DuCille Named Assistant Managing Editor/Photography At Washington Post
WASHINGTON, DC (September 25, 2007) - Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Michel duCille has been named the assistant managing editor for photography at The Washington Post, executive editor Len Downie told the newspaper's staff this afternoon.
"I'm excited about having the full support from Phil [Bennett, managing editor] and Len to completely re-engineer the picture desk, and to invigorate the photography department with a strong multimedia component," duCille told News Photographer magazine this afternoon.
DuCille, 51, a native of Kingston, Jamaica, will assume his new role on November 1. "Joe [Elbert] will be around for a few weeks to help out with the transition, and then he's going to be going on to shoot special projects," duCille said. "He's got ideas that he's already working on." Elbert announced in July 2003 that he wanted to step down from the AME job and go back to shooting before he retires from the Post.
"Michel is one of the outstanding photojournalists of his generation," Downie wrote in a memo to the Post's staff today. "He came to The Washington Post in 1988 as picture editor under Joe Elbert. Together, they built a leading newspaper photography department, whose photojournalists won three Pulitzer Prizes and numerous Photographer of the Year awards in national competitions. Two years ago, Michel returned to shooting and produced memorable photography for the newspaper's front page and the groundbreaking 'Being a Black Man' project. He also plunged into the creation of photo galleries for the Web ... At a time when visual journalism is more important than ever to the future of The Washington Post in print and on the Web, we are fortunate to have Michel leading the way."
Now, just when duCille was practicing his new multimedia skills as a street shooter, he's been asked by Downie and Bennett to take the Post's photography department up to the next level. "There's a mandate, and maybe it's a self-imposed mandate but I truly believe this, there's a mandate for The Washington Post's photographers to grow to a new, higher level," duCille said today. "Not just with multimedia, but to a level where the newsroom understands us and treats us like we're full partners. New mechanisms will be put into place in the management team and on the picture desk to help guide the photographers and to help them with their responsibilities of being photojournalists."
Asked why he would give up his role as a working photojournalist once again to return to management, duCille paused before saying, "I'm doing this for the staff, and for photojournalism, and for the Post."
Recently duCille has been adding audio components to his still photographs, easing into multimedia, and he was just getting ready to start shooting video when Downie presented him with the challenge of his new role. "I'll probably still start shooting video," duCille said, "but I absolutely love the audio, and I'm working on some stories now that I'm going to have to wrap up before November."
In June 2005, duCille decided he wanted to leave the Post's picture desk - where he'd been an editor since 1988 - to shoot again. At that time he was the Post's deputy assistant managing editor for photography. When he came to Washington from The Miami Herald, where he won two Pulitzer Prizes for photography, Elbert has said that he wasn't sure he'd be able to keep the photographer happy with just being on the desk. But it was nearly two decades later before duCille said "enough" to his management role and asked to go back behind a camera for the newspaper.
In 1986 duCille shared a Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography with fellow Herald staffer Carol Guzy for their coverage of the Nevado Del Ruiz volcano in November, 1985. In 1988 he won a solo Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for a photography essay about crack cocaine addicts in a Miami housing project that was published in the Herald's magazine, Tropic. Since then, as a Post photographer he's been on assignment in Iraq, Sudan, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
Over the years duCille has been active in NPPA in various committee and leadership roles, including serving as the executive committee board representative in 2000, and he served on the organization's finance committee during a particularly difficult budgetary time in the early part of this decade. He has also served as a Pulitzer judge in the photography categories. DuCille has a journalism degree from Indiana University in Bloomington, and a graduate journalism degree from Ohio University in Athens. While studying at Indiana University he was a photographer and picture editor at the Indiana Daily Student, and he also shot for the Louisville Courier-Journal before moving to the Herald. While in high school in Gainesville, GA, he worked full time as a photographer for the Gainesville Times.
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