Frank Folwell
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a Washington, D.C.-based journalist, specializes in helping media organizations improve visual communication and adapt to latest trends, including new platforms and use of digital tools. As a top editor in USA
TODAY’s photo and graphics department, Folwell pioneered the use of electronic and digital cameras and introduced newsroom image editing and archiving systems.He has worked extensively in China in recent years. In April 2014, he was invited by Fujian Pictorial Magazine to join a yearlong documentary photography project on the Min River in Fujian Province. In 2013, Folwell spent six weeks as a guest lecturer at Fujian Normal University in Fuzhou as part of the U.S. State Department’s Fulbright Specialist program. In
2011, he was a visiting professor at Shantou
University and served as a judge for the prestigious China International Press Photographers’ Contest. When China hosted the summer Olympics in 2008, he worked as a consultant in the newsroom of the Beijing News. That same year, Folwell directed a three-month project with seven Shantou University journalism students, covering the presidential campaign in the U.S. They filed photos, videos and stories to websites and newspapers in China.
At USA TODAY, Folwell played a major role in planning and executing coverage of global events, including the Olympics, presidential elections and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He covered conflicts on the ground in Somalia and the Balkans.
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He has conducted workshops and seminars with visual journalists in Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan, Armenia, and Ukraine.
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Folwell graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and was photo director at the Des Moines Register, a prize-winning newspaper in the Midwest, before going to USA TODAY.
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He serves as treasurer for the National Press Photographers Foundation, which provides scholarships and promotes quality photojournalism.