Here’s some news about the Anchorage Daily News: A key person in our newsroom for decades, Anne Raup, is retiring as photo/visuals editor. It’s hard to overstate Anne’s role in what we’ve done and continue to do — in the day-to-day work, both obvious and behind-the-scenes, but also in helping define what ADN journalism is.
Anne has been at the ADN for more than 30 years — as a staff photographer, then as assistant photo editor, and since 2011 as photo and visuals editor.
If you consume ADN content at all, you see her fingerprints, influence and judgments daily. She helps decide what we cover and how we cover it, with a concentration on photojournalism and other visual elements. Occasionally, she has made photos herself, but much more often, she’s worked with others — listening, nudging, guiding, collaborating. It’s not just what we’re covering and how, but the overall picture of what we’re doing. She’s been a key newsroom manager during critical periods these past years when the future of the organization was very much on the line — and when news, more broadly, has gone through massive disruption and evolution.
When I announced Anne’s news to our staff in December, I wrote, “Anne’s drive, judgment, deep proficiencies, problem-solving skills, realistic-but-positive outlook and knowledge of and connections with the place we live have served us, our readers and the community again and again.”
Throughout, Anne has been a fierce advocate for visual journalism, and visual journalists, while aiming for the highest standards every day. She gets excited about good work — which leads to more good work. We have consistently produced national-caliber work under her watch, focused always on serving Alaska and Alaskans.
ADN photojournalism holds a mirror to the place we live. It helps us understand it and the people who live here — familiar and unfamiliar. It helps us see our world in ways we may not have considered before. It helps us walk in someone else’s shoes. Go places we might not ordinarily go. Working with a deeply talented and committed team, Anne has helped produce great work daily for decades.
Over her own career, she has seen and helped guide the ADN through enormous change — from the days of handing rolls of film to a pilot out on the Iditarod Trail and hoping it made it back to the office, with captions handwritten on a piece of paper, to the rise of digital cameras and the internet to video to iPhones and social media. Not to mention helping navigate through the near-constant evolution and upheaval in our field.
If you’re a regular reader of the ADN website, the app, the print newspaper or e-edition, or find our work on social media, in our newsletters or elsewhere, you see her impact.
Anne isn’t leaving ADN completely. She’ll continue working on some longer-term projects. We’re in the process of figuring out what’s next for her department. But I wanted to take a minute to let people know about Anne’s next phase and her legacy of great work.
As always, thanks for reading.
Earlier: A tour through 2024 in ADN photos