Faculty
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Boyd Huppert
Boyd Huppert recently marked his 27th year as a reporter, including 15 years at KARE-TV in Minneapolis. During that time Boyd has become widely known for his work as a storyteller and teacher.
Boyd has presented more than 100 storytelling sessions – many with KARE photojournalist Jonathan Malat – at venues including Poynter Institute, National Writers Workshop, Danish Broadcasting, TV New Zealand and NRK in Oslo, Norway. He’s been part of the faculty at NPPA’s Advanced Storytelling Workshop for more than a decade.
Boyd grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. Prior to his arrival at KARE, he spent time at WSAW-TV in Wausau, Wisconsin, KETV in Omaha and WITI-TV in Milwaukee. Boyd and his wife Sheri have two sons, Sam and Matt, in college.
Boyd’s work has earned some of broadcast journalism’s top honors, including a national Emmy for feature reporting, the National Headliner Grand Award, three national Sigma Delta Chi awards and seven National Edward R. Murrow Awards. Boyd is also a five-time recipient of the NPPA’s Photojournalism Award for Reporting.
Steve Sweitzer
Steve Sweitzer has over thirty years of broadcast TV news experience; shooting, writing, editing, field producing and operations management.
Among his numerous awards, he has been Indiana News Photographer of the Year and taken a first place in the Associated Press reporting category. He is the owner of Sweitzer Productions, a multimedia services company. For fourteen years Steve taught a variety of courses for the Journalism Department at Indiana University Purdue University (IUPUI) where he received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching; the school highest honor for a part-time faculty member.
He is a past president of the National Press Photographers Association and has received their Sprague Award, their highest honor for his achievements and contributions to the field of photojournalism.
Steve helped create this workshop and is its chair. He also chaired the Airborne TV Seminar and, with the assistance of the Poynter Institute, he created the Virtual Video Workshop.
Michelle Michael
Michelle Michael is an award winning backpack video journalist. She is a two time National Press Photographer’s Association Solo Video Journalist of the Year. Michelle is the journalist, camera”woman”, editor, and producer on all her stories. Before veteran reporters were forced to pick up cameras, Michelle chose one man banding. She left her job in local television news in 2003 and moved to Germany to work for the American Forces Network Europe. She spent the last decade traveling Europe and the Middle East, telling stories that affect military members and their families. Her work is seen is 56 countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Michelle is currently based in Dayton, Ohio at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. She loves to share her passion for the craft. She has taught at the NPPA Advanced Storytelling Workshop, the NPPA Platypus Workshop, the Poynter Institute, and the Ohio News Photographer’s Seminar. She is honored and grateful to be back to pay it forward! She is a proud graduate of the Ohio University Scripps School of Journalism. Michelle’s 6 year old son, Keegan, is the best story she’s told to date. Michelle lives by the motto: “Make that most out of your ordinary days, because that’s what most of your days are going to be.” Her biggest pet peeve is when someone asks, “Where is your camera man?”
Among Michelle’s many awards, she has won the title of 2011 and 2008 NPPA Solo Video Journalist of the Year. She has won the 2004 Radio and Television News Directors Foundation’s, Barney Oldfield Award for National Security Reporting. She has also won awards from the Ohio AP for Best Reporting, Best Spot News Coverage and Best Continuing Coverage.
Bev Chapman
Bev Chapman is a five-time Emmy award winning writer and reporter who’s worked for KMBC TV in Kansas City for over 25 years.
She’s worked as an anchor, weather caster, covered sports, politics and breaking news.
Some of her most high-profile stories took her to Thailand, Sri Lanka, Spain, Vietnam, France, Africa, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.
After 35 years of meeting deadlines, Bev quit full-time general assignment reporting and switched to “Special Projects” and freelance video production two years ago. She now shoots HD video and is editing on Final Cut Pro.
Bev is currently working on a documentary about a mountain climber.
Bev has won several Emmy’s and is a recipient of three prestigious regional Edward R. Murrow Awards. She has also won several state and local honors for feature and investigative reporting. Her documentary work is included in the collection of the Museum of Broadcast History in Chicago.
Brett Akagi
John Goheen
Few others have experienced life as a journalist the way John C.P. Goheen has; having covered virtually every type of natural disaster to include a deadly tsunami, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, tornados and more. He has covered many major national and international stories often working alone in harsh and high-risk environments. These assignments have garnered him countless accolades to include being named the National Press Photographer of the Year 3 consecutive times.
Goheen is well known for his unique style of storytelling…merging great images with great sound…no matter the topic. His work has served as an example to many current day one-man-bands as a model of how to work alone to achieve success while presenting powerful and engaging stories.
Today Goheen splits his time between freelancing and teaching. In 2010, he became a full-time faculty member of Loyola University Chicago’s School of Communication where he teaches video production and documentary filmmaking.