Richard Murphy joins UAA as Atwood Chair of Journalism

Richard Murphy, the former photo editor of the Anchorage Daily News and part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service, will be the Atwood Chair of Journalism during the spring 2012 semester.

Murphy led the photography and arts/graphics departments at the Anchorage Daily News, where he coordinated page design and online usage, developed assignments and served as third in command in the newsroom. He and his team of photojournalists were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1989. Murphy himself served as a nominating juror for the Pulitzer Prizes in 2010 and 2011. He will teach JPC A444 Specialty Reporting: Documentary Photojournalism and JPC A492 Senior Seminar: Point of View and the Photo Essay.

"During my tenure as photo editor of the Anchorage Daily News we always tried to maintain a steady cadre of interns in our department," Murphy said. "We were always a teaching institution." Murphy added that he is thrilled to be a part of legacy of the Atwood Chair and to be in the business of teaching again.

"I believe I can make a strong addition to the history of the Atwood Chair," he said. "And I believe I can infuse my love of journalism to the students at the University of Alaska Anchorage."

The Atwood Chair of Journalism is among the nation's most prestigious endowed journalism chairs. Anchorage Times publisher Robert B. Atwood established the Atwood Chair at the University of Alaska Anchorage in 1979. Among the many positive contributions Bob and Evangeline Atwood made to Alaska's civic life, the Atwood Chair of Journalism has helped educate the state's next generation of journalists.