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Adkins Selected To Judge NPPA Competition


Richard Adkins
WRAL-TV Chief Photographer

Over the years, WRAL-TV Chief Photographer Richard Adkins has received many awards, but now he’s going to get a chance to sit on the other side of the camera. Adkins has been selected as a judge for the National Press Photographers Association’s (NPPA) Annual Television News Video and Editing Competition in March of 2001.

The judges for this competition are some of the best photographers and editors in the business. Most are also past Photographers of the Year or Editors of
the Year. Adkins himself received the regional Emmy Award for Outstanding Camera Work/News in 1998. These judges maintain a high standard of excellence in the news business, and Adkins again is no exception. Sharing in the Peabody and DuPont and IRE awards with former WRAL-TV Reporter Stuart Watson, Adkins has also contributed to WRAL-TV work that has won several Gabriel and AP awards.

Adkins’ selection honors the entire WRAL photography and editing team and evidences the esteem with which their peers hold them. Adkins said, “This recognition reflects the great respect and reputation WRAL News has earned in the Television Photography business, not only my work, but also the work of all our great photographers.”

Adkins first worked for WRAL in 1983 for a year as a Production Crewmember, leaving to work as a News Photographer at WCTI-TV in New Bern. He returned to WRAL as a General Assignment Photographer in 1993 after working at stations in Chattanooga and Oklahoma City. Adkins was promoted to Chief Photographer in 1996.

Adkins is dedicated to his craft as evidenced by his own words, “Television news is powerful. It can take viewers where they’ve never been before. It can show them what they’ve never seen before. It can be raw and truthful and cold and hurtful and honest and magical and many other things, but most of all, it can tell stories.”

The NPPA Competition will be held at the prestigious Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. The NPPA sponsors several educational events that are well respected in the business and is dedicated to the advancement of photojournalism, its creation, editing and distribution, in all news media.