Joe Gosen – Faculty Update – Western Journalism Alumni

Joe Gosen, MA

Associate Professor

Joe Gosen Updates

Winter 2026 Update

I earned my bachelor’s degree in photojournalism 37 years ago, and to say things have changed would be a serious understatement. The way we shoot, edit, and share images today is completely different from when I was in college. But at its heart, photojournalism is still what it’s always been—a powerful way to tell important stories. That’s why it’s been especially tough to see entire photo staffs at places like The Washington Post and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution eliminated. It’s hard not to worry about what that means for the future of visual journalism. Regardless, it’s important to forge ahead, adapt to change and continue documenting our times with purpose.

On a brighter note, I started fall quarter as the faculty advisor for a new university-wide photography and video club created by three of our visual journalism students. (You can read more about it in the alumni newsletter.) I love that they took the initiative to build a space where students can learn from one another, share ideas and support each other’s creative work. That kind of peer community really matters.

I also kicked off a documentary project with Professor Maria McLeod and a Western dance instructor focused on people who use dance to navigate neurological conditions. It’s been inspiring to witness how movement can be such a powerful tool for healing and expression. Thanks to a WWU SJEC grant, I was able to take a course release during winter quarter to focus on filming and editing. I’m especially grateful that local filmmaker Matthew Williams—someone I’ve known for 20 years—stepped in to teach my Digital Media in Journalism (JOUR 370) class while I’ve been deep in post-production. If all goes well, we’re hoping to screen the finished documentary in spring quarter.

Professors Maria McLeod and Joe Gosen film an interview with assistance from VJ major Ben Stainbrook and PR major Sam Whitney on Oct. 11, 2025.

After spring quarter, I’ll be teaming up again with Brian J. Bowe on another grant–funded project. This time, we’ll head to Jordan with two colleagues from the Office of Global Engagement to explore the possibility of building a study abroad partnership with Yarmouk University’s Department of Journalism and Digital Media. It’ll be my first time in Jordan, and I’m looking forward to the experience—especially with Brian’s deep knowledge of the region. To get ready, I’ll also be participating in Western’s COIL Faculty Fellowship this spring to learn more about Collaborative Online International Learning and how we can build meaningful global connections for our students.
Winter 2025 Update

I’m not what you’d call a diehard baseball fan who can cite obscure stats from the fifth inning of some random game six years ago, nor am I someone who knows the batting average of every shortstop in the AL West, but I have an appreciation for the game. I grew up in Fremont, California, and the Oakland Coliseum was just 20-minute drive from my home (depending on traffic). I enjoyed my share of games there, whether I was in the cheap seats as a fan or on the field taking pictures early in my career. So, like many fans I followed the eventual countdown of the A’s departure from Oakland (just like the Raiders and Warriors did before them). In September I managed to catch the last two games where the Athletics donned their Oakland jerseys when they faced the Mariners at T-Mobile Park. My childhood friend, Eric, who is an actual diehard fan, flew up for the occasion. Although it was bittersweet to witness the end an era, it was fun to share that time with an old friend and see the late, great Ricky Henderson throw out the first pitch while sporting a half-A’s, half Mariners jersey.

Back at work I have carried on with my usual course load of visual journalism classes but I also organized another Bellingham Visual conference in October. It was a fun and inspiring day filled with filmmakers and visual journalists from around the region. If you missed it, News-Ed student Jenna Milliken wrote up nice recap of Bellingham Visual for the alumni newsletter.

Looking ahead, I will be on professional leave during the spring 2025 quarter so I can begin working on another documentary project with Brian J. Bowe. Stay tuned! In June I’m planning to attend a visual communication conference in Estes Park, Colorado.

