The Washington Journalism and Media Conference

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Faculty Advisor

Abrianna Nelson

ABRIANNA NELSON

Faculty Advisor

Abrianna Nelson, CJE, teaches journalism and advises newspaper, yearbook, broadcast, and literary magazine at Washington-Liberty High School in Arlington, Va. She also serves as a Curriculum Coordinator for the Journalism Education Association’s Curriculum Initiative; previously she served as the Entrepreneurship Module Leader from 2013-2017. Additionally, Nelson previously advised newspaper and yearbook at Pleasant Ridge High School in Easton, Kan from 2011-2014. She majored in journalism and history at Washington and Lee University and interned with the Fairfax County Times and USA Today. Nelson also holds an M.A.Ed. in Education from The College of William and Mary and an Ed.S. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Virginia. Her specialties include web-based journalism and social media. In her free time, Nelson enjoys creative writing, binge-watching, rock climbing, and triathlon training.

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Faculty Advisor

Katie Fletcher

KATIE FLETCHER

Faculty Advisor

Katie Fletcher is a born and bred Texan. After getting her BA in Political Science and English from Texas Tech University, Katie began her teaching career.  She currently teaches at the alma mater of Roy Orbison, in a tiny town whose population numbers less than 1,000. As the Fine Arts department at her school, Katie is responsible for overseeing the production of the school-wide yearbook and numerous photographs that are featured in the local county newspaper, as well as all Art classes. She is in her eleventh year of teaching Journalism. Outside the classroom, Katie is a co-advisor for Student Council where she works closely with students in serving both the school and local community. She’s passionate about the leadership characteristics and qualities that StuCo & WJMC nourish and finds great joy in seeing her students thrive. Katie helped lead StuCo to the Texas Sweepstakes Award for the past 12 years and the National Gold Council of Excellence Award for 7 consecutive years. In her free time, Katie is an enthusiastic photographer, reader, concert attendant, sports fanatic, spades player, and traveler. She’s very excited to be back at such a prestigious conference and can’t wait for the adventure to begin!

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Faculty Advisor

Justin Turner

JUSTIN TURNER

Faculty Advisor

Justin Turner has taught journalism and advised yearbooks, newspapers, and literary magazines for 13 years.  In that time he’s found his passion: supporting students, the 1st amendment, and the power of those to things together. Justin’s staffs have won numerous state and national awards including gold medals, first divisions, individual write off awards, Arkansas’s top honor, the All-Arkansas award, and has placed in the top 10 best of show at a JEA/NSPA convention. Justin was named the 2020 Arkansas Adviser of the Year. This will be Justin’s seventh WJMC and he’s incredibly excited to help our newest correspondents make the best of their opportunity.

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Leadership

Sue Muraida

SUE MURAIDA

Coordinator

Sue Muraida is a best-selling author, speaker, and pursuer of abundant life. Over the past 30 years, she has worked as a medical photographer, photojournalist, leadership trainer, writer, and teacher. Sue has published three books, Change For a Penny, The Silent Sound of Darkness, and her memoir Going Back For Me, as well as co-authored the anthology Deserts To Mountaintops: Our Collective Journey To (Re)Claiming Our Voice. She is currently the program director for Humanities North Dakota.

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Speakers

Rodger Smith

RODGER SMITH

Instructor, Communication Minor Director & WGMU Faculty Advisor, George Mason University

Professor Rodger Smith is a professor of Communication at George Mason University. He is currently teaching COMM 359 Media Management, COMM 148 Radio Workshop 1, COMM 354 Radio Production, COMM 348 Radio Workshop 2 and COMM 372 Sports and the Media.

He is currently the faculty advisor for WGMU, the campus online radio station. Professor Smith’s interest in Communications came from an interest in the cause and effect of programming and how the media affects culture, daily life and technology. His previous work in radio includes working for WFTR Front Royal, Virginia where he was a news director (1986-1988), sports director and mid-day on-air talent (1988-1989) and a morning drive personality (1990-1992). He also worked as an advertising/production director for WUSQ Winchester.

Professor Smith was honored in Who’s Who in the Media and Communications in 1997-1998. Professor Smith also serves as the public address announcer for football and basketball games at his Alma Mater, Warren County High School in Front Royal, VA.

