2011 Joe Cavaretta

The National Press Photographers Foundation (NPPF) congratulates Joe Cavaretta as the winner of the 2011 Gordon Yoder Award for television photojournalists attending the NPPA NewsVideo Workshop March 13-18, 2011, in Norman, Oklahoma.

The $1000 award, established by G. Gordon Yoder, is designed to help cover tuition and expenses for the workshop.

Cavaretta is senior staff photographer and videographer for South Florida Sun-Sentinel; WSFL-TV. As a 25-year member of NPPA and a still photographer, the past two years have brought Cavaretta many new professional challenges in learning to tell stories with video. Self-taught, Cavaretta sees the need to improve. “My video work generally lacks polish and sophistication compared to the work of my brethren in the broadcast world. I do not feel as if I do as good of a job of telling a story with video as I can with stills and I understand how important it is to be able to do both.

Cavaretta has worked at The Albuquerque Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News, the San Antonio Express-News and the Associated Press. He has many awards for his still photography and was part of a team first place spot news video story from the Florida Society of News Editors.

“This is an incredible opportunity,” Cavaretta said. “I received the Nikon Sabbatical Documentary grant from NPPA and now 22 years later I get a grant to study news video. That show just how much our business has changed and how much all of us have adapted. We have the same opportunities to tell stories but in different ways.

NPPA Sprague Award winner G. Gordon Yoder was a combat correspondent-photographer in Korea and a network photojournalist covering news including the civil rights movement in 1950’s – 1960’s. He designed and manufactured the innovative 16mm Yoder Sound Camera – a standard for TV stations and networks.