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Always on the air

2008-03-09T00:45:00.000-08:00

an interview with…

CRAIG STEVENS
anchor
WSVN-Channel 7

Craig Stevens may be the most recognizable anchorman in South Florida – if for no other reason than he’s on the air more than anyone else, save for his co-anchor Belkys Nerey.

In fact, it’s not uncommon for broadcast majors at South Florida universities to ask their peers and professors, “Are they married?” Because Stevens and Nerey spend more time together than some married couples. They anchor the local Fox newscasts at 5, 6, 10, and 11 p.m., and they also do a couple of three-minute webcasts every weekday.

With that much airtime, other anchors could start to wear on viewers. But Stevens’ easy-going delivery and ageless looks have made him easy on both the eyes and ears for the past seven years in the anchor chair – an eternity in the TV news business.

Most people don’t know that you majored in print journalism. Why’d you do that?

I'd always planned to major in broadcast – that was my expectation from about 10 years old on. That all changed when I was getting ready to declare my major at The American University (in Washington, D.C.).

I was working full-time at NBC News in Washington by then, and several of the old-timers gave me a hard time. In the end, they persuaded me to focus on print – focus on the writing, the analytical thinking, and so on. I'm glad I did it, although I was forced to learn the technical side pretty quickly when I got my first job as a one-man band.

Like you said, early in your career you worked on NBC Nightly News. You also worked at Today and Meet the Press. Biggest difference between there and here?

What struck me first was staffing. At the network, even nowadays in a culture of tight budgets, there are scores of professionals who perform specific tasks. At the local level, there are fewer bodies.

I remember my first day as a reporter at the NBC station in Fort Myers. I asked for my researcher! After they stopped laughing, they explained that they didn't have researchers, field producers, tape librarians, and such. I think the assignment editor joked that I should look in the mirror if I wanted to find him. Large-market stations often have staffing that might rival a network bureau, but generally, that's not the case.

One thing the viewing public don’t know about your job?

What people may not know is that while we may be the “face” of a broadcast, we actually have very little editorial input. I might suggest a story or an angle here and there, but that's the extent of it.

That’s fairly common in local television, and I think it's a mistake. Many of us have several years in our communities – I have 16-years at WSVN, 18 years overall in Florida – and we can offer a perspective that many cannot. There are times where I'd like to put my 20-plus years to good use and help shape our coverage.

Funnest part of your job?

Funniest? Definitely the makeup. After all these years, I now know my way around a makeup counter.

Career highlight?

Enduring weeks of Hurricane Andrew coverage – I've never worked so hard. Reporting "undercover" from Cuba during the migration crisis of 1994. Oh, and my first liveshot from the north lawn of the White House – talk about an adrenaline rush! Still, I'm a young guy, I'd like to think my career highlight is still to come!

Amusing professional gaffe?

In the days after Andrew, like so many of my colleagues here and elsewhere, I was sleep-deprived. I was finishing a live shot on top of a trash heap in South Dade, and while I was talking, I saw a WTVJ-Channel 4 microwave truck drive by. It distracted me enough that when I finally finished my live shot, I urged viewers to join me for more on the "Channel 4 News" instead of Channel 7 News. Needless to say. management wasn't too happy with their rookie from Fort Myers.

Weird dues-paying story?

I'm a big believer in paying dues and have little patience – a character flaw I admit – for folks who don't. I'm not sure this qualifies as weird, but it certainly put everything in perspective:

It was election night 1988 – my first night working in the newsroom at NBC. I was dressed to the nines ready for anything, when all of a sudden, bureau chief Bob McFarland snapped his fingers, ''Kid – yeah, you, kid – come here.'' My heart started racing. I was sure he had a big task for me. He motioned toward the set where New Hampshire Sen. Warren Rudman was providing commentary. His task? "Connie Chung will join Rudman in a second. She has a sore throat, find her some tea." Ouch!

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into college students and young professionals?

Start small, make your mistakes, learn from them, and don't be afraid to ask questions. Watch people you respect and learn the craft from them. And above all, don't take shortcuts!

Odzer's odds

2008-02-24T16:09:00.000-08:00

an interview with…

ARI ODZER
reporter
WTVJ-Channel 6

When Ari Odzer was taking broadcast classes at the University of Florida in mid-’80s, the career advice went something like this: Mail out 100 resumes, start out in small market, move out after a year or two, and repeat often.

Instead, Odzer landed a reporting and anchor job at WPEC, the CBS affiliate in West Palm Beach. Three years later, the Deerfield Beach High School grad became a general assignment reporter at WTVJ, the NBC affiliate in Miami.

And except for a year at New York’s WNBC – while his wife completed her residency at Cornell Medical Center – he’s been there ever since. There hasn't been a major South Florida crime, hurricane, or human interest story that Ozder hasn't covered.

“I'm fortunate, blessed, whatever you want to call it, “ he says. “I had the right mix of luck, skill, and being in the right place at the right time to make a go of this career.”

You worked in New York for a year while your wife completed her radiology residency. Any big differences between working in TV up there and down here?

The city presents many hurdles, from difficulties in navigating traffic to challenges in doing a live shot because the buildings block the transmitter. But the most surprising difference for me was that in NYC, the news photogs I worked with were, with some exceptions, markedly less skilled than the guys I work with here.

It was much harder to get a good product on the air there for a number of reasons, chief among them that the photogs don't edit their own pieces up there, so there's no ownership of the stories. They often go through the motions in the field, because they know some editor is going to "wallpaper" the piece anyway. Most editors don't have the time or motivation to actually watch all the video that was shot to really craft a good piece. They toss whatever fits into the black hole. That's not how things are done here.

In TV, you just have to look good and sound good – you don't need to know how write or do real journalism, right?

That's correct.

One thing the general public doesn't understand about your job?

That the answer to the previous question is not correct!

Most people I meet think there's a huge staff around me – that someone is writing what I say and there are makeup people making me look good (if there were, they'd be fired by now). They think the job is full of glamour.

The reality is there's never more than me and a photog on any story. The reality is I write everything I say on the air. Even when I anchor, I’ll rewrite the copy written by the producer. I often write the anchor's toss to my story, too.

Glamour? Once in a while, I'll do a story in which I interview someone famous or go someplace fabulous. But 95 percent of the time, I'm driving all over town, doing a quick interview here, another one there, shooting video at another location, jumping into a live truck and putting it all together under deadline pressure, and then figuring out what I'm going to say in the live shot.

There are many days when all that happens so fast, I'm literally composing my live intro and tag in my head within minutes of the actual live shot. And covering hurricanes and hideous crimes, when you're wet all day and sweating in the heat, those are really glamorous days.

Most frustrating part of your job?

The decisions made about your fate that you can't control. Many times, the producer wants a live shot that makes no sense, or they want you to include something in your story that ruins it, or they demand that you cut 15 seconds out of the piece even though that’ll butcher it. Technical problems are also a huge source of stress.

Funnest part of your job?

The camaraderie with the photogs every day. And sometimes, the stories are really a blast – landing on an aircraft carrier, going out on a police boat, playing hoops with the Globetrotters, and a thousand other experiences that I've been fortunate enough to have. At the end of the day, when our piece airs, there's a tremendous sense of satisfaction if everything comes out the way you envision it. When the piece is good, it makes everything more fun.

Career highlight?

Tough to pick, only because I've had so many that are important to me for different reasons. Went to Israel for a series in 1991 – and ended up meeting my wife on that trip! I interviewed Bono and Edge in 2001, two of my rock star heroes. I've been able to interview a bunch of my sports heroes, too.

Covering Hurricane Andrew will always stand out, as will covering the Gainesville student murders and the 2000 election recount fiasco. Sometimes you feel like you're in the middle of history. Other times, you're covering Anna Nicole Smith.

Amusing professional gaffe?

On more than one occasion, I've been standing in front of the camera, waiting to go live, and they punch me up early without my knowledge.

One time, I was joking with a reporter from another station who was waiting to do his live shot about three feet away from me. I forget what we were laughing about, but it was something hysterical. For about five seconds, the audience saw me laughing. Unfortunately, I was covering a trial in which someone just got sentenced to life in prison. So when they came to me a few minutes later for my live shot, the audience saw me in serious mode. I had no idea what had happened until the complaints came into the station.

Weird dues-paying story?

I don't really have one, except this: When I started at WPEC in West Palm in 1987, my salary was $11,800. I couldn't afford to pay dues!

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into college students and young professionals?

Become well read – and stay that way. Read the local papers everyday, read news periodicals, and have a basic grasp of culture, the humanities, and history. That will inform your work every day and make you seem smarter than you are!

Back and forth

2008-02-03T13:00:00.000-08:00

an interview with…

JOE SCHWERDT
deputy managing editor/online
Sun-Sentinel

First, he was a reporter at The Palm Beach Post and Sun-Sentinel. Then he covered four Olympics for NBCOlympics.com as a producer. Then he became city editor for the Sun-Sentinel's Palm Beach County edition. Last month, he was promoted to deputy managing editor in charge of the Sun-Sentinel's online division.

Joe Schwerdt isn't the first journalist to work both print and web, but few people do it more than once. If there's one thing he's learned, it's that journalism still matters.

"I was given this job because of my online experience," he says. "But I've quickly remembered that experience in online only allows you to adapt faster – things change so rapidly. I've also learned that we've got a long way to go to blend the Web and newspaper cultures."

What's the future of newspapers, in your opinion?

I think paper will be here for a while. In some public-transit markets, paper will be here even longer. But as technology advances and traditional paper-readers die off, there’s no question circulation numbers will dwindle and the business model will go supernova.

I think the bigger question is: Can newspaper companies survive in a digital world? Again, I don't know. But there always will be an appetite for local news and information, and right now, newspaper companies have the best infrastructure to provide that. And we've finally awaken to the idea that if we don't get off our asses and adapt to changing technologies, habits, trends, markets, and customer needs, we’ll be shoved aside.

You've worked at South Florida newspapers for decades now. How has journalism down here changed over the years?

Obviously, there’s the dramatic emergence of new media and changing technologies that has changed how news is delivered, printed, presented, and designed. But in many ways, it hasn't changed much at all. TV is pretty much the same. Print is pretty much the same. The basics are very much the same.

What does a city editor do, anyway?

The city editor is responsible for all the content produced by his or her staff. So, if something ain't right, it's my fault. If there’s an error, if we get beat on a story, if there aren't photos or graphics assigned, it's my fault.

That means a city editor should make sure stories are being covered appropriately, people are assigned where they need to be, and the staff has the tools it needs to do the job. Obviously, you can't monitor the progress of every story, nor should you micro-manage.

So the city editor needs to make sure there’s a staff in place that can do the job. And the city editor must create a positive environment in which everyone can do their best work. A huge part of the job is staff development and morale. You care about them as human beings. You listen to them. And you make sure that people are growing.

Most frustrating part of your old job? Your new job?

Nothing frustrates me more than reporters who don't get it. They don't see the big stories in front of them. Or they don't have the energy or desire to grab it and run with it. In my new job, it’s the bureaucracy. Emails. Meetings. Politics. And always, it's a lack of resources to do things you want to do. But that's the reality of any business. And a good manager learns to put that frustration aside, set realistic priorities, and do the best job with what you have to work with.

Funnest part of your old job? New job?

It's going to sound corny, but it's the same for both: picking up the paper the next morning or looking at the website at some point during the day and seeing really good work.

Another funnest part is having good times together, whether its a funny conversation in the office, a good party or cookout, or meeting for drinks after work. I've had a lot of good times with the people I've worked with along the way.

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into college students and young professionals?

If you are going to do it, then do it. If you don’t want to be bothered, go do something else.

If you had to do it all over again, anything you'd do differently?

I’d try to do everything I did better. But I would’ve found more time to spend with the people who cared the most about me. Journalism is a time-consuming – sometimes all-consuming. Looking back, I let it eat up too much of my life. Let it consume you when necessary, but let it go whenever you can. It’s all about balance.

More than a pretty voice

2008-01-20T03:36:00.000-08:00

an interview with…

Dan Grech
Americas Desk reporter
NPR’s Marketplace

After interning at the Boston Globe and Washington Post, then working on The Miami Herald’s Pulitzer-winning coverage of Elian Gonzalez, Dan Grech had a fine career as an ink-stained wretch ahead of him. But he bailed out for broadcast.

