Three members of the staff and faculty at the Missouri School of Journalism and the School’s Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) have won top awards from the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA). Jackie Bell, Marie D. De Jesús and Kat Duncan each earned honors recognizing their efforts to support visual journalism.

“Jackie, Marie and Kat have different roles, but they all work to keep community journalism alive and vital,” said Randy Picht, executive director of RJI. “Visual journalism is an important part of that mission, and it’s exciting to see these leaders and educators recognized for approaching the field from different angles.”

Jackie Bell

Jackie Bell, co-director of RJI’s College Photographer of the Year competition and a professor of photojournalism at the School, won the Mentorship Award for her guidance of students and young visual journalists in 25 years at the School of Journalism.

Also drawing on nearly two decades of professional experience in photojournalism prior to her work in higher education, she not only instructs students as a teacher but helps CPOY entrants all over the world through the process of submitting their best work, especially now that the competition reaches more than a quarter of the countries in the world.

“With CPOY, the mentoring has kind of gone on steroids because I feel like a teacher to kids around the world,” Bell said. “That’s kind of strange, because I’m not their teacher, but I feel like their entry into CPOY has helped educate them.”

Bell brought Bangladeshi student Jahid Apu, winner of the Gold award in the General News category in this year’s CPOY competition, to the School of Journalism last month to talk about his photography and connect with expert photojournalists, such as New York Times Photo Editor Eve Edelheit, BJ ‘11. In a separate message to Bell, Apu described what her support had meant to him.

“Meeting you and learning from you has been one of the most crucial moments in my career,” Apu said. “I’ve never had the chance to connect with a photography professor who has had such a profound impact on me before. Your guidance came at the perfect time and gave me the direction I needed.”

Marie D. De Jesús

Marie D. De Jesús, director of RJI’s Pictures of the Year (POY) competition and co-director of CPOY, earned the Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the NPPA from staff members and volunteers.

De Jesús served as president of the NPPA from 2022-2024 and previously served as the organization’s national secretary beginning in 2018. As secretary, she first co-chaired, then led the NPPA Mentorship Program, which pairs students with professional mentors (as director of POY, she also brought amentorship program to this year’s competition that saw professionals work with student volunteers to recognize ethical issues and other details as they received submissions).

“As secretary, being chair of the mentorship program was my baby,” De Jesús said. “It gave me an opportunity to meet a lot of people in the industry and get them excited.”

Her term as president came at a crucial time for the NPPA, which — like the industry as a whole — had been dealt a blow by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In that moment in which everyone was impacted in one way or another, the lack of energy was palpable and people were affected,” De Jesús said. “It was great to come in and re-energize the members and the leadership and give NPPA a shift in who we were as an association.”

Now, De Jesús said she feels proud to look on as the diverse group of leaders and staffers she brought into the association carry the torch forward and put a modern, relatable face on an organization that — like POY and CPOY — has existed since the 1940’s.

Kat Duncan

Kat Duncan, director of innovation at RJI, was honored with the Innovation Award, which celebrates those who help develop new technologies or strategies to support the field of visual journalism.

Duncan oversees the RJI Fellowship program, which tasks a cohort of industry professionals with creating practical, open-source solutions to challenges faced by community newsrooms. Last year, Fellows Michelle Kanaar and Alyssa Schukar created a Visual Journalism Toolkit designed to help editors make visuals a more significant and impactful part of their organization’s journalism.

“I think visual departments often feel a little overlooked in innovation and experimentation, and helping them make the space to try new ideas is really exciting,” Duncan said. “I’ve tried really hard to work with photo staff and freelancers to help them realize that they can also create new ways to tell stories. When they see that the opportunity is out there, it goes a long way toward encouraging them to experiment and innovate.”

Duncan also coordinates the Student Innovation Competition, in which teams of students from around the country compete to create and test resources that serve community newsrooms. In addition, she has worked with The Kalish, an annual visual storytelling workshop, to mentor photojournalism students at the Missouri School of Journalism.

She added that the recognition from the NPPA serves as a call to action for visual journalists to act on their creative ideas.

“We don’t get as many visual pitches as we get other types, and I would really like to encourage visual storytellers to apply for our programs,” Duncan said. “There is a lot of opportunity in that space, and it’s really needed.”

---

Cite this article

Miller, Benjamin (2025, May 12). Trio of industry leaders at Missouri School of Journalism and Reynolds Journalism Institute win esteemed NPPA Awards. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/trio-of-industry-leaders-at-missouri-school-of-journalism-and-reynolds-journalism-institute-win-esteemed-nppa-awards/