During my free time I’ve been slowly going through my archive and digitizing my slides and negatives from the 1980s and ’90s. It’s a slow and tedious process but it’s also fun to look back. Here’s a photo from the Oakland Coliseum from 1988, the year I graduated with a degree in photojournalism from San Jose State University. I wanted to capture the whole scene with Jose Conseco in the foreground. I then moved in much closer and knelt down to get a low angle shot of him as he took some practice swings. He chuckled and nicely asked me to step back a little so I he wouldn’t knock my head off. The access and freedom to move about on the field between batters is unheard of these days. As I always say to students, hold onto your pictures because you’ll someday you’ll enjoy looking back. And you never know when you might discover a hidden gem, like this photo for me. This image has never been published until this post. It captures a time and place that will never occur again.

Oakland A’s outfielder Jose Conseco at the on-deck circle as Dave Henderson gets ready to bat during their game against the Milwaukee Brewers at the Oakland Coliseum in 1988. // Photo by Joe Gosen
Spring 2024 Update

In last year’s update I mentioned a short documentary project that I worked on with Brian J. Bowe. Since then our film “Dreaming of a Free Press” garnered some recognition with acceptance into eight international film festivals and winning the 2023 Creative Research Award in the Visual Communication Division of AEJMC. Brian and I accepted the award at AEJMC conference Washington, D.C. in August 2023 and had the opportunity to show our film there, too.

Joe Gosen and Brian J. Bowe present their film during the 2023 AEJMC conference in Washington, D.C. // Photo by Dr. Carolyn Nielsen

I’m still clicking away and teaching classes in the visual journalism track – photojournalism, digital media, intro VJ and advanced VJ. During winter quarter the J370 students created some nice short documentary films. I’m sure they’d love it if you took a minute to check out some of their work on the class website DigitalMediaInJournalism. This quarter students in the J446 are busy working on projects about Lake Whatcom, looking into its history, recreational uses and water quality issues to name a few. Be sure to check out 48DegreesNorth this June to see their work, too.

It’s always fun having hearing from VJ alums and staying in touch via social media. It’s even better when we can coordinate opportunities for classroom visits and guest lectures. In the last year I’ve had classroom visits by Hailey Hoffman, Finn Wendt and Jaya Flanery, all of whom are conveniently working at the Cascadia Daily News. Oliver Hamlin of the Skagit Valley Herald recently presented his work in J446. Andriy Semenyuk was on campus for a couple days and carved out time to present his film “Wounded Land” and discuss what it was like filming in Ukraine. I saw Paul Bikis a couple months ago when he was in town to screen rough cut of his project “Adapted the Film” at Backroad Essentials.

Outside of the classroom, I’m in the planning stages for Bellingham Visual this October. You might recall the BVJC events that John Harris ran from 2006 to 2011. Well, in April 2023 we had a successful relaunching of the event with a day of talented and inspiring photographers. It was a great having a community of professional visual journalists and students in the room and handful of VJ alums, including presentations by Daniel Berman and Jordan Stead. I’ll be updating the event website and sharing more details for this year’s event soon, so stay tuned!
Winter 2023 Update

A highlight of 2022 was finally meeting up with our Tunisian cohorts in Detroit for the first time since 2019, which allowed us to finish up a collaboration that had been put on hold during the pandemic. To recap, Brian J. Bowe, Caroline Nielsen and I traveled to Tunisia with six journalism students back in 2019. One of the students, Stella Harvey, wrote about the experience here. The original plan had our Tunisian friends visiting Western’s campus in Spring 2020 but COVID-19 travel restrictions halted everything. After much juggling and paperwork, Brian arranged to have everyone meet at the AEJMC conference in August. It was great connecting with everyone again and it also allowed me work with the students to film interviews for a documentary short that Brian and I wanted to pursue.

Joe Gosen, left, works with two Tunisian students while interviewing Kim Fox about press freedom during the AEJMC convention in Detroit, Mich., in August 2022. Fox is a professor of Practice at The American University in Cairo. // Photo by Brian J. Bowe

In my spare time I spent the fall quarter editing the interview footage from Detroit, culling through footage I shot in Tunisia, securing archival footage from the Jasmine Revolution and creating animated maps with Google Earth Studio. The thing that tied everything together was a combination of Brian’s voiceover work and original three-song soundtrack he created. The result is a fast-paced documentary short titled, “Dreaming of a Free Press.” We finished it in early December, just in time to meet some contest and film festival deadlines. Stay tuned!