Instead of heading to TV like many print reporters before him, Grech went into radio. At first, it didn't go well. His first story was on tango.

“It was an inauspicious start,” Grech says. His editor said his voice sounded like he was “covering a funeral.”

Needless to say, Grech got better. In 2004, he was hired by “Marketplace,” American Public Media's award-winning business show. He became the first Americas Desk reporter, covering Latin American business and the U.S. Hispanic economy from the WLRN studios in downtown Miami.

Grech also teaches radio writing at the Florida Center for the Literary Arts (which he calls “a wonderful hidden gem out of Miami-Dade College“) and is launching his own radio show.

It’s called, not surprisingly, “Voices.” Grech is co-host and co-producer (along with Alicia Zuckerman) of this new weekend news magazine on WLRN.

“The show's mission is to offer a platform for uniquely South Floridian voices not often heard on public radio,” Grech says. “It will tell the stories of everyday people, visit unsung places, and spark debate over under-reported issues.”

The monthly show will air in a regular Saturday time slot on WLRN (still to be determined), with individual segments rebroadcast on “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”

And Grech is looking for help.

“We’re right now actively looking for journalists, storytellers, writers, radio producers, sound engineers, webmasters, and so on – young and old, green and seasoned – to help us with this project,” he says. Those who want to know more can email Grech at dangrech@gmail.com.

Why did you leave print for radio?

I wrote for my high school paper, freelanced for newspapers and wire services in college, interned at major dailies in the summer, got a reporting gig at The Miami Herald out of school…a traditional path. The entire time, I understood the term reporting to mean writing for a newspaper.

But as I matured in the field, I came to learn that reporting can happen in five mediums: print, audio, video, photography, and interactive graphics. And I have come to believe that the modern journalist, to survive in this new media world, must be expert in at least two mediums.

Why not all five?

My feeling is that you can’t be expert in everything. Pick at least two and learn them inside and out. Then team up with journalists fluent in the other media to create multimedia packages. I believe the ideal of the “backpack journalist” – the single mobile journalist carrying a backpack filled with equipment – is unrealistic for most reporters and is being replaced by the idea of the multimedia team.

So why did you pick radio as your number two?

I found myself drawn to radio – mostly as a listener to Ira Glass’ “This American Life” – and I went with that passion. Radio works a different part of the brain than print – the emotional part –and that appealed to my storytelling instinct.

I also respect the integrity of public radio journalism, something I can’t say of most other broadcast news. (I have simply stopped watching television news.) I felt I could transition to radio and keep my journalistic integrity. Finally, I kept hearing people say that I have a nice voice, and that kind of flattery was hard to ignore forever – that, and I have a face for radio. It was a perfect fit.

So how did make the switch from print to radio?

I learned about “This American Life” my junior year in college. I nursed my Sunday morning hangovers listening to “This American Life,” trying to deconstruct how the pieces were put together. A few years out of school, I took a solo road trip around the U.S. in a blue Dodge Neon with over 100,000 miles and made stops at WBEZ in Chicago, WHYY in Philadelphia, and NPR studios in Washington, D.C.

Then, most importantly, after much research, I invested several hundred dollars in my own equipment – a minidisk player and professional quality microphone – and began to experiment. Getting hired by “Marketplace” was a lucky break, and it took me almost two years of daily reporting before I really felt I had earned my radio chops.

All the industry talk is about the future of the Internet and TV and print. No one ever talks about radio. What is the future of radio?

People in radio talk a lot about the future of radio. And there’s nothing close to a consensus.

I work in the tiny media cul-de-sac of public radio journalism. A decade ago, you could only hear public radio journalism on your local public radio station. Now you can also listen to public radio via live web streams, through podcasts, on satellite radio, on digital radio, even through mp3 downloads. New technologies have vastly expanded the potential audience of a given public radio broadcast. It’s also undermined the once-exclusive distribution model of member-supported local public radio stations.

I believe public radio has entered a golden age. Until recently, it was the only form of mass media journalism that was actually growing in audience. NPR has transformed from a quirky commentator on news to one of the nation’s main news networks. The quality and variety of news and talk programming on public radio is extraordinary. I believe public radio will remain a niche business in the larger media landscape, but its non-profit status, its listener supported financing model, and its high level of integrity will keep it viable into the future.

So it’s all peaches and cream?

The crisis facing public radio is its listeners are dying out. The average age of a public radio listener – average age – is 55 years old. I half-jokingly tell friends that, since joining “Marketplace,” I’ve never been more popular with their parents. NPR and other public radio content producers are hyperventilating about their aging listenership, and they’re trying to figure out how to attract younger listeners. Just this year, two national youth-oriented public radio morning shows were started – one by NPR, the other by WNYC. We’ll see if they’re able to reverse the trend.

Earlier this year, you told NPR’s “On the Media” that daily newspapers have been “monopoly businesses, bilking advertisers, creating mediocre content and raking in huge profits.” If you were publisher of, say, The Miami Herald, what would you do differently to save it from itself?

Newspapers are in real trouble. I think in the coming years, a few major cities in this country will experience a news blackout – their only major daily newspaper will fold. That would be a tragedy for that unlucky community and for democracy in this country. Without a major watchdog presence, local government corruption will go unchecked. I will not feel bad, however, for the newspaper owner. Not in the least.

Newspapers have long known this new media future was coming. They failed to prepare: They didn’t spend money on training, they didn’t invest in research and development, they weren’t proactive. They raked in 20-plus percent profits and waited for some guy named Craig Newmark to create craigslist.com and undercut a third of their revenue. So I fear it may be too late for some newspaper companies, which may go the way of Knight Ridder, a venerable chain and former owner of The Miami Herald that vanished in a matter of months.

So what about The Herald?

In my experience, The Miami Herald has been a well-run company. It was an innovator in community journalism, an early adopter of Spanish-language journalism, and a consistent advocate of hard-hitting investigative journalism. It’s formed good partnerships in TV and radio, has invested (a bit late) in new media, and has remained committed to local enterprise reporting. What would I do differently? Not that much. Will it survive? I hope so, for Miami’s sake.

Don’t TV and radio stations need newspapers?

Almost all real reporting these days is done by newspaper reporters. Radio and TV mostly crib stories from the great work being done by daily newspapers. My job is largely as an analyst and interpreter and distiller of news. I rarely break new ground with my stories – I leave that for my newspaper colleagues.

How important is writing for radio? Isn't a good voice enough?

People ask me if I miss writing since transitioning to radio. My response: I write more now than ever before. After all, I write my scripts before I read them. Good writing is the most central skill in radio, more important even than voicing. I would dare say that writing is more important in radio than in print. The ear is a far more demanding audience than the eye. If a single spoken sentence doesn’t maintain the attention of a listener, every sentence that comes after will be lost. There are no second chances in radio. If your mind wanders while reading the newspaper, you can just reread the paragraph.

One thing average people don't know about your job?

I spend an average of 10 hours of work on every minute of a "Marketplace" feature story. And I work fast. There’s a reason public radio stories sound so good. They’re the compression of days of work, hours of tape, and reams of background material into the 500-word script for a four-minute piece.

One thing other journalists may not realize?

That public radio journalism is far more taxing than print journalism, and may be the most taxing form of daily journalism. Public radio journalists generally work alone – they don’t have the site producers or camera people that assist most TV reporters. In radio, you produce and record your own interviews, log and cut the tape, research and write the script, voice the piece – everything right up to mixing the final piece, which is usually done by an engineer. In comparison, what I used to do – scribbling handwritten notes in a notepad then type them up – was a walk in the park.

Career highlight?

Winning the Pulitzer Prize for staff coverage of the Elián González raid by INS officials.

Amusing professional gaffe?

An Elián-related story: The Miami Herald got early word that the INS would be conducting a dawn raid to recover Elián from his Miami relatives’ Little Havana home. So The Herald decided to post a reporter full-time in front of the home, to give the paper early notice when the raid occurred. I was an intern on the metro desk at the time, so when it came time to decide who should be forced to spend all night awake, I was the obvious choice.

The metro editor called me into her office a Friday morning and offered the assignment. I accepted but asked to start my night shift on Saturday night, to give myself a chance to adjust to the nocturnal schedule. No one thought the raid was imminent at that point. So the metro editor assigned an eager junior reporter named Carolyn Salazar to cover the house that first night.

I stayed up really late on Friday, studiously gearing up for my night shift, and finally collapsed at 4 a.m. Two hours later, I was awakened by a phone call. It was my mom. “Turn on the TV!” she yelled. I did. The INS raid had already happened, and Elián was on his way back to Cuba. I could not fall asleep. Self-recrimination is an extraordinary stimulant. Around noon, I finally slinked into The Herald newsroom. The metro editor saw me and began to laugh out loud.

“That’s the last time you’ll turn down an assignment, isn’t it?” she said with an unmissable shadenfreude. A few minutes later, she came to me with a consolation prize: an assignment to cover the reaction of the local religious community to the raid. I ended up having a bylined piece deep into the special section dedicated to our coverage of the raid. Carolyn Salazar shared a byline with two senior reporters on the leading page one story about the raid.

A year later, we won a Pulitzer for our coverage, and Carolyn was part of the team that traveled to New York to accept the prize. Because I had a bylined piece in the package, I’m in the Pulitzer footnotes – another consolation prize.

Weird dues-paying story?

I interned at The Washington Post in the summer of 1999, at its Prince William County bureau. On Saturdays, I worked general assignment at the metro desk, and one Saturday word came across the wires that a middle-aged man had drowned in his own pool after having a heart attack.

I forget the man’s name all these years later, but it was a relatively common one – and one of the people with that same name was a prominent professor at Georgetown. So I was given the following assignment: swing by the deceased person’s house and find out if the man that had died was the Georgetown professor. If it wasn’t, The Post didn’t want the obituary.

I sat a long time in my car outside the man’s house, watching people enter and exit the home. I fantasized about ditching the assignment and driving a few hours north to my folks’ home in Philly, the wind in my hair, free of this assignment. Instead, I screwed up my courage and walked to the front door. I knocked. No one answered. It was unlocked, so I walked in.

I was greeted in the hallway by a sorrow-eyed man who expressed his condolences and gently asked how I knew the deceased. I edged him into the corner of the hallway, whispered who I was, and asked the fateful question: “Is this the Georgetown professor?” “Oh, no, he sold insurance.” I thanked him for his time and backed quickly out of the house. I’ll tell you, I took my sweet time getting back to the office that day.

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into the skulls of college students and young professionals?

Don’t simply study, do. Journalism is a skill honed through repetition. The best early piece of advice I got was to do as many pieces as possible early in my career. It was through that repetition that I came to learn the craft of reporting.

Young reporters must understand: It’s through that repetition that you pay your dues in this profession. And truth told, it doesn’t really matter that much what outlet you do this reporting for. Don’t get caught up in the brand names when you’re starting out. One caveat: The media organization must have journalistic integrity, so it’s teaching you the right skills.

If you had to do it all over again, anything you'd do differently?

I would have majored in philosophy in college. I mean, why not? It’s not like my degree in “Public and International Affairs” has done anything for my professional life.

Smooth sailing

2008-01-13T14:44:00.000-08:00

an interview with…

LUCY CHABOT REED
editor and co-founder
The Triton

Four years ago, Lucy Chabot Reed and her husband David decided to launch a monthly newspaper for yacht crews and captains. She’d handle the editorial, he’d handle the business, and they’d both work from home and raise their 18-month-old daughter.

What could possibly go wrong?

Turns out, very little.

The Triton’s first issue in April 2004 was 24 pages. These days, it averages 76. Late last year, the Reeds launched Tee Times, a monthly golf newspaper, and they hope to “acquire another title” this year, although they aren’t saying much more about it.

Last week, Reed hired her first employee – a managing editor – which marks the first time she’s been the boss of someone since she was editor at The Alligator, the student newspaper at the University of Florida.

Reed hopes her new employee will be happier than she was as a journalist. Reed didn’t enjoy her stints as a Sun-Sentinel city reporter (January 1993-August 1994) and a New Times Broward-Palm Beach staff writer (November 1997-June 1998), as you’ll see below.

