Bill Snead: Coming Full Circle

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Bill Snead started his newspaper career in 1954 in Lawrence, Kan. A senior at Lawrence High School, Snead started in the photography department of the Lawrence Journal-World, mixing chemicals and making engravings. He went on to become a one-man photo department at the paper while attending Kansas University between assignments.

Snead left the Journal-World and headed to the state capital, where he worked as a staff photographer at the Topeka Capital-Journal. Six years later, he took a job as chief photographer at the Wilmington (Del.) News-Journal.

While minding his own business and winning some photo contests in Wilmington, Del., he was asked by United Press International to run their photo operation in Saigon, Vietnam. He was assigned there from late 1967 through most of 1969. He arrived three weeks before the Tet Offensive, which set off the heaviest fighting of the war. In 1969, he was asked to run the UPI photo bureau in Chicago.

His next stop was the National Geographic in Washington, D.C., where he was a picture editor. He produced stories that ranged from gray whales to New Orleans to the Navajo to the Cumberland Gap.

In 1972, he moved two blocks down the street to the Washington Post, where he was hired as the assistant managing editor for photo and graphics. During his 21-year Post career, he worked as a picture editor, shot for the Washington Post Magazine, national political conventions, breaking national news events and was the event coordinator at Super Bowls. He also worked as a Washington Post staff photographer.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Snead worked extensively in eastern Europe covering first-ever democratic elections, various attempts at capitalism and the exit of communism as we knew it. He documented these historic events in photos and stories.

One of the most notable events Snead covered was the exodus of a million Kurds from Iraq who fled over the mountains into the unopened arms of Turkey. For more than a week after Snead arrived in Turkey, the Washington Post was the only newspaper in America to have daily pictures and stories on the plight of the Kurds, who were dying at a rate of 1,000 per day.

Before leaving the Post in 1993, he was named White House Photographer of the Year, was a runner-up for a Pulitzer Prize and had lots of pictures published in major magazines like Life, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Paris Match, Stern, Time, Penthouse and the like.

Ten years ago, Snead returned to where he started: the Lawrence Journal-World. As deputy editor in charge of the newsroom, he was involved in changing the paper from an afternoon publication to a morning newspaper, as well as coordinating its first major redesign. During his six years as head of the newsroom, the paper was chosen as the best paper in Kansas three different years. It also was runner up in the Pictures of the Year Contest for best use of pictures by a newspaper.

While in Lawrence, Snead taught classes in photojournalism and reporting at Kansas University. He has conducted photo and editing seminars for newspaper operations and universities across the United States.

Snead recently resigned as senior editor of the Lawrence Journal-World with various duties that included writing and photography, the paper’s Web site (ljworld.com) and Cable Television News Six. He’s freelancing and currently doing some projects for the Washington Post. Snead has won awards in the Pictures of the Year competition in each decade over the past 40 years. His photos have been exhibited in Washington D.C.’s Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, National Geographic’s Explorer’s Hall, and in galleries and universities in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

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