After a career at National Geographic, former photojournalist and editor Chris Johns guides Oregon State University students through their journalism work. 

He currently teaches at OSU, where he just finished a film with a group of OSU students and professor David Baker on a film alongside his daughter. 

This film is a 90-minute documentary called “The Wonder and the Worry” that explores Johns’ career along with the career of his daughter, Louise Johns. Recently, Johns has received opportunities to go to film festivals in both Bend and Medford, Oregon where he sat on a panel to answer questions about the film. 

“It’s sort of about my career and how journalism has changed and evolved,” Johns said. 

Johns said the film also focuses on themes of “how to balance coverage that celebrates the wonders of the world and how you balance that with the profound worries we have in this world.” 

Johns began his life at Oregon State as a pre-vet and animal science major in hopes of becoming a large cat veterinarian. As an elective, he took an introduction to journalism class with professor Ron Lovell. 

“The class, to me, was fascinating. He was a terrific professor,” Johns said. 

As this newfound interest began to grow, Johns’ roommate bought a camera and simultaneously decided to take a photojournalism class, which piqued Johns’ interest. Johns began to focus heavily on journalism, and began to write and take photos around the Oregon State campus. 

“I thought, ‘well I love journalism’ and became really interested in photography, so I took a photography class, introduction to photojournalism class and loved it,” Johns said. 

From the world events occuring during his time as an undergraduate, Johns was able to picture a meaningful life in journalism.

“I felt … that journalism played a really important role in a democracy — good journalism, credible solid journalism, the kind of journalism that I was being taught at Oregon State,” Johns said.

Johns took his passion and began to work for the Daily Barometer, the OSU athletic department and the OSU yearbook, writing and snapping photos for them all. 

By his senior year, he was working part-time at the Albany Democrat-Herald. With the help of Fred Zwahallen, who was the director of the journalism department, Johns received a teaching internship as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. 

During his time at Minnesota, Johns got an internship in Topeka, Kansas as a staff photographer. This was an exciting opportunity as this was a good paper for a young photojournalist to be working on. 

During this internship, he covered multiple different types of stories and news. Eventually, in 1979, Johns earned the title of National Newspaper Photographer of the Year named by the University of Minnesota and the National Press Photographers Association. 

In 1983, Johns proposed a story to National Geographic. This story was close to home as it followed a hotshot firefighter crew for four months near his hometown of Medford, Oregon. “That was an amazing assignment. I was embedded as the 21st member of the 20-member hotshot crew,” Johns said.

After the story, Johns worked at the Seattle Times for three years. However, Johns said he wanted to work with magazines and books. After his time in Seattle, he embarked on a freelance career with National Geographic, Life and Time magazine. 

Eventually, in 1995, Johns joined the staff of National Geographic and went on to become the editor-in-chief from January 2005 to April 2014. This position acted as the bulk of his career.

During his time with NatGeo, Johns was given the opportunity to photograph the Great Rift Valley, a geographical feat spanning the continent of Africa. Johns spent close to two years on this assignment, getting to photograph the beauty of Africa’s wildlife and also sparking his passion for working with Indigenous peoples. 

“That sort of shaped what I wanted to do more and more with my career,” Johns said. 

Due to this opportunity, Johns realized he wanted to write stories that focused on “endangered species, environmental concerns and (stories that) give voices to Indigenous people that have often been disenfranchised.”

This term, Johns is working with the applied journalism minor doing independent study. He said he enjoys working with and guiding students on long-term projects. 

“I love interacting with students and listening to their concerns and their passions and helping them establish a voice,” Johns said. 

Throughout the many adventures of Johns’ life, he was able to find a career that helped feed all of his passions. 

“I very sincerely feel strongly that Oregon State is a terrific place to go to school, it certainly was for me,” Johns said.