She had a better time as an associate editor at the South Florida Business Journal from 1998 to 2003, but she she still wasn’t happy and tried freelancing before taking the plunge with The Triton. Now, she says, “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life – professionally and personally.”

How was working at the Sun-Sentinel?

I could have been happy if I had felt challenged. I was sort of let loose to cover whatever I wanted within the city limits of Margate and North Lauderdale. And while that’s desirable later in one’s career, I was young and wanted to be pushed, not left alone. I had no mortgage or partner. I would have worked 24/7 with some encouragement. Instead, my stories weren’t edited much, and my pitches weren’t questioned much. I was pretty bored, actually. I started freelancing pieces to the Travel and Lifestyle sections.

And New Times?

New Times was just weird. It comes across as a cool, alternative publication, but it’s really just as corporate as any major metro – perhaps more so, because the financial pressures in that niche with City Link must have been outrageous.

The Broward-Palm Beach edition was new and still defining itself when I joined it after its first issue. I was so jazzed about it, but it wasn’t a good fit for the kind of reporting I wanted to do. Not everyone is a bad guy or a victim, but that’s what they wanted. I didn’t sleep well after rewriting my stories to please my editors. I wanted to write for my readers. I wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to survive there. I only lasted eight months, maybe less.

One positive note: I got to work with Sean Rowe, who remains one of the coolest journalists I’ve ever met.

What's the biggest difference working for another editor and for yourself?

Good stuff gets on the front page, regardless of who wrote it.

Advice for someone wanting to start their own publication?

Find someone else to pay for it.

No seriously, my advice is to find people you trust to handle the stuff you aren’t good at. My husband, David, is a whiz at the financial and schmoozing-for-advertisers parts. Our partner Peg is a whiz at the business management and sales parts. All I have to do is the journalism.

Most frustrating part of your job?

Working in a newsroom of one. That will change in the first quarter of 2008 when I hire an M.E.

Funnest part of your job?

Talking to yacht crew. They’re so interesting and most are incredibly passionate about what they do. Their jobs are their lives, and I so respect people who live that way. Most of us work 9-to-5 and squeeze in the living around that. Imagine how much more living we could do if we could live and work at something we love?

Career highlight?

Today, running The Triton. The best part is having a receptive and responsive audience. Elsewhere in my career, readers rarely let me know what they thought of my stories and columns. After 15 years as a reporter at large dailies, alternative tabs, and business weeklies, my “atta-girl” folder held about 10 notes. I surpassed that with our first issue of The Triton. Every day, someone praises the content of the paper and thanks us for the work we do. I sleep great at night now.

Weird dues-paying story?

During my college internship at the Los Angeles Times, I was often sent to interview grieving relatives. One Mormon family with something like 11 kids lost a young son in their swimming pool the day before. Expecting a grieving and angry family, I knocked on the door with my condolences and a convincing speech all ready.

Before I could get that far, the father welcomed me inside, offered me an iced tea, sat me down with a family photo album, and told me all about the little boy – while hordes of kids and relatives ran around the house, playing in the pool, talking, and eating. The mother passed through the room only once, a sad look on her face – and very pregnant.

Amusing professional gaffe?

Telling Sun-Sentinel editor Gene Cryer in a new employee lunch that he didn’t seem to care much about his reporters who suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome. He raised his voice and ended the lunch. It wasn’t funny at the time and it turned out to be not such a smart move for me professionally.

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into college students and young professionals?

Know where you want to be in 10 years and recognize that each step toward getting there is just a step. There’s something to learn from each step. In college, I wanted to eventually cover Congress, but I lost sight of that along the way. If I had remembered that vision, I would have seen my time at the Sun-Sentinel a little less personally and would have moved up by moving on instead of quitting altogether.

And believe that you aren’t yet as good as you are going to get. Experience makes you great, so embrace every one.

Teaching trouble

2008-01-06T01:52:00.000-08:00

An interview with…

Ken Swart
journalism teacher
Atlantic High School

In the ’80s, Ken Swart covered Palm Beach County schools for the Sun-Sentinel. In the ’90s, he helped create the Sun-Sentinel’s teen page and later ran the Palm Beach County version of it.

“I worked with more than 40 students from at least 15 different high schools, helping them produce news and feature packages,” he recalls. “Looking back, I think it probably furthered my thinking that I might actually want to teach for a living.”

In 2005, that’s exactly what he did. Swart now advises the student newspaper and teaches English, creative writing, and journalism at Atlantic High School in Delray Beach.

If journalists don’t get much respect from the public, Swart says journalism teachers don’t get much respect from journalists. “Professional journalists might like to know that good high school journalism teachers really do try to teach the basics to their students,” he says. “It would also be nice if professional journalists, like people in general, had more respect for teachers.”

Read the following, and you’ll probably give Swart and his peers that respect…

Are high school journalists today any better or worse than when you were a kid?

Probably better. They understand more of the world around them. They’re more interested and more capable of researching a topic, especially on the Internet. They’re more excited about the idea of communicating their ideas to their classmates.

What do the kids think journalism is?

Unfortunately, many of my journalism students – like many young journalists fresh out of college and working on daily newspapers –see it as a way of elevating themselves, of interviewing celebs, of getting their own names in the paper. Too few of them want to tell somebody’s story. Most of them want to use it as a vehicle for something personal.

Advice for a journalist thinking of becoming a teacher?

Check your ego at the door.

Don’t go into it thinking you’re going to mold budding teen journalists into Pulitzer prize winners. Go into it because you genuinely like kids and want to help them grow and learn. Remember: It’s not about you. It’s never about you. It’s about them.

Also, keep in mind that only a handful of teachers in the state do nothing but teach journalism. Most of them teach English, with a class or two of journalism or newspaper/yearbook production on the side.

Biggest difference between working at the Sun-Sentinel and Atlantic High?

When my students act like children, they have a good excuse. Because they are.

Is censorship an issue?

Here’s my best example...

After my students wrote an article critical of the person who runs the Media Center, the assistant principal, without my knowledge, called the student journalists and their student sources into his office and proceeded to chastise them for what they had done. He also required them to write letters of apology to the Media Center director.

The kids were so upset, they didn’t tell me about what had happened until a day or two later. As soon as I found out, I met with the assistant principal and told him, in no uncertain terms, that he had a perfect right to summon any student he wanted to his office. But he sure as hell better not even think of doing again what he did without giving me the professional courtesy of letting me know about it beforehand, so I could sit in on the meeting.

My incident with the assistant principal – who’s in charge of the International Baccalaureate program – probably has cost me any hope of ever teaching an IB class at Atlantic. But I won’t tolerate unprofessional behavior like that.

So how do you deal with your administration now?

Partly as a result of that incident, I run any potentially controversial stories by the assistant principal for curriculum (whom I report to) or the principal herself. I always submit it to them this way:

“Here’s a story we plan to run in the next issue. Let me know if you have any concerns. I don’t want to tell my students, ‘You can’t run it.’ I want to tell my students, ‘Here’s what we need to change so it can run.’”

In 2 1/2 years, I’ve run a half-dozen stories through the administration, and not once have they pulled a story. They’ve made good suggestions, and we’ve incorporated them. Frankly, they have fulfilled their roles as “publishers” in an effective and efficient manner. I really have nothing to complain about.

No matter what, I always make sure that my editors know what I’m doing. Often, I leave it to the editors to submit the stories themselves, so they are part of the review process, from beginning to end.

One big problem you didn’t anticipate?

Schools in general operate under such tight budgets that they never have the right equipment, or enough of it, to really do a very good job.

In the publications-production room, where the kids work on the newspaper and yearbook simultaneously, we’ve only got seven computers. And they’re loaded with all kinds of conflicting programs, including three different versions of Quark, two different versions of InDesign, and an outdate version of PhotoShop. One program won’t “talk” to the other, and one program won’t “convert” a file to another program. Putting out the paper has gradually become a logistical and technological nightmare.

And, of course, there’s very little money to buy new versions. In addition, the tech people at the school are inundated with requests and problems from other sources, and they end up putting our needs far down on their priority list.

Most frustrating part of your job?

It isn’t the pay (which pretty much sucks), the kids’ behavior (which can be disrespectful), or the school district’s massive bureaucracy (which is often impenetrable). It’s the paperwork – and for that, we can thank any parent who ever brought a lawsuit against a school district anywhere in the country. Parents are supposed to parent. Schools are supposed to teach. If parents did their job, then teachers would be able to do theirs.

An example of the paperwork?

If I went by the book, I’d have to document – on separate, daily log sheets – every time a student goes to the bathroom, every time I talk to a student about his or her behavior, and every time I call a parent, even if it’s a call to offer a compliment instead of share a concern.

I’d have to document every time a student misses a class, every time I show a video clip that connects to a lesson in the textbook, every time I hand out copies of information not in the textbook.

I’m also required to keep journal logs, homework logs, and make-up work logs for each student. And I am required to submit written lesson plans, with back-up material, on a monthly basis. In addition, as the newspaper adviser, I’m responsible for submitting daily announcements, and logging “activities conducted” and “monies collected.”

Damn! How does a teacher deal with all that?

I think any new teacher quickly comes to the conclusion that you can either keep up with the paperwork, or you can teach your kids. I choose the latter.

Riding off into the sunset

2007-12-30T05:33:00.000-08:00

An interview with…

MARYA SUMMERS
nightlife columnist
New Times Broward Palm Beach

Marya Summers is tired of hanging out in nightclubs, so she’s quitting her job. Her last “Night Rider” column runs next week, just one month shy of her second anniversary.

In that time, Summers has dodged a flying beer bottle at Banana Boat (which clipped another woman in the head), been flogged at a fetish party at Club Boca, and been ordered to feel a woman’s breasts at Fitzy’s.

Before she landed the weekly freelance column at New Times, Summers was a sex columnist at City Link, frontwoman for a local band called Hunger-Thump, an adjunct English professor at PBCC, and hostess of a long-running (2000-2005) local poetry slam.

After two decades in South Florida’s underground media and arts scene – which included co-founding a literary magazine called Pandemonium and playing at SunFest – Summers is leaving to pursue an MFA in something called “creative nonfiction” at Antioch University in Los Angeles.

Writing a nightlife column is easy, right?

Most people are self-deceiving when it comes to who they are, so my column comes as a slap in the face. Since I cover a scene that I also socialize in, negotiating my professional and personal needs can get dicey – the writer’s instinct usually wins. I’ve lost friends. One girl is still mad at me for describing in seductive terms how she pulled apart the lychee in her martini.

How many hours a week does it take to write one column?

Writing is only the half of it. In addition to research (hours online and networking to figure out where the hot scenes are in two counties), a girl has to shop (different scenes, different looks), get dolled up (who wants to talk to a hag?), drive to and from the place (sometimes 1 1/2 hours roundtrip), and then get started with the actual writing. The actual writing of a column takes me a solid day. Before I submit the story, I spend another hour or so tinkering. I am definitely not an “efficient” writer.

Funnest part of the job?

Talking to people who’ve fueled their ids and drowned their super-egos with alcohol. They say and do exactly what’s on their minds.

Hardest part of the job?

Other than the flak I get from people who don’t like reading what they’ve said and done when they’ve fueled their ids and drowned their super egos?

Beginning the writing process is the hardest part. I’m a control freak, so I prefer editing what I’ve already written, since I already know what my point is by the time I’ve written a draft. But I seldom go into a story with an angle. Instead, I go in (usually) unbiased, collect “supplies” from my experience with which to construct a story, and then I rearrange the parts until I see what I can build. Sometimes it’s as frustrating as untangling fishing line.

Advice for the person who might want to replace you?

An expense account for a nightlife columnist is just incentive to drive drunk. Negotiate more pay instead of reimbursed expenses.

Career highlight?

Being asked to lecture at FAU, where I was a grad-school drop out, on my how my provocative writing, big mouth, and shameless persona are a boon to South Florida.

Amusing professional gaffe?

I’d been a party girl on a tight budget for a long time when I got this job. So just the idea of free top-shelf martinis was intoxicating. My second or third time out for the column, I drank so much that I had to take a cab home. The next morning, I couldn’t remember a lot of what happened, but I’d taken pictures. So, I called my editor with the half-serious suggestion that I might submit a photo essay.