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Speakers

Tom Jackman

TOM JACKMAN

Reporter, The Washington Post

Tom Jackman is a multimedia journalist who has worked at The Washington Post since 1998. Before that he covered crime and courts for The Kansas City Star, where he also wrote a best-selling book about a serial killer, penned a weekly column and hosted a weekly TV show.  At the Post, Tom led the trial coverage of the D.C. sniper case, and he was the lead writer on The Post’s breaking news stories about the Virginia Tech massacre, which won a Pulitzer Prize. More recently he has closely covered the issue of police violence and the ongoing prosecution of those who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The Post’s coverage of the Capitol riot won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for public service. Tom also writes The Post’s “True Crime” blog covering crime and justice issues nationwide, shooting photos and videos with some stories, and hosts national “Washington Post Live” interviews with top American police officials.

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Speakers

Kevin McCarthy

KEVIN MCCARTHY

Entertainment Reporter and Film Critic, Fox 5

Kevin McCarthy is a film critic and entertainment reporter in the Washington D.C. area.  Kevin reviews films locally for Fox 5, nationally for Fox and Friends and on the local D.C. radio station 106.7FM The Fan with “The Sports Junkies.” Kevin graduated from George Mason University in the spring of 2006 and majored in Communications with a concentration in Media Production and Criticism. While attending George Mason University, Kevin took an internship at CBS RADIO where he jumpstarted his film reviewing career. In the summer of 2007 after dressing up as a Washington Wizards cheerleader (yes, this is how he got the job), Kevin was hired as a freelance movie reviewer for the FOX 5 Morning News where he now also contributes as an entertainment reporter. Kevin’s job involves watching films and interviewing the filmmakers behind each project. He is known for his conversational writing style and unique rating system. If you’re wondering, his favorite films of all-time are “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and “True Romance.” Kevin’s favorite filmmakers of all-time include Quentin Tarantino, Alfred Hitchcock, Christopher Nolan, Kevin Smith and Robert Rodriguez. Kevin’s dream is to one day be a filmmaker. Kevin’s wife, Lauren Veneziani, is also a film critic in the D.C./Baltimore area. The two met in a movie theatre in 2012 and currently live in Maryland with their two dogs, Jack and Sally – named after the famous characters in Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Kevin also currently co-hosts a film podcast called “ReelBlend” where filmmakers join weekly to talk about their films. Guests on the show have included Joaquin Phoenix, Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, and Christopher Nolan.

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Speakers

Carol Guzy

CAROL GUZY

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photojournalist

Carol Guzy is one of only four people who have won four Pulitzer Prizes. As a young girl, she always wanted to be an artist. But as she was coming of age in a working-class family in Bethlehem, Pa., such an ambition seemed impossible. Encouraged to “do something practical,” she went to nursing school and soon realized she could not be a nurse. After a friend gave her a camera and she took a photography course, her fascination with photography led to an internship and then a job at the Miami Herald. In 1988 she moved to The Washington Post. In 1990, Guzy was the first woman to receive the Newspaper Photographer of the Year Award, presented by the National Press Photographers Association. Guzy credits the nursing program with giving her an understanding of and sensitivity to human suffering and believes that her photographs would be different without that background.

Guzy spent months on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and not only documented its impact on the animals of the region, but rescued two dogs by bringing them home with her.

She has received numerous awards for her work. She has been honored twice with the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography for her coverage of the military intervention in Haiti and the devastating mudslide in Armero, Colombia. She has received a third Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for her work in Kosovo and her fourth Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for coverage of the Haitian earthquake in 2010.

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Speakers

Brian Lamb

BRIAN LAMB

Executive Chair and Retired CEO, C-SPAN

Brian Lamb is the retired CEO of C-SPAN Networks and now serves as Executive Chairman of its Board of Directors. He’s been at the helm of the public affairs channel since he helped the cable industry launch it on March 19, 1979.

Today, C-SPAN employs approximately 270 people and delivers public affairs programming on three television channels to the nation’s cable and satellite customers; globally to Internet via C-SPAN.org and 15 other internet sites; and to radio listeners through C-SPAN radio—an FM station in Washington that can also be heard on XM satellite service nationwide.

Brian has also been a regular on-air presence at C-SPAN since the network’s earliest days. Over the years, he has interviewed Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush and many world leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev. For 15 years, beginning in 1989, he interviewed 800 non-fiction authors for a weekly program known as Booknotes. Four books of collected interviews have been published based on the Booknotes series. Currently, Brian hosts Q and A, an hour long interview program on Sunday evening with people who are making things happen in politics, media, education or technology.

