I’ve always put myself on the front lines of changing the culture of the newsrooms I’ve been in to be more accepting of digital and interactive journalism.
Professional: Since September 2008, I’ve been the interactive content producer for the Appeal-Democrat, a 20,000-circulation newspaper serving Marysville and Yuba City, California, about 40 miles north of Sacramento. In fact, this was a position I helped write the job description for.
I shoot and produce videos, build and deploy databases and interactive maps, distribute newspaper content on social networks and mobile platforms, and assist in user-generated content moderation. I’m part of an interactive team that has won two consecutive Best News Website awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association.
Between November 2006 and September 2008, I was a reporter for the Appeal-Democrat, covering Sutter County government and the cities of Live Oak and Gridley, writing both daily and long-term enterprise pieces. I was the first reporter at the paper to set up a blog and the first reporter to shoot video to accompany a story. Prior to that, I worked for one year at the Paradise Post, where I also was the first reporter to set up a blog.
My professional workshop training includes attending an Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE) workshop in San Francisco, the National Writers Workshop in Fullerton, Calif., and in February 2009 I was one of 20 journalists nationwide to be accepted into a multi-day Technology Tools Workshop put on by the Knight Digital Media Center at the Univeristy of California, Berkeley.
Academic: I hold a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Chico, where I spent four semesters working on the school’s award-winning student newspaper, The Orion. My last semester was as online editor, where I helped turn the website from a weekly dumpling ground of print stories into a campus news and information center providing fresh content daily. During my time there, the newspaper won two National Pacemaker Awards, two consecutive Best in Shows at the Associated Collegiate Press National Convention, and was inducted into the Associated Collegiate Press Hall of Fame.
Personally, I twice finished in the top 20 nationally in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program (once for sports writing, once for editorial writing), competing head-to-head against students from some of the most prestigious journalism programs in the country. I also received an award from the California College Media Association for headline writing and represented The Orion and Chico State at the Society of Professional Journalists National Convention in Las Vegas.
Personal: I make my home in Yuba City, Calif., but I’ll always consider my hometown to be Happy Camp, Calif. (pop. 800 and shrinking). A recent major accomplishment was losing 70 pounds in 14 months.
My hobbies and things I spend time on include trivia, working out, a wrestling ministry at my church and following sports outside the American mainstream such as rugby, cricket and Australian Rules football.