My career has been built on my social blunders, so I capitalized on my bad behavior. You can read all about it in “A Nearly Religious Experience.”

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into college students and young professionals?

Well, at the risk of sounding pretentious, I’ve always taken the advice that Rilke gave in his Letters to a Young Poet: If you are driven to write, if you must create, you should “build your life according to this necessity” and “take that burden and bear it without ever asking what recompense might come from outside.” It doesn’t always pay for the groceries, but sometimes it feeds the soul.

Looking back, anything you’d do differently?

Mistakes are educational opportunities, and “sin” is very instructional. I’ve learned some painful lessons, but I needed that “schooling” to grow. More importantly, my mistakes have been a lot of fun for others to watch. So, no, I’d do it all the same.

From WQAM PD to PR VP

2007-12-23T07:25:00.000-08:00

An interview with…

Stu Opperman
vice president
Ambit Marketing

There's one big regret and one amusing irony to Stu Opperman's education.

“I wish I would’ve tried harder in my high school and college Spanish classes,” says the graduate of South Broward High School and the University of Florida. “Being bilingual would be a huge asset to me now.”

While at UF, Opperman was obsessed with sports reporting and majored in broadcasting. “They've since gotten fancy and now call it telecommunications,” he says. “Interestingly, although public relations was part of the same School of Communications and its classes are in the same building, I had no awareness of it or what its students were learning. I was strictly focused on news and sports reporting.”

From 1988 to 1993, Opperman worked at WQAM – at the time, the only all-sports station in South Florida. He started as executive producer of various talk shows and then the Miami Heat broadcasting network. He was the station’s program director for a couple of years, and then worked on nationally syndicated sports shows.

But as he got older, the nomadic life of radio professionals – who are hired and fired with alarming regularity – convinced him to make a change.

What exactly does a program director do at WQAM?

I was responsible for the on-air programming, managing the air talent and support staff, and interfacing with the rest of the station’s staff – sales, production, promotions, etc.

What does a VP at a marketing company do?

At Ambit, it means creating and implementing communications strategies, being the point person for our clients and the press, representing the firm in the community, helping to generate new business, and being the “right hand” of Kathy Koch and Stan Brown, the firm’s senior leadership.

Biggest difference between working in radio and PR?

In radio, there’s an immediacy to almost all that you do, with most of the effort focused on what will air that day. In PR, the cycle is much longer, with today’s work possibly having the desired result months later.

Why did you decide to leave radio for PR?

I didn’t want to have to explain to my wife or future children that I lost my job because an out-of-town consultant decided an automated, all-polka format would be more profitable than the one I was working in.

Best and worst part of working in radio?

Best: Having access to interesting and talented people and creating compelling programming that’s heard by a large audience. Worst: Knowing that hard work and daily accomplishments don’t necessarily equal career advancement or job security.

Most frustrating part of your job now?

Wondering whether the lack of response from a media contact means they didn’t like the idea or just never received the email that I sent – due to overzealous spam filters, technical glitches, etc.

Funnest part of your job now?

Working with clients and media that respect my talents and value my expertise.

Career highlight?

It hasn’t happened yet.

Amusing professional gaffe?

I once sent a memo to a client that included the typo “pubic relations.” Who would have thought one little “l” could make such a difference?

Weird dues-paying story?

Early on, I was talked into having a press conference by a client who thought it would bring them additional coverage. I knew the press conference wasn’t newsworthy, but I went ahead with it anyway, not wanting to seem uncooperative.

Needless to say, no one from the press showed up. The lesson I learned that day was to trust your instincts and understand that clients need PR practitioners to lead their marketing and communications, not the other way around.

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into college students and young professionals?

Be prepared, be creative, and don’t be afraid to share your thoughts.

Eating for a living

2007-12-16T07:34:00.000-08:00

An interview with…

GAIL SHEPHERD
food writer
New Times Broward Palm Beach

In 1985, when she graduated from the University of Florida with a master’s degree in English – and a specialization in poetry – Gail Shepherd had one goal.

“I just wanted a job writing,” she says. Unfortunately, she got her wish.

Shepherd freelanced, starved, and was homeless for a brief time. Then she became editor of three underground magazines in Palm Beach County: Red Herring in the ’90s, Free Press at the turn of the millennium, and Closer up until a few years ago. The first two perished, Shepherd quit the third, and she starved yet again.

But Shepherd starves no longer – because in 2005, she landed a job that pays her to write and eat. A quarter-century after she graduated from UF, Shepherd was hired as the full-time food writer at the alternative weekly New Times Broward Palm Beach.

With her sister Susan, Shepherd is also co-writer of a National Public Radio serial, 11 Central Ave. It’s a five-minute “radio comic strip” that airs weekly on public radio stations around the country, including Chicago, Boston, and Miami (on WLRN 91.3-FM at 9:30 a.m. Saturdays).

“I floundered around a bit in my early years; people said I was a dilettante,” Shepherd recalls. “I probably could have cultivated more focus and ambition, but then I probably wouldn’t have stored the weird assortment of cultural information I have. That ragbag of images and memes and references has stood me well. Maybe every writer should have a little hobo in her.”

Reviewing restaurants is easy, right?

Yeah, this is the best job on the planet. You get to eat and read all day and claim to be “working.”

You do more than just review dining establishments. What are your other job responsibilities?

They sort of cobbled together a job for me at New Times. I fill in as a copyeditor when our real copyeditor and proofreader are on vacation, and I’m responsible for keeping our dining listings up to date. That means more eating, essentially, and writing brief capsules, and sort of directing a couple of people who also write Dish pieces or are otherwise engaged in fact-checking our listings.

What are some of the things you do that other journalists may not realize?

Well, I spent my first couple of years deeply engaged in research: the history and culture of cooking, manners, agriculture, biology, etc. And time reading up on ecological issues and economic markets.

I felt that I was really far behind my peers. I’d never gone to French culinary school or toured the fish stalls of Tokyo. I wasn’t even much of a home cook at the time. Since I took on this job, I’ve turned myself into a fairly decent cook with at least a preliminary understanding of food science, and when I travel, I travel to eat.

Downside to the job?

I’ve had to develop an iron stomach, because food poisoning is one of the perks of this business. So I guess unlike other journalists, I spend a lot of nights with my head over a toilet bowl. Although come to think of it, that might be pretty common among journalists...

Do you consider yourself a journalist? Do other journalists?

This is more like academic research coupled with creative writing. It’s journalism when I’m doing profiles or longer pieces, but even then, I feel like I have a lot more leeway, stylistically, than somebody covering the city beat for a daily. In that sense, I feel lucky, because I’m not particularly aggressive about getting in people’s faces. I have a lot of respect for reporters.

How exactly do you conduct restaurant reviews? So many others aren’t exactly ethical...

I try to visit a place at least twice if I have the budget. I never, ever, under any circumstances tell them that I’m coming or who I am when I’m there. That kind of behavior is not only unethical, it’s in terrible taste.

I try to keep a very low profile if possible while I’m eating — not too many questions, no fuss, no sending food back, nothing that would help them remember what I look like. I don’t take notes at the table or pictures with my cell phone. I use a fake name and borrowed credit card to pay, and I swear my dinner companions to secrecy. That means I have to pay attention, have a good memory, and call the owner or chef later to fact-check details. (Was that a corn or a flour tortilla?)

It’s unfortunate that in many of the smaller mags and shoppers, the “wall” between restaurant reviewing (editorial) and advertising doesn’t exist. I want my readers to trust that my opinion can’t be bought. This doesn’t always sit well with our advertising department, but my editors have always backed me totally.

Besides yourself, who's a good restaurant reviewer in South Florida?

I generally admire the reviews in The Miami Herald – they’re both informative and fair. I think Victoria Pesce Elliott can turn a nice phrase.

Who's the worst?

David K, who reviews for Closer. His last column, where he imagines he’s having a threesome in an Italian restaurant with his new wife and his stepdaughter, complete with creepy food/sex-mixed metaphors, was one of the most hideous pieces of food writing ever published. I read it and swore I’d lost my appetite forever. Which is an achievement in itself.

Career highlight?

Warded “Best Newspaper Restaurant Criticism” by the National Association of Food Journalists last year, although I don’t believe it’s true for a minute.

Amusing professional gaffe?

When I applied for the job at New Times, Chuck Strouse, then-editor, was waiting in his office for me with a letter I’d written to the paper about five years before. My oh-so-snarky missive took Broward New Times to task for their all-male senior staff, calling them atrocious sexist pigs or something. During my interview, I had to answer for it. Chuck wasn’t particularly amused.

Weird dues-paying story?

Being homeless for a while. Living on coffee and cigarettes. The usual stuff.

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into college students and young professionals?

Listen hard to your editor and try to get everything you can from him or her. Yeah, it’s your name on the piece, but if you step back and let your editor guide you, rewrite sentences, or make you redo the whole story – no matter how much of a pain in the ass he might be – you’ll realize years later that the advice was invaluable.

The editors who drove me crazy when I was younger are the ones I ended up learning the most from. Too many young writers resist editing, fighting for every one of their oh-so-precious words – to their great detriment. Be humble. Cultivate distance from your own writing – your story is not about you.

Another piece of advice: No job is forever. Have a back-up plan.

Acting on a tip

2007-12-09T03:07:00.000-08:00

An interview with…

LISA LUCAS
South Florida correspondent
New York Post

When NFL star Sean Taylor was shot last month in his Miami-area home, it was a national story. And scooping everyone was a former child actress with almost no journalism experience.

In April, Lisa Lucas graduated from Florida Atlantic University, where she wrote and edited for the student newspaper and freelanced two-dozen features to Forum Publishing Group, a chain of community weeklies owned by the Sun-Sentinel.

Before that, her steadiest work was as an actress. The fortyish Delray Beach resident co-starred in a series of popular ’70s holiday specials with Jason Robards (playing his young daughter) and made guest appearances on sitcoms like “Family Ties” and “Facts of Life.” Her last major role was in 1993, in the Robert Downey Jr. movie Heart and Souls.

When Sean Taylor, a defensive star with the Washington Redskins and University of Miami, was shot in the groin on Nov. 26, the story was covered nationwide. When he died a day later in a Miami hospital, reporters had lots of questions: Was this a robbery gone bad? Retaliation for something Taylor had done? (He was arrested for armed assault in 2005 for allegedly pointing a gun at someone, but charges were later dropped.) Who pulled the trigger? Where were they?

So the New York Post called Lucas and asked her to track down some leads. She had applied as a stringer only a couple of months earlier – at the urging of Steve Ellman, editor of the West Palm Beach-based nightclub magazine Closer and a former Post stringer himself. Lucas had written a couple of stories for Closer after graduating, as she tried to launch her freelance career. This was what they call in the acting business “a big break.”

She made the most of it. In six days – at $250 a day – Lucas racked up two solo bylines, two double bylines, and a tagline. She was first with many details, from Taylor’s sister’s connection to the suspects to how bumbling those burglars turned out to be.

“The big inside information I got was when I tracked down one of the suspects lawyers, Landon Miller,” Lucas says. “He told me about how the crime ‘almost didn't happen.’ The crew of burglars went into the house, heard a noise, and thought there was someone in the house. So they left and got halfway down the driveway before one of the guys said, ‘No, that was me you heard, let’s go back.’ So they went back into the house – and that's when the shooting occurred.”

How does a novice freelancer land an assignment from the New York Post?

A few months ago, I sent a resume and some clips to the Post to put my name on a list for stringers in Florida. And, basically, I forgot about it. Then, two weeks ago, the phone rang and it was the Post. The editor covering the Sean Taylor story said she got my name out of the Rolodex and “heard” I was “good.” Of course, I didn't ask from whom, nor did I deny it. I just said, “Whatever you need, I'm on it.”

With only a few freelance clips from Forum, weren’t you nervous covering this?

Oh yeah. From the minute the phone call came until 8 o’clock that night, I was on a pure adrenaline rush. I kind of panicked at first. There was a moment when I thought I was in over my head – especially, since I had never written or reported for a daily with only a few hours’ deadline.

So what did you do then?

I called some friends in the journalism business, and they said just start with the police and go from there. My acting background helped with my reporting and investigation technique.

The hardest part of the story?

Figuring out where to start and who to call first. I wanted to find a direction that no other reporter had already gone down.