Throughout 2022 I continued teaching the subjects I love – photojournalism, digital media, intro and advanced VJ. In the advanced classes student continued producing community focused work for our website 48DegreesNorth. In spring students explored various projects related to sound and in fall they had fun reporting the on rising popularity of Pickleball. We also had an active NPPA student chapter with weekly meetings, guest speakers and a couple of field trips.

Spring 2022 Advanced Visual Journalism class photo at Whatcom Falls Park in Bellingham. // Photo by Rowan Forsythe

Advanced VJ students worked on a project about the rising popularity of Pickleball during the 2022 fall quarter. // Photo by Joe Gosen

Outside of my Western life, I continued enjoying being the homebody that I am, tinkering around the house and pretending to fix up my old BMW. But I also did a fun two-week road trip with my son to California and back and had several opportunities to continue sailing with a group of friends, including the International Swiftsure Yacht Race in May, which we managed to finish in 18 hours (meaning we crossed the finish line at 3:30 a.m.).
Winter 2022 Update

I love the convenience of streaming music from my favorite artists over the internet, but nothing beats seeing them perform live. I occasionally watch stand-up comedians on TV, but I never laugh as loud or for as long as I do when I’m in the audience while they work the room. So, while I appreciated having the option to continue teaching remotely this academic year, I was eager to get back in the classroom at the start of fall quarter and once again feel the energy students create in a room as they pursue common goals. One such class was Advanced VJ, where students worked together on small-group video projects along Chuckanut Drive. In addition to the road’s fascinating history, students explored artisans, niche businesses, trail running and tide pools. Similarly, with the video class it was a welcomed relief to once again conduct gear demonstrations in person, such as lighting interviews and syncing audio on a multi-camera shoot. While I much prefer teaching in person, the time I spent teaching remotely played an instrumental role in helping me organize my course content and delivery in ways that continue to benefit my in-person instruction.

Outside of teaching, I continue to stay involved with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the National Press Photographers Association. With AEJMC I chaired the annual conference logo competition for the second year in a row, and this year I am co-chairing the Best of Digital competition. This is an annual web and app competition co-sponsored by the Communication Technology and Visual Communication divisions. With NPPA I am in my sixth year as the associate director of the Northwest region and recently started serving on the NPPA executive committee as the associate regional chairs representative. On the academic front I feel fortunate about having a published article in Journalism with professor Brian J. Bowe, professor Caroline Nielsen and our Tunisian cohorts, and I’m looking forward to reconnecting with everyone at the annual AEJMC conference in Detroit this summer.

I am also happy to announce that in December we managed to pull our WWU NPPA student chapter out of hiatus and are now one of only a few officially recognized student chapters in the country (as of this writing). We’ve been meeting on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. in CF202 to share ideas and stay inspired. So far we’ve had a couple of guest speakers, including VJ grad Hailey Hoffman who is now staff photographer at the Cascadia Daily News, and Andrew Stanfill the NPPA immediate past president who is an editor for the New York Times News Service. We recently had a photo outing to Locust Beach and are planning other photo walkabouts. Follow the student chapter on Instagram @western_nppa.

Wednesday night sailing in Anacortes, Wash. // Photo by Joe Gosen

A couple of personal highlights from the past year include taking up sailing thanks to a friend of mine who needed more “rail meat” on his crew. I participated in series of Wednesday night races in Anacortes throughout the spring and summer. I’ve been offered a spot on the boat for this year’s Swiftsure Yacht Race if I’m up for the challenge. We shall see.

