DURHAM, NC (April 21, 2007) – The National Press Photographers Association’s Honors & Recognition Committee today announced that John Long and Kenny Irby are winners of the 2007 Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Awards, the organization’s highest honor.
Long recently retired from a 35-year career as a photojournalist and picture editor at The Hartford Courant and is an NPPA past president. For almost as many years he’s been NPPA’s voice on matters of ethics and standards, and he led NPPA through a complete rewrite of the Code of Ethics as photojournalism entered the digital era.
Irby, a long-time voice on visual ethics, is the Visual Journalism Group Leader and Diversity Director for The Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, FL. He’s been a Pulitzer Prize juror and chair, and before his career at Poynter was a photojournalist and editor for Newsday and The Oakland Press.
“Both of this year’s Sprague Award winners are two of the leading voices in photojournalism ethics,” NPPA past president Alicia Wagner Calzada said. She’s also chair of the Honors & Recognition committee that picked this year’s honorees. “It’s not something that the committee did on purpose, but I think that it’s very telling about the importance of ethics to the photojournalism industry.”
Long and Irby will be presented with their Sprague Awards at a banquet on June 2 during NPPA’s Photojournalism Summit and Multimedia Immersion Program in Portland, OR. In addition to the Sprague Awards, the Joseph Costa Award and the Jim Gordon Editor of the Year Award will be presented at the banquet along with the 2007 Best Of Photojournalism awards in the still photography, picture editing, television photography and editing, and Web categories.
Established in 1949, the Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award is presented to not more than two individuals each year and it is granted only if achievement is, in the opinion of the committee, of a sufficiently high standard. The Sprague Award may be given to a working photojournalist who advances, elevates, or attains unusual recognition for the profession of photojournalism by conduct, initiative, leadership, skill, and devotion to duty; or to a non-photojournalist whose unusual service or achievements have been beneficial to photojournalism, or for an outstanding technology advance in equipment or processes.
Sprague was a press technical representative for Graflex Corp., Rochester, NY. The firm manufactured Graflex and Speed and Crown Graphic cameras and flash units. Sprague is credited with the design of the Big Bertha, Magic Eye, and Combat Camera, and dozens of refinements to the Speed Graphic. He died in 1947.
“I am deeply honored and humbled by this award,” Long said. “I like the fact that it gives recognition to the important place ethics has within NPPA. I want to thank the committee and tell them that I will continue to push our ideals as best I can.”
Long graduated from Catholic University in Washington, DC, in 1967 where he studied English and Philosophy and was in seminary for three years (following four years of seminary in high school). He came home to Connecticut to teach English at East Catholic High School in Manchester, near Hartford, and started a photography club at school and began to shoot weddings on the side.
In 1971, The Hartford Courant was looking for a new staff photographer and one of their qualifications was that they were also looking for someone who could write good captions. With a degree in English and three years of teaching it, Long seemed qualified. “So they hired me and said, ‘Don’t worry about the photography, we can train you in that, just write captions,’” Long told News Photographer magazine earlier this year, recalling that his photographic portfolio held nothing more than wedding pictures and portraits. “I literally had one published photo in my life when I walked in there, a spot news picture shot in Washington that I’d sold to the Star.”
“The guys at the newspaper may have taught me photography, but NPPA taught me how to be a photojournalist,” Long said after he retired from the Courant.
Over the years Long and Irby have collaborated many times to address ethical problems and issues that came up as the industry continues to change and evolve.
“This is indeed the highest honor of my photojournalism career,” Irby told News Photographer magazine. “I trust and hope that I am worthy of the huge privilege. I accepted many years ago that I was no longer a practicing photojournalist; one who makes my primary contributions with a camera anymore. Albeit, today I am every bit as dedicated about the value, importance, and responsibility of our craft. For the last 15 years I've have dedicated my professional life to upholding the values embodied within NPPA: excellence, education, and ethics.”
“As an original participant in the Electronic Photojournalism Workshop in 1989, I was assigned by Bob Haiman (who was then the president and managing director of the Poynter) during the 1997 NPPA annual convention and board of directors meeting to start this unique liaison and support relationship between Poynter and NPPA. It’s my hope that our mutual efforts have enriched journalism, aided democracy, and strengthened both institutions.”
Irby has been the Visual Journalism Group Leader for Poynter for 12 years. He recently served as a chair and juror for the Pulitzer Prizes, and he’s a member of the Eddie Adams Workshop board. Irby is also a member of NPPA’s Best Of Photojournalism Contest Committee, and serves as Poyter’s representative to the BOP contest (which is hosted annually in Florida by Poynter).
Earlier in his career Irby was a picture editor for Newsday, contributing as an editor to three Pulitzer Prize-winning projects published by the newspaper. At Newsday he had also worked as a photographer and as their deputy director of photography. He’s also been a photographer and an assistant picture editor for The Oakland Press, and is a photojournalism graduate of Boston University in 1983. In 1988 he was a Multicultural Management Fellow at the University of Missouri. Irby was the 1999 winner of NPPA’s Joseph Costa Award and a 2002 NPPA President’s Award.
Read more about the upcoming Photojournalism Summit and Multimedia Immersion Program