So what did you do then?

The Post had given me a cell-phone number for Sean Taylor’s attorney and family friend, Richard Sharpstein. But he didn't answer. So I looked him up online, found a different number for a Richard Sharpstein, and called it. A man answered and said he would love to talk to me and would call back in 10 minutes.

When he didn't, I researched Sharpstein again and found his law firm number. I called there, and when I told the secretary I had just spoken with him, she said that wasn't him – and that wasn’t his number. So I felt like a real jerk, since I had just told the Post editor I had tracked him down. Now I was going to have to say he was an impostor.

A few minutes later, the secretary, who felt sorry for my novice plight, had Sharpstein call. It turned out it was him I had spoken to, at his home number. He was kind enough to give me 20 minutes between his cell phone ringing off the hook and his television appearances.

What’d you get?

The biggest coup came when I called Sharpstein the following day and his wife answered. An hour later, she and I had become “best friends,” and she even had friends of the Taylor family and Buck Ortega from the New Orleans Saints – who was Taylor’s college roommate – call me. I drove all the way to Homestead on Sunday night for the wake and viewing just so I could meet Janice Sharpstein, and both she and Richard gave me a warm greeting and a hug. So, not only did I score a great source, I made a new friend who’s invited me to visit her home in North Carolina.

The most shocking part of the story?

I was thrilled when I heard a reporter on Anderson Cooper’s show quoting almost verbatim from my story about Sean Taylor's sister. I knew that no one else but the Post had reported the facts about her involvement with the potential suspects as I had. And that’s thanks to my “new best friend” and the information my source shared with me. Scooping one of my idols, now that's a rush!

The funnest part?

I must admit, it was quite a rush saying, “Hi, this is Lisa Lucas from the New York Post” every time I made a call. I’m a New York girl and the Post (politics aside) has always been my paper of choice – easy to read on the subway, and who can live without Page Six?

The weirdest part?

One thing I found somewhat disturbing was the lack of compassion some of the press had for the grieving family.

I know that a reporter has to be somewhat cold-hearted and callous, but when the editors would jump on something I reported and then turn into something sordid and sensational, it really made me realize that there’s very little heart involved in this job – at least as far as straight news reporting. I think that’s why I’ve always leaned towards feature writing and human-interest pieces.

How many hours did you put in?

The first few days I put in about six hours a day, half of the time on the phone and half doing research – like property searches, reverse lookups for numbers, background info to get family names – on the computer. But by the third day, after I had lined up my sources, I really only put in a couple of hours to get my story. And I rarely left my house – once to go to the wake way down in Homestead.

How did you file your reporting?

I did my reporting and would call whatever editor was covering the Taylor story for that day. Actually, they weren’t editors – they were “rewriters.” I would call, read them my notes, and they would type the story as I spoke. A couple of times, I had to pull over while I was driving because they were on deadline and couldn't wait till I got home. The weird thing is I got my byline everyday, but I never actually wrote a word of the story. I supplied information and quotes.

One piece of advice you'd give a fellow novice journalist trying to do what you did?

There isn’t one piece, there are many little ones…

Be tenacious, stubborn, and not afraid of rejection. Follow any leads, even if they’re dead ends, you might turn up remnants of a clue that could lead you to the next important connection.

And humility. I think being humble and honest with the people is helpful in getting them to cooperate. I think, at least for this assignment, the best thing I did was establish relationships with all the people that led me to my “new best friend.” So park your ego at the door and don't pretend you know it all. You’d be surprised how much help you may get if you let someone know you need it.

Finding his mojo

2007-12-02T07:20:00.000-08:00

An interview with…

JASON PARSLEY
mobile journalist
Forum Publishing Group

After graduating from college in May, Jason Parsley was hired as the West Boca reporter at Forum Publishing Group, a chain of community weeklies owned by the Sun-Sentinel. In September, he got a bad case of the flu. When he came back to work two days later, his job was gone.

Parsley was no longer on the West Boca beat. He was now a “mojo.”

He’d heard the term before. Short for “mobile journalist,” a mojo been has been loosely defined as a reporter who’s booted out of the newsroom and spends the workday filing many short web stories from a laptop.

Depending on your view of the newspaper business, it’s either a timely innovation or a panicky overreaction. To Parsley, it was simply a pain in the ass.

He didn’t do well at first. A former editor of his student newspaper at Florida Atlantic University, Parsley had won a half-dozen awards – and more than $5,000 – for his investigations into FAU’s Student Government. He exposed financial corruption that forced a student body president to resign, as well as ethical lapses that resulted in the ouster of a chief justice. He was named Florida’s College Journalist of the Year and was runner-up for the national title.

But by his own admission, Parsley was a slow writer. So he figured a job at Forum would build up his speed. As a typical community weekly chain, Forum pays little, asks a lot, and is full of writers and editors who are both brand-new at their jobs. It’s a meat grinder, but those who survive come out the other end as better journalists – or not journalists at all.

As a Forum mojo, Parsley is expected to file three stories a day that he has to find on his own. At 150 to 350 words, these are far from the investigative reports he hopes to do one day.

“I’ve done a lot of previews of local events,” he says, “like nature center lectures, construction projects, gas stations that closed, the reopening of a golf course, the opening of a county bus station – basically, all the things going on out there that readers have seen but they’ll never make the time and effort to look into it.”

What did you think when you first heard the term "mojo"?

The first time I heard it, a mojo was explained to me as “a journalist who drives around all day and looks for stories rather than sitting in an office.” I thought it was ridiculous.

Were you asked or ordered to be a mojo? How exactly did it go down?

I wasn't asked to be a mojo – I was told I was going to be one. Basically, I had been sick for two days and when I came back to work, I found an email waiting for me that said, "Today you are a mojo." They gave me a laptop, camera, and video camera and told me in a month I'd no longer have a desk. After that, I'd be working and filing my stories, pictures, and videos from the field everyday.

How was the first week or two?

The first week was excruciating. I didn't really know what I was supposed to do. The first day, I drove 60 miles around West Boca looking for a story. Finally, after several hours, I found one: a restaurant that had closed for renovations was reopening.

What about after that?

After that, I found my own mojo, no pun intended. After the first few days, I didn't think I was going to enjoy my new job very much. But then one day, it clicked and everything fell in to place. Now I'm very happy and I love having the opportunity to add more to my stories than just words.

Pros and cons?

Since I just graduated from college in May, one of my weaknesses as a writer is that I'm not very fast. Writing several stories a day, sometimes in only 15 minutes, is teaching me to write fast, get to the point, and cut out the fat.

The biggest con is that the stories we're writing aren't in depth. Some of them may only be 100 words or less. Of course, for the readers this may be a pro. In the past, if we needed to fill a page with 500 words, we'd have to stretch the story out to make it fit, even if it didn't deserve that much attention.

Is mojo a fad or trend in your opinion?

Readers want more local news. Readers want shorter stories. Mojos are meant to give the readers what they want. The job description and title may change, but the idea won't. It's here to stay.

Any advice for brand-new mojos, or those forced into it?

For those forced into it, keep an open mind and have fun. Also, don't start your day blind as I did in the beginning. Make sure you plan and think ahead.

If you were a multimedia baron, how would you do mojo differently?

Ask me this question in a few months, after I've been doing the job for a bit longer.

As a new journalist, do you look forward to the future, or do you wish you were working a decade ago?

I'm glad I'm working now. If I were working a decade ago, I don't know how I would have reacted to the Internet revolution that would eventually come. I feel bad for those older journalists who aren't willing to accept the fact that things are changing. They're going to be stuck in the past and left to rot.

Teaching a lesson

2007-11-25T09:17:00.000-08:00

an interview with…

CONNIE HICKS McMAHON
Professor
Barry University

After 25 years of reporting on riots, hurricanes, and public corruption in Miami, Cuba, and Haiti, Connie Hicks McMahon decided to teach broadcast journalism instead of living it.

So for the past three years, she’s been a professor at Barry University in Miami Shores, lecturing on not only broadcasting but also muddling through an intro class called “Writing for the Media.”

If the two jobs have one thing in common, it’s the begging.

In professional broadcasting, McMahon says, “we perfect begging – from a source for information, a producer for more time, and a news director to do a story he/she isn't wild about.”

At Barry, McMahon has perfected another kind of begging: convincing her students to learn how to write.

McMahon credits her success in front of the camera – which includes a couple of Emmy Awards, breaking the Florida connection to 9-11, and becoming the first female anchor at Miami’s WSVN – to her writing and reporting.

And even with stellar journalism skills, McMahon has to convince her students that a broadcasting career doesn’t begin glamorously. She regales them with stories about the “terrible, awful hours in the beginning – weekends, early mornings, and all holidays.”

“I couldn't count the times the New Year began with me driving home from the 11 p.m. newscast,” she says. “You can't say no to working a double shift when you're the rookie. And even when I wasn't a rookie, I spent more holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries with a photographer than I did with my family. Nothing like Valentine's Day driving to Gainesville to cover a trial – or to be in Starke for your birthday, covering an execution.”

What's the biggest difference between practicing journalism and teaching it?

One is doing it, the other is talking about it. The challenge is to convey the immediacy, the stress, the needed tools, the challenges, and excitement in a classroom setting – especially because this generation gets most of its news from the Internet. Few are dedicated newspaper readers or news viewers.

What's one part of your teaching job that most folks don't realize you do?

How much time I spend one-on-one with students who need help with their writing. And I mean basic writing sometimes, as well as broadcast writing.

How has broadcast news changed from the days you were winning awards doing it?

Technology – with the ability to go "live" almost anywhere, anytime – leaves you with less time to prepare. You can get background information and videotape sooner and faster, and satellite phones have helped broadcasting in cases where it would be near impossible – for example, reporting from Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina hit. But at the same time, less money is being spent on the product – less travel and less time to work on "quality" stories.

You like those changes?

Not so much. I think the biggest disappointment is the lack of investigative reporting. Most television networks and stations don’t like having their reporters off air working on a special report. And there is, of course, the "big chill" factor of lawsuits. The faster something is done, the less you can expect good writing, good editing and substance.

The future of broadcast news as you see it?

Local news is here to stay, but there might well come the day when there’s no evening network news, at least as we see it now.

How did you get into broadcasting?

I became intrigued with "60 Minutes" in college – and I still am. It was my plan to work for a local news station, then go on to "60 Minutes." Having made my name there, I would sail around the world and write the next great American novel. To see the least, I fell a bit short of those goals.

A career highlight that sticks in your mind?

When I broke the story of the terrorists who had tried to learn how to fly and buy crop dusting planes in central and South Florida.

Any amusing professional gaffes?

Too many to recount. One that vividly stands out in mind is covering some hurricane on the beach, in the rain, with a slicker on, wind howling, can't see or hear a thing. I keep yelling to an intern by the live truck to find out when I'm on – only to discover I have been on air, yelling and screaming. By some fluke, I had not uttered a profanity, which surprised all who knew me.

If you could surgically implant one piece of career advice into the skulls of college students and young professionals, what would it be?

Be resourceful and curious. You don't have to be smart, but to do this job well, you have to want all the elements to craft a great story. To do that, you'll need those first two attributes.

Controversy brewing

2007-11-18T12:32:00.000-08:00

an interview with...

SONJA ISGER
The Morning Brew blogger
Palm Beach Post

“Blogging. I know nothing,” says Sonja Isger – the newest and highest-profile blogger on The Palm Beach Post’s website.

But that’s OK. What Isger is doing every morning from 6-9 a.m. is unknown territory for everyone. The Post is conducting an online experiment that attempts to personalize the news by stealing an idea from radio.

“Morning radio on the web,” Isger calls The Morning Brew. “As much as radio can be written.”

So Isger writes almost like morning DJs talk, giving traffic and weather along with breaking news and water-cooler talk. This is her third week at it. Will The Morning Brew survive a month?

“I'd like to think that whatever happens, we have to remember it's about content,” says The Post’s former education reporter. “Telling people interesting things in context.”

Not everyone grasps that context.

New Times columnist Bob Norman, who writes a popular South Florida media blog called the Daily Pulp, recently wrote that "this is the first blog aimed at the adult Attention-Deficit Disorder demographic. Morning brew? How about morning meth?"

