NEW ORLEANS — David Joachim, a retired WWL-TV news photographer whose career at Channel 4 included covering everything from deadline news and Hurricane Katrina to award-winning features and multi-part series, died Saturday. He was 72.
His sister, Cathy Joachim Bryant, said Joachim had been in poor health for several months. He had suffered a major heart attack in 2002 and then a second one in 2009, which led to his retirement from Channel 4.
During his 27-year career at the station, he covered the wide range of stories that come with the role of television photojournalist, including crime and tragedies, but also business, political, sports, consumer, environmental and medical stories.
Friends and colleagues said Joachim particularly excelled at feature and series photography, shooting and editing many photo essays and feature stories with the late Ronnie Virgets and Frank Davis.
“He loved features since he was able to put his own touch on them and it gave him time to be able to think about what he wanted to do with it,” said former WWL photographer Bob Weaver, a longtime friend. The two met in the early 1970s on a film project and bonded over their shared passion for film and movie production techniques, remaining friends long after moving to careers in television news.
“David approached his television work in a film way, in terms of lighting and composition and effects, which is what made his work so special,” Weaver said Monday. “He was a true professional and a perfectionist, even under the time constraints of TV news.”
Another longtime colleague remembered Joachim’s commitment to covering news stories big and small.
“I remember he covered a major car accident on the I-10 Twin Spans once, and while some photographers would have kept their distance to get the shot, he carried all his heavy gear in the hot sun across the bridge to get the shot. To me, that showed his true dedication,” said WWL photographer Brian Lukas.
In addition to feature work with Virgets and Davis, in the 1980s, Joachim was frequently paired with then-WWL reporter Tom Foreman, now a CNN correspondent. The pair collaborated on several feature series, including “Celebrate Louisiana” and “Louisiana Portraits,” which highlighted stories across the state and frequently off the beaten path.
“To this day, one of the most gifted photographers I've ever known,” Foreman said of Joachim on Facebook. “He made bad stories look good and good stories look great. He was also smart as hell and a blast to work with.”
Other colleagues agreed that Joachim’s intelligence and biting, sarcastic wit were a trademark that endeared him to many but could perplex others. He was well-known around the newsroom for compiling “blooper” tapes of on-air gaffes by anchors, reporters and photographers that would inevitably make their way into a video played at the newsroom Christmas party, to great laughter.
Jokes aside, friends said Joachim was devoted to his craft and the role broadcast journalism played in the community. He was a member of the WWL-TV staff which covered Hurricane Katrina and the federal levee failures in 2005. The work earned broadcast journalism’s highest honors, including the George Foster Peabody Award, duPont-Columbia Award and national Edward R. Murrow Award.
Over the years, Joachim was also the recipient of more than two dozen awards from the Press Club of New Orleans, including the group’s top photography prize, the President’s Television Photography Award, for 2003 coverage of a deadly shooting at John McDonogh High School.
During his career, he earned many other first and second place awards from the Press Club and other organizations for deadline, series, documentary, feature and general photography.
He was a native of Biloxi, Miss. who graduated from Biloxi High School and the University of Southern Mississippi. His sister said he showed his creative talents and passion for filmmaking and photography early on.
“Even going to back to our childhood, I always called him a creative genius. That’s the way I looked at him,” Bryant said. “They say when you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life and that’s the way he approached his job.”
Joachim began his television career in 1972 as a production and sports photographer at WJTV-TV in Jackson, Miss. Four years later, he began working as a news photographer at WLBT, also in Jackson. He came to work in New Orleans at WWL in May 1982, just two months before the deadly crash of Pan Am Flight 759 in Kenner, the first major local news story he covered.
In addition to his sister, he is survived by two brothers, Gary Joachim and Richard Joachim, as well as nieces and nephews.
Funeral arrangements are pending.