, and she never looked back.
In just over four years, she learned the industry hands-on in California, Louisiana, Iowa and Oklahoma. Tiffany then landed a job at WFAA in 2018.
Tiffany is proud to haul around her gear, turning down “reporter” positions for MMJ spots. She loves the whole process and believes it makes her a stronger journalist. She’s been able to tell stories around the world. Her most memorable experience was soloing in Haiti.
Tiffany is co-president of the Asian American Journalism Association Texas Chapter. She's taken home a few Emmy, Texas AP, RTDNA, and NPPA awards.
When Tiffany is not busy turning daily stories, you’ll find her on a plane/beach/mountain, with her dogs, holding a camera, or all of the above. She's also a first-time mom to a beautiful baby boy.
Julia Robinson
Julia is an independent photojournalist based in Austin, Texas. She began as a staff photographer for large metropolitan dailies and small-town newspapers across the US covering everything from house fires to professional sports. She returned to her hometown in 2009 and covers the great state of Texas for clients including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