He added, “I start scrolling down, you know, the way I do, and I'm thinking, ‘What the hell is this?’ There was no rhyme or reason to it, just miscellaneous links and haphazard thoughts.”

Isger’s reaction?

“My first response was, ‘Oh, there's a Daily Pulp thing? It's only Day 3.’”

Her second reaction was, “Maybe he's right.” The Morning Brew host is craving constructive criticism to make this experiment stick.

“It would've been better for me if he had some suggestions or insight about what made him feel it was too pumped up,” she says. “I'm looking for that from anyone who has an opinion. Want more local? Don't want more local? Want more news of the weird? More pics? Hate that gray Breaking News box? Like the headlines? Hate the headlines? Too many posts? Too few? Whatever. Tell me. I can act or at least consider that stuff.”

Of course, she realizes she’s already had at least one triumph. “I have to say,” she says of Norman, “at least he looked.”

Who's idea was this? Corporate edict or local brainstorm?

The corporate call went out to get more news on the web earlier. But as conceived, it would just be someone doing cop calls, checking the scanner, and filing briefs and short stories to the web early. It was my suggestion to do something more fun with it. My supervisor thought I had something, and we pitched it back up the chain of command.

Why this instead of a typical morning-traffic-and-news update on The Post homepage? Seems good enough for The Herald and Sentinel...

Speaking for the reporter/writer in me, that job would be deadly dull, and I wouldn't want to do it. And as a reader, I'm unfulfilled when I click on a news update and it's just a couple sentences. I want something a little more engaging and fun. Also, I liked the idea of putting all that stuff in one place instead of asking the reader to click for everything. You can go to the Brew and get the traffic, weather, news, and the weird all in one stop.

Biggest difference between print reporting and daily blogging?

The obvious: My day starts a heck of a lot earlier now. Also, I'm not coming up with story ideas. Instead, I'm reading what the paper and other outlets have to offer and editing it to what I think is interesting. And this blog isn't like the others at The Post. I post every morning during the set hours. I'm in only my second week, but so far that means about five to seven posts a day.

So workwise, reporting is "hurry up and wait" for someone to call or to get that information. The Brew is non-stop reporting breaking news and posting the other news for four hours.

Can one reporter do a five-day-a-week blog starting at 6 a.m. for any length of time without cracking up?

That’s the experiment. I post at 6 a.m., but I'm at the computer at 5 a.m., and I'm also there for an hour or two the night before getting ready. The first few days, I was pretty sure I had made a terrible mistake – it was fun and I liked how it was turning out, but I was so wired in the mornings it was killing me. Week 2 is better. I may be getting a groove. So ask me again in a couple months.

Career highlight?

Career highlights are funny things. The stuff that was grueling and miserable sounds cool and different long after you did them — like I used to go with my photographer-husband chasing hurricanes and covering wildfires. The conditions sucked. My stories weren't even that memorable, but those are some of the stories I tell to journalism students.

Amusing professional gaffe?

Already I've botched one fact in the blog, but on the web, I got to correct it within minutes – Tupperware is not 100 years old. The founder's birthday was 100 years ago. Fixed.

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into the skulls of new grads and young pros?

Remember to tell me what makes it interesting and why.

Down to business

2007-11-11T14:30:00.000-08:00

An interview with…

WENDIE FEINBERG
managing editor
Nightly Business Report

Business reporting is boring.

That’s the common wisdom among print reporters, but it’s damn near gospel for TV reporters. Who wants to recite stock market quotes when there are hurricanes to stand in front of?

But Wendie Feinberg won a national business-reporting Emmy in 2006 for her work as senior producer on a Nightly Business Report series called “China’s Century of Change.” Of course, producing a five-part series on China’s emergence as an economic power required going there, and that became the highlight of Feinberg’s career so far.

And it’s been quite a career. Feinberg works on TV’s longest-running daily business news program – on broadcast or cable. Created in 1979, the Nightly Business Report airs on 225 PBS stations, reaching more than 90 percent of U.S. television households.

And it’s all done out of WPBT, Miami’s PBS station, where Feinberg runs the show. Yet even the most faithful Nightly Business Report viewer has no idea what she looks like – because she hates being in front of the camera.

Lots of folks know what on-camera talent does for a living.What exactly does a managing editor do?

I work with our producers, reporters, photographers, editors, assignment editors, associate producers, anchors, and everyone else to ensure we send PBS and its stations an informative, accurate, interesting, comprehensive, and concise half-hour wrap-up of the day’s business and financial news every weeknight.

In our case, it’s a bit trickier than running a typical newsroom because we’re far-flung. Besides our production facility at WPBT, we have bureaus in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago. I also work with stringers in Japan, China, Malaysia, and India. So the real challenge for all of us is to know what everyone else is doing, then pull all that work together in a coherent air product every night.

Why behind the camera instead of in front of it?

I have no interest at all in being in front of the camera. I tried it a few times, anchoring the midday newscast at the j-school at the University of Florida. They were not my finest hours – or, more accurately, half hours.

You have a bachelor's and master's in journalism. How important is that for broadcasting? Lots of aspiring broadcasters figure they just need to look pretty and major in hair care...

Getting a master’s degree was a personal accomplishment for me – something I had always wanted. It’s not a necessary item for working in broadcast news today. If you eventually want to do any teaching, it’s good to have, since many colleges and universities require their instructors to have advanced degrees of some kind.

I think it’s a good idea to get a bachelor’s degree, if only because being in a college or university setting teaches you how to think. It also exposes you – or should if you’re in a good curriculum – to a wide variety of topics. It’s good to know a little about a lot of things.

How did you get into business broadcasting?

I actually got into it by getting out of news.

I was freelancing for the ABC News bureau during the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew (after leaving the managing editor’s job at Channel 10). It was really tough. We were working long hours under difficult conditions. We were also dealing with an emotionally wrenching assignment that was made worse by knowing my family had been badly affected by the storm. So, I decided I had had enough. I got out of the business altogether and went to work for Southern Bell (now BellSouth) doing PR.

It was a completely different kind of environment, working for a large, publicly traded company. I learned a lot about the company’s business and a lot about business in general. So when I heard about the senior producer’s job at NBR, I had the right set of skills: a TV news background, as well as business experience. It was a good match. I line-produced the program until I took the managing editor’s job at the beginning of this year.

What's one part of your job that most folks don't realize you do?

I push paperwork. I sign off on just about everything we do, so a larger-than-expected part of my day is dealing with all the housekeeping stuff.

Career highlight?

We were in China – in Ningxia, a province known as part of the “Wild West” because it’s so far from Beijing. We had spent the day shooting video of, and talking with, rural farmers. Late in the afternoon, on a whim, we drove out to see part of the Great Wall.

This isn’t the Wall visitors see: It’s crumbling and more than 500 years old with no souvenir stands. It was bleak, remote, and incredibly beautiful. Besides our crew, guide, and driver, the only person for miles was a shepherd and his flock. I remember thinking how lucky I was, to be where I was, doing something I loved. And yes, being paid for it.

Amusing professional gaffe?

My first exposure to television came at age 5, when I celebrated my birthday on the Skipper Chuck show. Chuck Zink was a pioneer in South Florida broadcasting. So when I saw him one afternoon in my boss’ office at Channel 10, I gushe about how he was the reason I got into television. There was only one problem – it wasn’t Chuck Zink. It was Rick Shaw! Admittedly Shaw is another South Florida broadcasting legend, but I wanted the floor of the office to open up and swallow me. I was mortified.

One piece of career advice you wish you could surgically implant into the skulls of college students and young professionals?

This comes from someone with 20 years in this business, who believes reporters should be more concerned with getting the facts right on a story than how they look on camera when delivering it. Feel free to call me old-fashioned…

Pay attention to details and keep it simple!

I would’ve loved to have said it to a reporter who worked for me in another market and who, during a live shot about a murder/suicide – husband kills wife then kills himself – said, “Police still have no suspects.”

And I would’ve loved to have said it to the reporter who, while awaiting a hurricane on a beach, said during a live shot, “The water is touching the shore!”

Please, just tell the story in factual, simple, declarative sentences, and the broadcast news world will be a much better place.

It's real journalism, dammit

2007-11-04T12:20:00.000-08:00

An interview with…

SEAN PICCOLI
music writer
Sun-Sentinel

Ask Sean Piccoli how he became a music writer, and he modestly replies, “I backed into this job.”

After graduating with a journalism degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1985, his first job was writing copy for a small ad agency in Manhattan. “Several months later, I got a clerk-typist job at The Washington Times in D.C., stayed there 10 years in a variety of assignments, and came to the Sun-Sentinel as pop music writer in June 1996.”

About the only hint he’d end up a music writer: “I admit to being a failed musician, except that I never aspired to a music career,” he says. “I played guitar in bands in high school, college, and afterwards, and I was happy doing it as a hobby.”

Now he’s got a job many of his peers don’t understand.

Biggest misconception average folks have about what you do?

That I became a critic in order to party with rock stars and get free stuff. The reason to do this is because you love music and you love writing about it, and you can write in a way that fits the needs of a newspaper.

So you don’t party with rock stars and get free stuff?

Access to famous people is a perk, but the value of it is – or should be – how it helps you do the job. My direct contact with entertainers is mostly limited to telephone interviews, although I once had a drink with Jimmy Buffett in a hotel in Havana. That was pretty interesting.

As for swag and freebies, my employer has a strict no-comps policy on ticketing. The paper pays for my seat at the event by reimbursing me after I've purchased it. The cost of any tickets beyond that first one – i.e. if I'm bringing a friend to the show – have to come out of my own pocket.

It's mainly a symbolic policy, especially if you believe that a critic's opinion can't be bought for the price of a concert ticket. But even so, it's a sensible way of enforcing some distance between the critic and industry he or she covers.

What about free CDs and DVDs?

I’ll sometimes ask a publicist to send me an advance copy of a particular CD if I have to review it, or if the band in question is coming to town and I'm planning to write a preview. But 99 percent of the CDs, DVDs, and books that arrive in the mail come to me unsolicited. I can't possibly listen to, watch, or read them all, much less keep them. Most are given away or donated.

Selling the stuff to a used-goods store is a no-no, since that would constitute taking money from the industry I cover. Even with all the culling, I still have a bloated collection. Maybe when I retire, it’ll seem more like a library and less like a storage problem.

Biggest misconception other journalists have about what you do?

One coworker said I don't have a real job, but I think he was joking.

If there's one thing that ever needs clarifying – usually to editors wondering why I blew a deadline – it has to do with accommodations. Criticism is not like beat reporting in sports. If, for example, I'm filing a concert or festival review from a club, theater, arena, or a rented lawn, I don't generally have use of anything resembling a press box, and I don't get many pre- or post-show interviews with the performers. There are exceptions to this, but on balance, there’s very little in the way of permanent infrastructure or facilities for the music critic in the field.

I have good relationships with some local publicists and venue managers, people who I deal with year-round. They do what they can to set me up with a phone line or a wireless signal if I need one, so that I can sit down, write a review, and send the copy to an editor. But depending on the setting, I have to improvise when it comes to filing a story or a review outside the office.

I spend more time than I want to explaining to tour publicists, venue operators, parking lot attendants, security guards, and road managers who I am, what I'm doing here this evening, and why I'm carrying around a laptop.

Did you always want to be a music writer? Or did that come after you decided you wanted to be a writer?

The writing came first. My early encounters with criticism were mixed, probably because I liked Rush at the time and critics were really good at eviscerating Rush. I'd read some takedown of them in Creem or Rolling Stone and just fume. For whatever reason, I took movie reviews a lot less personally.

What's the biggest frustration of your job?

How clerical and administrative it can be. Setting up interviews, getting a ticket, making sure a staff photographer is available, getting everybody their press credentials – this can be like standing in line at the DMV. There are calls to make, forms to fill out, and it's very tedious.

Biggest pleasure?

Any live show or CD that catches me off guard.

It's easy for me to overlook good music because there's so much, good and bad, to listen to. I have to resist the tendency to generalize, to mentally toss everything I hear into the "heard it before" bin, because I think that's what people do as they get older. It's a way of managing information overload. (Compare that to being a kid, when every experience is singular.) So when I hear something that just blows through all of that fog and bowls me over, I'm very happy.