Brian Lamb is a Hoosier, born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana. Interested in broadcasting as a child, he built crystal radio sets to pick up local signals. During high school and college, he sought out jobs at Lafayette radio and television stations, spinning records, selling ads, and eventually hosting his own television program.

After graduating from Purdue with a degree in speech, Brian joined the Navy. His tour included the USS Thuban, White House duty during the Johnson Administration and a stint in the Pentagon public affairs office during the Vietnam War.

In 1967, his navy service complete, Brian returned home to Lafayette. However, it wasn’t long before he returned to the nation’s capital where he began as a freelance reporter for UPI radio. Later, he served as a Senate press secretary and worked for the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy at a time when a national strategy was being developed for communications satellites.

In 1974, Brian returned to journalism, publishing a biweekly newsletter called The Media Report. He also covered telecommunications issues as Washington bureau chief for Cablevision Magazine. It was from this vantage point that C-SPAN began to take shape. Congress was about to televise its proceedings; the cable industry was looking for programming to deliver to its customers by satellite. Brian brought these two ideas together with C-SPAN, which launched with the first televised House of Representatives debate on March 19, 1979.

Brian and his wife Victoria are longtime residents of Arlington, Virginia. When he’s not reading newspapers or non-fiction books, Brian is often in hot pursuit of the latest country music release.

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Speakers

Susan Goldberg

SUSAN GOLDBERG

Editorial Director, National Geographic Partners, and Editor in Chief, National Geographic Magazine

Susan Goldberg is editor in chief of National Geographic and editorial director of National Geographic Partners.  As editorial director, she leads all journalism across platforms, including digital journalism, magazines, podcasts, maps, newsletters, and Instagram. She was named editorial director in October 2015 and editor in chief of National Geographic magazine in April 2014. She is the 10th editor and first female editor of the magazine since it was first published in October 1888.

Under her leadership, National Geographic has been honored with nine National Magazine Awards, including four awards in 2020 and the top prize for General Excellence in 2019. In 2020, National Geographic also was named the Webby Media Company of the Year, with a total of 15 awards, as well as earning the Gold Medal as Brand of the Year for the Society of Publication Designers, the most prestigious award for visual journalism in the industry. In addition, National Geographic was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 2019 and for Explanatory Reporting in 2017. The magazine has received numerous other awards for photography, storytelling and graphics. Goldberg also has led reporting that was honored with multiple local, state and national awards, including the Pulitzer Prize at the San Jose Mercury News (1990/Breaking News), and four finalists for the Pulitzer at The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer (2008/Commentary; 2009/Feature Writing and Commentary; 2010/Commentary).

Before her employment at National Geographic, Susan was executive editor for federal, state, and local government coverage for Bloomberg News in Washington, D.C. From 2007 to 2010, she was editor of the Plain Dealer, the daily newspaper of Cleveland and the largest newspaper in Ohio. Prior to that, from 2003 to 2007, she was the executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News, and served as the paper’s managing editor from 1999 to 2003. From 1989 to 1999, Goldberg worked at USA Today, including stints as a deputy managing editor of the News, Life, and Enterprise sections. Previously, she worked as a reporter and editor at the Detroit Free Press. She began her career as a reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. A Michigan native, Susan has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Michigan State University, where she now funds the Susan Goldberg Scholarship at the university’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences’ School of Journalism.

In addition to awards for journalism, Susan has been recognized repeatedly for leadership. In 2013, she was voted one of Washington D.C.’s 11 most influential women in the media by Washingtonian magazine; in March 2015, Susan received the Exceptional Woman in Publishing Award from Exceptional Women in Publishing. In 2017 and again in 2019, Washingtonian named Susan among the most powerful women in Washington D.C. across professions. In 2020, InStyle magazine included Susan on its “Badass 50” list, naming her as number seven in its issue about “women who are changing the world,” and she was selected as one of Folio’s Top Women in Media for having an “exceptional impact” on the direction of the industry; and she was recognized by the International Women’s Media Foundation as the Leadership Honoree for her work in uplifting women journalists and telling under-reported stories

Susan lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Geoffrey Etnire, a real estate lawyer. They have one grown son.

As a host from National Geographic, Susan will join the Exploring Tradition and Innovation: A Journey by Private Jet expedition from Nairobi to Washington, D.C.