Neuscharfeneck Castle in Germany. // Photo by Joe Gosen

Another highlight from last summer was spending a couple of weeks in southern Germany with my family. We stayed in small villages, hiked to castle ruins and ate cake every day. My wife and son also graciously agreed to tag along with me to the BMW museum in Munich one day so I could get my classic car fix, (my favorite one on display was the 1968 Inka Orange BMW 2002ti). Speaking of cars, our son turned 16 in January and I recently had the luxury of him driving me to school instead of the other way around! Time marches on.
Winter 2021 Update

During my late teens and early twenties I would roll my eyes as I watched my dad trying to navigate the TV remote and VCR. During March 2020 and March 2021 I often imagined my Dad was looking down on me and getting in the last laugh as I fumbled my way through my Zoom classes – conducting lectures with my mic on mute, sharing the wrong screen, showing videos that students couldn’t hear, etc. While I like to think I’m pretty tech savvy, switching to remote teaching threw me a lot of digital curve balls. I swung at everything with all I had. I struck out a few times, got on base a few times and, from my perspective, hit it out of the park a couple times. I am so grateful for how patient and determined the students have been through it all. One thing this past year has reinforced is my preference for being behind the camera instead of in front of it. I’m looking forward to being in the classroom when it’s safe to do so.

The social distance mandates and guidelines not only shifted how we teach but how students reported on projects in the advanced visual journalism class. It would be great if you could take a moment and look at the class website to see how students covered stories during the pandemic. In spring 2020 the students worked on multimedia projects that aimed to show how people in the PNW were coping with COVID-19. In fall 2020 the students wanted to show how we stay connected while being apart. Together, the projects document these unprecedented times. It not only captures the resilience of the subjects they covered but demonstrates the resilience of the students as they navigated the challenges of creating videos from a distance.

Outside of school responsibilities I am currently serving my second year as the chair for the AEJMC logo competition and started my second three-year term as the associate director of NPPA’s Northwest Region. With spring and summer approaching I am eager to find a better balance of screen time and outside time.
Winter 2020 Update

A major highlight of the year for me was spending the first two weeks of September in Tunisia with professors Brian J. Bowe and Carolyn Nielsen and six students from our department thanks to a grant through the U.S. Embassy. You can read more about our experiences here, but in summary it was an incredibly rewarding experience to team up with Tunisian journalism educators and students to discuss and practice journalism in this cross-culture exchange. We are all looking forward to hosting our Tunisian cohorts at Western later this year.

In addition to Tunisia, in August I traveled to Toronto, Canada, to attend the AEJMC annual conference where I participated on a panel about project pitches and getting student work published. This year I will keep busy serving as the chair of the AEJMC logo competition. My three-year term as the associate director of NPPA’s Northwest Region concludes in December but I will continue looking for opportunities to volunteer my time with the organization. On campus I am continuing to serve on the CHSS Faculty Affairs Council and the Digital Media Center Advisory Board.

In the classroom you will still find me teaching courses in the visual journalism sequence (photojournalism, digital media, intro & advanced VJ). The projects created in JOUR 446 from 2016 onward continue to be showcased on our class website. In spring 2019 the students worked on multimedia projects related to Bellingham Bay, including stories about the Alaskan Ferry, the Community Boating Center, women in the commercial fishing industry, accessibility to public art, as well as historical projects about the bay and the waterfront.

I love hearing from former students, so please keep in touch or follow me on Instagram (it’s as simple as clicking on one of the social media links under my mug). I also love having alumni back in the classroom, so let me know when you’ll be in the area and we’ll try and coordinate something. Cheers!
Winter 2019 Update

The journalism faculty take turns supervising the annual alumni newsletter and this year my name came up in the rotation. With the approval from the faculty, I spearheaded an effort to move away from the traditional printed (and mailed) newsletter toward a digital platform – this website. I found an eager student to help lead the charge, as well. Monique Merrill, a news-editorial senior, and I spent winter quarter 2019 gathering content, conceptualizing the site and building it from the ground up. I think it turned out pretty cool and I hope you all do too. One goal with the site is to help keep the lines of communication open between our alumni and department, and allow us to provide updates more than just once per year. We shall see. As with many sites, it’s a work in progress so please do not hesitate to contact us with ideas.