The only catch is, I find it harder to praise than to criticize – to say in writing why a piece of music or a performance is truly, exceptionally great. But one of the rewards of the job is finally getting the words down. Most writing for me is a struggle to keep from writing badly. So when I can finally push through all the second-guessing, stop-starts, and do-overs and say what I'm trying to say, that's a pleasure, too.

A career highlight that sticks in your mind?

Covering a service at the House of God church in Pompano Beach a few years ago. They had a live band with a pedal-steel guitar player, and so-called "sacred steel" is how they do gospel in House of God churches all over the United States. It was one of the most electrifying things I’ve ever witnessed, anywhere. I'm not a spiritual person, but I was moved.

Any amusing professional gaffes?

Not realizing that Bruce Springsteen had written “Because the Night” when I praised him for playing it in a concert review. I wrote something along the lines of, “He really made that Patti Smith song his own!” You can imagine the response. Song ownership and song titles have caused me trouble before. Once, I started an interview with Herb Alpert by telling him that a friend of mine loved his song “Java.” Herb said, “That's Al Hirt, not me.”

If you could surgically implant one piece of career advice into the skulls of college students and young professionals, what would it be?

Even if you're convinced that all you want to do is be a pure critic and just write, write, write, it cannot hurt to diversify. Learn how to report, to search public records, and to get people to talk to you.

Having these skills will inform the work you do as a critic, because those skills take you out of your own head and force you to deal with the world around you, and they require critical thinking. Reporters and reviewers both have to make decisions every day about what information matters, what to discard, and what to keep in your back pocket for later.

So what does a music writer listen to when he's not working?

That's a great question, because there's an argument to be made that I'm never not working, at least when it comes to music. There's always some part of me that's grading what I hear.

But I think the best answer is what I put on a jukebox when I'm sitting at the neighborhood bar, where my only obligation is to socialize, hang out, and not clear the room. This activity has become more fun now that jukeboxes come with "super-search" databases. So this could be my typical jukebox playlist – which certain bartenders may already be sick of – assuming I can monopolize it for this long in one sitting…

“Hippy Dippy Do” by Rocket from the Crypt, “Jesus Built My Hotrod” by Ministry, “Electric Relaxation” by A Tribe Called Quest, “Big Fun” by Bad Brains, “Debra” by Beck, “Going Down Slow” by Howlin’ Wolf, “Fireplace” by Fastball, “Cadillac on 22s” by David Banner, “King of the Road” by Roger Miller, “Connection” by Elastica, “Rifle Range” by Blondie, and “Orange Ballpeen Hammer” by Mudhoney.

A custom career

2007-10-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

An interview with…

KATE McCLARE
Executive Editor
Onboard Media

Kate McClare’s career began predictably enough. “I spent the first 20 years or so of my career as a reporter and editor at small daily newspapers in New England and South Florida,” she recalls. “I worked at the Boca Raton News as a reporter, editor, and feature writer for many years, from the days when it was a great little Knight Ridder newspaper.”

But then she answered a help-wanted ad for the entertainment tabloid Weekly World News, the trashy supermarket tabloid that went out of business in August.

“I was pretty much the copyeditor and mostly wrote a lot of short articles, such as ‘Working With Idiots Can Kill You!’ That was a typical WWN story: The idea is true, but the particular facts that support it were, uh, let's say they're taken liberties with. But you'd be surprised how much of the WWN was actually true – we took a lot of real news and just gave it a snappy, old-school tabloid voice.”

Common wisdom is: Once you go tabloid, there’s no going back. But McClare didn’t want to go back.

“Truthfully, after 20 years in daily newspapers, I came to feel newspapers had run their course for me and I just started bouncing around various publishing-related companies until I finally landed here,” she says. “I never planned to be executive editor of a custom publisher.” But that’s what she is. And it’s a career few journalists even know exists.

What exactly do you do?

I work with our cruise partners – Celebrity Cruises, Disney Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, and Royal Caribbean International – to produce “Port of Call” books for their ships in the Caribbean and in Alaska and Europe.

I do the same for the in-room books for Sandals Resorts. I also oversee the editors who put out our two Las Vegas magazines and an annual luxury-goods magazine that we produce internally and distribute on Caribbean itineraries. All of our books are freelance-written, although the staff editors have to be able to jump in and write in a pinch.

Many college students and even media pros never consider a career like the one you have. Why do you think that is?

I think many people don’t realize how much editorial creativity there is in custom publishing – we don’t just print what clients tell us, and we’re closely involved in everything from the magazine’s conception to its final printing. We recommend the content, sell the ads, create the editorial, design the pages, and handle printing. There’s a lot more growth and opportunity than in the traditional magazine field.

How is your job different than working at, say, a mainstream newspaper or magazine?

Our mission is broader than just publishing things that we think are interesting or that our readers would like to know about. We do that, but we also have to consider what our publishing partners want readers to know about. We are essentially part of their organization and have to realize we are representing them as well.

Biggest pleasure and the biggest frustration of your job?

My biggest pleasure is working with good writers and helping them to produce great writing. The biggest frustration is lack of time for real give-and-take with the writers.

Advice for someone who wants to get into your line of work?

Get familiar with the publication you want to write for, including requesting a set of writer’s guidelines that should give you a sense of what topics are needed and when assignments are made. Send a few story ideas – not full stories, but ideas – that conform to the guidelines. And, as with all writing, read as much as you can of other good writers’ work.

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into the skulls of new grads and young pros?

Stop relying on spell-check – witch doesn’t fix awl spelling airs – and start proofing your own copy the old-fashioned way. Sit down and read it. Read it aloud and really listen to see if it’s making any sense. Then cut it by 10 percent.

Crusader for SPJ

2007-10-21T07:44:00.000-07:00

An interview with...

DARCIE LUNSFORD
president
SPJ South Florida

On weekdays, Darcie Lunsford is the real estate editor at the South Florida Business Journal. The rest of the time, she’s on a personal quest for the Society of Professional Journalists.

When it comes to SPJ, Lunsford is part cheerleader, part saleswoman, and part jihadist. Earlier this month, the longtime president of SPJ’s South Florida chapter was elected as the new Southeast regional director – which means she oversees all chapters in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. Listen to her describe her new responsibilities:

“My job is to ignite the flame of idealism and activism in every journalist that I encounter. My job is to empower journalists to defy the future that the capitalists, isolationists, politicians, and pessimists are creating for us. My job is to give journalists the tools to define their own future through professional engagement and personal responsibility. That tool is SPJ, and my mission as a regional leader is to grow membership and seed new chapters in cities and towns across the Southeastern United States.”

Some SPJ chapters are barely breathing because, let’s face it, journalists aren’t really joiners. Many of Florida’s chapters have flickered in and out of existence, but the South Florida pro chapter has been the one constant, largely due to Lunsford’s force of will.

In fact, if you’re not an SPJ member, tread carefully around her, because she’ll give you the hard sell: “Being a member means that you are taking professional and personal responsibility for the legacy of news coverage and journalistic infrastructure that this generation will leave for the next…”

Of course, for $72 and filling out a form, you can temporarily appease the woman – until she hits you up to attend some programs.

Why should journalists join SPJ?

SPJ is the nation’s largest journalism and freedom of the press advocacy group. We do on a national and local level what individual journalists cannot do: lobby and fight for a broad spectrum of First Amendment and open record issues. SPJ is now engaged in the battle to pass a federal shield law to protect journalists from being forced to give up sources and notes or face jail time, the preservation and expansion of open records laws, and assisting journalists facing unjust legal prosecution for doing their jobs.

What, specifically, will South Florida members get for their money?

In addition to the good night’s sleep, you’ll enjoy knowing that you’re part of saving independent and ethical journalism from collapsing under the weight of political, legal, and business pressures. SPJ also provides unparalleled professional development programs. Oh yeah, we’ll also help you get out of jail if you wind up there in the pursuit of a story.

Why don't more journalists join SPJ?

Journalists tend to avoid activism. It’s not natural or comfortable for us. And let’s face it, we’re often too darn busy to see the big picture beyond our daily grinds. But we need to start paying attention to the blurring journalistic boundaries that big media, powerful political forces, and special interests are redrawing for us. Our collective voice is meaningful and loud. It’s time that we pushed back. And hard.

From your vantage point, one big mistake mainstream newspapers are making?

It’s a big mistake to chase short-term profits at the expense of long-term reader loyalty. Insufficient staffing robs readers of thoughtful, probing, and investigative pieces. In pursuit of the all-mighty profit margin, too many newspapers have shuttered international bureaus, cheating readers of most metro dailies of broad and independent analysis of U.S. foreign action and policy.

One thing they're doing right, even if by accident?

Hmmm, what are mainstream newspapers doing right? Well, most of them get the paper to readers every morning. Just kidding. We’re much more aware of public concerns and responsible storytelling. The corporate consolidation of newspapers and TV stations and the onslaught of competition have made us better listeners, more responsive to what readers and viewers want, and less arrogant as a profession.

Career highlight?

Getting an interview and camera inside the opulent $22.5 million estate of fallen WorldCom CFO Scott Sullivan. I also got inside Sullivan’s WorldCom office in Boca Raton, where all that fuzzy math went down.

Any amusing professional gaffes over the years?

A few years back, a big residential developer swore to me that Rudy Giuliani was buying a house in Lighthouse Point. The developer tried to give me the story off the record but I wouldn’t go for it. I wrote the story for my newspaper, attributing it to this developer, and I broke it on the ABC station I was working for at the time. Of course, the national media picked it up.

The next day, Giuliani’s people filed a cease-and-desist order against the developer. I chased the guy down and finally got him to confess that he lied. What a bad day. I had to do a follow up story that I had been conned for both print and TV. I learned that people, even outwardly respectable ones, lie – and sometimes it makes no sense why.

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into the skulls of new grads and young pros?

Stand up and speak up when it’s the right thing to do – even if means putting your job at risk. Our integrity as journalists cannot be for sale at the price of a twice-monthly paycheck. Be an advocate for ethical journalistic practices. Shun mediocrity and demand excellence from yourself and other journalists.

Thinking time

2007-10-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

An interview with…

TRACY TILSON
owner
Tilson Communications

“I have a philosophy that if you invited all your clients to sit around a conference table, you’d want them to be comfortable and feel they were in good company,” says Tracy Tilson, who opened her PR firm in 1990.

In her case, it’d be a weird gathering. Tilson’s clients include Dunkin’ Donuts, the American Red Cross, BJ’s Wholesale Club, DiVosta Homes, and a couple of local restaurants, among others. And she’s done some creative things to keep them as her clients – like hooking up Truly Nolen Pest Control with the IMAX debut of Spider-Man 3. And as you'll see, she's also done some interesting things with staplers...

Biggest misconception clients have about public relations?

That we’re able to control the media – that if we send out a press release, it will automatically get picked up and used. It’s just not the case. Our job is to make each press release as interesting, timely, and topical as possible. But there are no guarantees. Just because a company has launched a product doesn’t necessarily make it front-page Wall Street Journal news. If there’s honest and direct communication right from the start, this can usually be avoided.

Before you got into it, a misconception you had about PR?

I thought a great deal of my time would be spent circulating at glamorous events and my days would be filled with incredible excitement. The “sizzle” is definitely a big part of the job, but a bigger part is the day-to-day hard work that any career demands.

How do journalists think about you?

Many journalists tend to have a love/hate relationship with public relation practitioners. We can help supply valuable information, assist in lining up interviews that might otherwise take them days to procure, suggest story ideas that make sense, and give them insight on industries and topics that we work in and are familiar with. But at the same time, they know we’re being paid by our clients, so there’s a reluctance, at times, to embrace our outreach.

What's the biggest frustration of your job?

Lack of “thinking time.” In this business, we’re only as valuable as our next big idea, and sometimes there are so many distractions that detract from just taking time to think creatively. A successful day includes just getting on the Internet and looking at trends, reading trades and case studies on other campaigns, and brainstorming ideas.

Biggest pleasure?

My biggest pleasure comes when we’ve created an idea, concept, or public relations program and it’s been truly effective for the client. There’s nothing more satisfying. Another plus is the diversity of the job. Every day varies with such a wide range of tasks – client servicing, brainstorming new programs and campaigns, creating and handling special events, writing press releases, and the list goes on and on. The variety is what keeps it so interesting for me.

