John A. Echave
Professorial Lecturer, Senior Editor, National Geographic Magazine

Phone: (202) 994-6227
Fax: (202) 994-5806
E-mail: jechave@ngs.org
Office: MPA 425

Expertise

Courses Taught

JOUR 140, Photojournalism

Selected Works

Background

John A. Echave has been with National Geographic Magazine since 1988, as an illustrations editor responsible for picture editing, project management, research, and budgeting for major magazine stories. He is also a representative to the committee for research and exploration and is responsible for planning, coordinating and facilitating research grantees' stories for the magazine.

Prior to that, Echave was the foreign picture editor for U.S. News & World Report for six years. There he served as a liaison between headquarters and bureaus around the world in planning strategy with writers and photographers for stories. Some of his greatest challenges included: the Israeli-Lebanese War, Central American political conflicts and elections, U.S. presidential races, the Reagan-Gorbachev Summit, the Iran-Iraq War, Sarajevo and the Calgary Winter Olympics, Presidential trips to China and Europe, the TWA highjacking in Beirut, and the Philippine Coup.

From 1979 to 1982, Echave was a picture editor for The Associated Press where he was responsible for editing film of major Washington news stories including coverage of the White House, presidential trips, Capitol Hill and the courts. And as president of Echave & Associates, Inc. in New York City, he launched a photojournalism agency covering stories in the U.S. and abroad for national and international publications, including Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, People, Paris Match, Quick, Stern, Der Spiegel.

Echave has received many awards for his work in photojournalism including the National Press Photographers Association pictures of the Year Contest 1996, for the August 1996 Mexico issue of National Geographic magazine; and the Award of Excellence, the National Press Photographers Association pictures of the Year Contest 1995 for the multiple page features "Bombay" and "Sicily" in National Geographic magazine. He was also profiled in Picture Research a Practical Guide by John and Barbara Schultz, 1991.

Prior to his photojournalism career, Echave was a news reporter and producer for three radio stations in Indiana and later moved to New York as a writer and editor for WOR Radio.

Education

CBS News Fellowship, Columbia University, 1971

B.A., Journalism and Communications, Indiana State University, 1970

Proficiency degrees, French Language and Literature, L'Institut Richelieu, Lausanne, Switzerland and L'Alliance Francaise, Paris, France, 1968