Aside from the newsletter, I had another rewarding year at Western. I taught the usual mix of VJ classes (photojournalism, digital media, intro & advanced VJ) and served on the CHSS faculty affairs council and Digital Media Center advisory board. During the summer I attended the AEJMC annual conference in Washington, D.C., where I chaired the visual communications creative research competition. Other highlights included getting a behind the scenes tour of the photography archives at the Library of Congress, visiting the Newseum and soaking in as much as I could at the National Portrait Gallery.

In other news, a research project I worked on with Prof. Bowe and Prof. Shahira Fahmy of the University of Arizona gained some traction. Our paper “Personal Choice or Political Provocation: Examining the Visual Framing and Stereotyping of the Burkini Debate” was presented at the International Communication Association conference in Prague, Czech Republic, in May and was recently published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. Another project I’m excited to be a part of is planned trip to Tunisia this September with professors Bowe and Nielsen and six journalism students from Western. This project is being funded through a university linkage grant with the U.S. Embassy in Tunisia. You can read more about the Tunisia project here.

And one last shoutout to the advanced visual journalism students (past and present)! The projects they created from 2016 onward are archived on our class website 48DegreesNorth.Com. Check it out. In fall 2018 the students worked on a project about Mount Baker, including a 13-minute documentary, and the spring 2018 explored the theme of “The Edge.”
Winter 2018 Update

It has been a busy and rewarding time since the last alumni newsletter. I continued teaching courses in the visual journalism track, as well as newswriting and editing. During the spring quarter, students in the advanced visual journalism class decided to use the Nooksack River as a guide for seeking out stories in Whatcom County. Over the span of several weeks, they explored the river from Mount Baker to Bellingham Bay. Together they produced a series of multimedia projects that highlighted the impact and significance of the river on the community. Students sought out researchers, scientists, and members of the Nooksack and Lummi tribes to learn about environmental concerns and possible solutions related to the Nooksack River, including its impact on the native salmon. In contrast, two students, Connor Jalbert and Alex Powell, focused on the recreational aspect of the river by doing a project about kayaking. Their film, “Northfork River Rats,” was accepted in the second annual Streams of Thought Film Festival, which took place during Whatcom Water Week in September. I had the honor of introducing them and their film during a screening at the Pickford Theatre.

Outside of teaching I continue to advise our school’s student chapter of the National Press Photographers Association. At the start of 2017, I was also named the associate director of Northwest NPPA. The Northwest region includes Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, British Columbia, Alberta, Northwest Territories and the Yukon Territory.

In April I served on a panel discussion at the Western Gallery with journalism colleagues Peggy Watt and Dean Wright to discuss the legal and ethical concerns associated with photographing people in public and private spaces. Our panel discussion was held in conjunction with the gallery’s exhibition titled “Surveillance and Voyeurism.”

During summer I attended AEJMC annual convention in Chicago and participated in a “teaching marathon” where I discussed a multimedia assignment I have students do in the intro visual journalism class that incorporates the history of a building or space over time. A week after my Chicago trip I attended Poynter Institute’s three-day drone school in Portland. In addition to exploring innovative storytelling techniques, a significant amount of time was dedicated to discussing ethical and privacy issues related to drone use in journalism. Another aspect of the workshop was helping participants prepare for the FAA’s Part 107 drone pilot’s certificate. VJ student Rose Carr and VJ alumna Krya Betteridge attended the workshop, too, and are now certified drone pilots! Taking the exam is on my “to do” list.

Over the summer I also supervised 10 internships. One of the highlights included spending an afternoon at Grist in Seattle to observe VJ student Jesse Nichols produce a video about fixing old iPhones instead of buying new ones.

In the fall I started shooting a video project with Whatcom County Library System. With the help of VJ alumni Robert Dudzik, we filmed a series of book talks with librarians throughout the county. We filmed in Ferndale, Maple Falls, Deming, Lynden, Sumas and Sudden Valley during October and November.