Jarrad Henderson

Jarrad Henderson is a a 4-time Emmy Award-winning visual journalist, media entrepreneur and educator who helps aspiring and professional storytellers share confident narratives that reach the audiences they care most about. Henderson has produced impactful content in large newsrooms for over fifteen years — specializing in access to visual storytelling education, documentary filmmaking, photojournalism, media entrepreneurship, media literacy, and mentorship.

Henderson is a Professor of Practice in the School of Journalism at Michigan State University's College of Communication Arts and Sciences. He teaches students how to research, document, structure, and edit stories, then get them in front of the right audience for maximum impact.

During his 2022-2023 Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan, he founded Pop Up Docs®, a pop-up content creation workshop that teaches nonfiction visual journalism skills to people who rarely get access to traditional training pathways.

Before teaching full time, Henderson was Senior Multimedia Producer for Investigations and Enterprise Storytelling at USA Today. That work earned recognition from the Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism, the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists, the Sidney Hillman Foundation, the News Leaders Association, and the National Press Photographers Association.

Henderson is a member of the Journalism Industry Advisory Board for PBS Student Reporting Labs. Previously, he has held leadership roles as the Academic Representative on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Black Journalists, judged multimedia competitions for the Hearst Journalism Awards, and sat on the Video Consortium's Filmmaker Development Council.

Henderson earned a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and a BFA in photography from Arizona State University. When he is not teaching or photographing, he can be found at the nearest roller skating rink, jamming to 90s R&B and Hip-Hop.

Current Instructor For:

CAS 205: Photography (Software) in Media Settings

JRN 310: Into to Photojournalism

JRN 492: Special Topics - Sports Photojournalism

Previous Instructor For:

CAS 112: Story, Sound and Motion

DS 211: Documentary Film History and Theory

JRN 410: Advanced Photojournalism

Department Leadership Roles:

Hearst Journalism Awards Contest Coordinator

Journalism Committee Responsibilities:

Outreach (and Promotion)

Bylaws Committee

Scholarship Committee

• Access to visual storytelling education
• Documentary filmmaking and video editing
• Media entrepreneurship
• Media literacy
• Mentorship and professional development