Was it harder establishing your business as a woman? Or would it have been just as hard if you were a man?

I don’t think it was harder establishing my business as a woman. Honestly, I never gave it that much thought. Hard work, integrity, and persistence are the great equalizers whether you’re a man or woman when it comes to success in business.

A career highlight that sticks in your mind?

One that was particularly gratifying was a program called “Staplers to the Stars” for Staples, the office supply company. The campaign involved celebrity-signed staplers that would be auctioned off to their favorite charity, a kickoff with actress Jennifer Love Hewitt and the Los Angeles Lakers at the Staples Center, and participation from 140 celebrities from the entertainment, sports, and business worlds.

We received national coverage and were on late-night talk shows, national dailies such as USA Today, and a multitude of placements culminating with a campaign profile in PR Week. It was a great deal of work, but when it all came together, it was fabulous! Flying back from L.A., I remember feeling that this is the best job in the world!

Any amusing professional gaffes?

Legendary television host Dick Clark was one of my most embarrassing. I had to meet him and his wife in Miami to escort them to an event in Boca for a client who’d hired him as their spokesperson. This was about 14 years ago. I was so nervous when I met him that I forgot the hotel where I was bringing him. I recovered, but talk about momentarily losing my cool.

If you could surgically implant one piece of career advice into the skulls of college students and young professionals, what would it be?

Initiative. I love young people who come to me with ideas, new methods of handling processes, and a willingness to learn. It's usually very obvious to me within a few days if someone is committed to really learning and growing in the industry. Be bold – I love boldness.

The Heat beat

2007-10-07T03:51:00.000-07:00

An interview with…

MICHAEL WALLACE
sports reporter
The Miami Herald

A year ago this month, The Miami Herald hired Michael Wallace to cover the Miami Heat. Wallace calls it his “dream job,” even though he didn’t get to cover the team’s dream season – this was the year after the Heat won the NBA title. The 19-year-old team suffered its first-ever playoff sweep in the very first round, with Shaquille O’Neal and Dwayne Wade injured much of the time.

So it goes for sports reporters.

Wallace also has a noble hobby: Ever since he was a reporter in Shreveport, Louisiana, he’s spoken to college students, especially black students, about becoming responsible journalists. It’s a profession, he says, “that sorely needs diversity, fresh viewpoints, and new ideas.”

Some news reporters say sports reporters have it easy…

Before I switched to sports, I covered education, crime, and politics the first few years of my career. The truth is, with today's 24-hour news cycle, there are really no more barriers between beats. A sports reporter has to know his way around the law and a courtroom these days when athletes get in legal trouble. A government or politics reporter must know how to interact in the sports realm when a county commission is considering whether to build that $500 million sports facility. Journalism today not only requires, but demands, versatility.

What's one thing that "average people" don't know about sports reporting?

I've been covering sports for 10 years, and I still don't think many in my family understand exactly how my job is done. One thing most people struggle to comprehend is the relentless travel schedule and the day-after-day grind that comes with covering a professional sports team for a major newspaper. But the fun and games outweigh the demands and headaches.

What about journalism students? Their misconceptions about sports reporting?

Many of them don't quite comprehend just how vital the ability to write is. Many students I meet are interested in broadcast, which is perceived to be more glamorous. But even that field involves far more work than getting in front of a camera and telling a story or conducting an interview. It takes the ability to research, report, and write.

In terms of sports reporting, I think a lot of students don't quite understand the relationship between reporters and athletes/coaches often aren't as friendly or cordial as they might seem. And really, they aren't supposed to be.

Why are so many sports figures black, but so many sports writers are white?

First, I disagree with the notion that so many sports figures are black. Have you checked NASCAR? How about hockey? Golf? Tennis? Baseball? African-American athletes are well represented in football and basketball, but that's about it. There’s a disturbing lack of diversity in many sports fields as well as in the media.

The makeup of the press box is often the complete opposite of the playing field – and then some. Speaking from experience, it can be an uncomfortable lack of balance. I covered an SEC Football Media Day a few years ago. Of the 300 or so beat writers who were in the main ballroom to hear the coaches, fewer than five were African-American.

I think we all have a responsibility to improve diversity in the media. Colleges need to do a better job of building relationships with high school journalism programs. Newspaper editors need to do a better job of recruiting qualified journalists. And we as reporters have to do a better job of becoming mentors to students who are interested in the field.

Are newspapers getting diverse enough quickly enough?

I think we’re seeing improvements with reporters, but we need tremendous strides in diversity among newsroom decision-makers and management. They’re the ones who truly impact story placement, what gets covered, and what doesn’t. The more viewpoints in the newsroom budget meetings, the better chances an overlooked issue or community will be covered fairly regularly and regularly fairly.

Who's the easiest Heat player or coach to interview? Who's the hardest?

Shaq and Dwyane Wade provide good interviews because they realize they’re the spokesmen for the team. Antoine Walker is probably the most ridiculed from a fan standpoint, but he’s the most articulate and has the best basketball mind, in my opinion.

The toughest might be Alonzo Mourning and Jason Williams, for different reasons. Zo is so intense and he speaks from the heart. But the same passion that makes him great at what he does also makes him difficult at times. He can be antagonistic and emotional with the media after a loss – you sometimes have to wear your armor before you approach Zo. Jason Williams just doesn’t say much. Most times, he’d rather run laps on a twisted ankle than speak with reporters.

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into the skulls of new grads and young pros?

Buy a road Atlas, and don’t be afraid to go anywhere in the country to get started in the field. Jobs are scarce. Don’t feel that just because you have a degree and worked for your school newspaper – or have worked a couple of internships – that you’re entitled to a job. You may need to take that cops beat job in Paducah for two years before that bigger job comes along.

Friends and enemies

2007-09-30T04:48:00.000-07:00

An interview with…

BRANDON HENSLER
Director of Communications
ACLU of Florida

If you can’t laugh at your hate mail, don’t go into Brandon Hensler’s line of work.

“Although hate mail is never fun, there’s much humor to be found in some people’s remarks,” Hensler says. “I can always tell when we’ve done a good job communicating our message because I’ll get a barrage of email – whether with us or against us.”

The Fort Lauderdale native became Florida’s ACLU spokesman only last year, but that’s been long enough to be labeled everything from a communist (“for defending the rights of homeless advocacy groups to feed the homeless”) to “Fidel’s Miami snoop” (“for fighting to keep a children’s book on Cuba in the county school’s libraries after it was banned by the school board”).

While he officially works for ACLU of Florida, Hensler has organized his share of national coverage, and he’s often the ACLU’s go-to guy for reaching out to Spanish-language media, since he’s fluently bilingual.

“I once put together a news conference on a lawsuit victory in under 90 minutes, with representatives from every local English and Spanish TV station, radio, newspapers, the key network TV stations, the wire services, and The New York Times,” he recalls. “It was the most press that had ever shown up to one of our news conferences, and that it was on the fly made it that much more fun.”

But when you work for the ALCU, for every action, there’s usually a negative reaction.

“We champion everyone’s free speech rights – even those who disagree with us,” Hensler says. “So if they’re that mad, I must be doing something right.”

How is your job at the ACLU different than most PR jobs?

We aren’t promoting a product or service at the ACLU. Rather, we’re selling ideas and hope – hope that their constitutional rights are being protected every day.

My job is also more reactive than some people would think – a lot of media, for obvious reasons, seek out ACLU comments. But we sometimes have so many requests that we can’t always fill them, especially if it is a topic that requires a lot of research on an already busy day.

How does one become a spokesman, anyway?

I kind of just fell into it, and it’s a very small part of my overall job. I began speaking on some issues as a stand-in for our executive director. I did a good job at it and enjoyed it – and that’s a recipe for success. One key factor that has pushed me forward is that I’m bilingual, so I’m able to represent the ACLU on local and national TV and radio programs. Working with national media has been a highlight for me, since it allows me to communicate to Americans about critical issues on a national platform.

You've been quoted by so many media outlets, what advice would you give someone who's going to speak to a reporter?

Do your homework. Know who you’re talking to. And take some time to learn about the media outlet and, if possible, the person who’ll be interviewing you. Know who their audience is – that will help you frame your discussion and make it easier for the reporter to write about it. You’d likely frame a discussion differently for The New York Times or The Palm Beach Post than you would for a niche publication.

Finally, know your stuff. Never talk about something you don’t know about, and don’t be afraid to get back to a reporter if you need time to research a fact. Reporters want their end product to be as good as possible, and that includes accurate information and good sound bytes from you.

How do you rate South Florida’s media?

I have a great respect for the media in South Florida. Their competition is fierce, and on any given day, they’re chasing down a hundred stories. Additionally, their time is spread thin more than ever now that most journalists work with more than one medium – they often cover audio, video, and print for a single story.

Is communicating with print better/different than broadcast?

Communicating with different mediums is the same when you are pitching something – be up front with what you are offering, keep it short, and make sure you’ve provided the news angle. If a journalist has two equally interesting stories and you’ve made their job easier for them, they’ll be more likely to cover your story.

But once you are in an interview, things become very different. With print interviews, you have time to give background information to help the journalist fill out their story, and there’s usually more time for follow-up. But broadcast news reporters – except for news magazine shows or in-depth pieces – really just need those one- or two-line sound bytes. So when you are doing a live show, you’ve got to be able to say everything you want backward and forward and in your sleep. If you do a good job, you’ll have made yourself, your organization, and the media outlet all look good. But show up unprepared, and no one will be happy.

What's one part of your job that most folks don't realize you do?

In addition to collateral, media relations and working with our local chapters, I’m also in charge of our web environment. I manage all content, graphics, and maintenance for our public website as well as our internal Intranet.

Any amusing professional gaffes?

I once put a local chapter board member – a well-respected doctor – on a Spanish-language talk show without properly researching it. I sent him to discuss free speech issues, but he show was about the rights of KKK members to wear their garb and march. They actually sat someone next to the doctor in a white sheet and spent the whole program spouting hateful remarks, not letting anyone else make a valid comment.

Did I mention that when the debate actually heated up, they brought out women in coconut bras and bikinis? Needless to say, I was mortified.

Although the ACLU is often put in the position of defending the rights of people whose views we find appalling, this show was in poor taste. I learned my lesson the hard way: Taking a pass on a show is better than going on and not being able to properly represent your organization.

If you could surgically implant one piece of career advice into the skulls of college students and young professionals, what would it be?

Do something you enjoy, do it well, and be honest to yourself and others. We have lots of options in this world as to how we want to spend our time, and we spend a third of our lives working – so choose a field that interests you and choose an organization you’re excited to get out of bed in the morning and represent. Nothing beats the feeling of enjoying the work you do and knowing like you’re making a positive difference in the world.

No apology necessary

2007-09-23T06:41:00.000-07:00

An interview with…

JIM MULLIN
publisher/owner
Biscayne Times

Two years ago this month, after 18 years as editor of Miami New Times, Jim Mullin abruptly resigned.

In his final piece, he wrote, “This is the farewell column I promised myself I wouldn't write. Public goodbyes too often end up being maudlin exercises in self-indulgence.”

Mullin was anything but maudlin. He defended the decision that led to – or simply sped up, depending on who you talk to – his departure: A July 2005 cover story about former Miami commissioner Art Teele that detailed his dalliances with “male prostitutes and multiple mistresses.” The same day the issue was posted online, and a day before it hit newsstands, Teele shot himself in the head with a pistol.

It became a national story, leading a Washington, D.C., gay publication to ask, “Did the Miami New Times kill Arthur Teele Jr.?” (The answer, at the end of a very long article, was a firm no: “Miami New Times isn’t responsible for Teele’s death. If anything, the conspiracy of silence in the ‘mainstream’ media around sexual orientation is far more of a culprit.”)

In his farewell column, Mullin wrote that Teele’s suicide “cast a shadow over a moment in my professional career that otherwise would have been bright.” But, he added, “I remain confident in my decision to publish the State Attorney's criminal investigation of Teele, and though it's unfortunate that many readers were upset by our report, I'm accustomed to such criticism.”

Mullin would get a lot more of it less than a year later. From angry Californians.

After resigning as editor of New Times, Mullin became editor of…New Times. This New Times was in San Luis Obispo, in central California, but it wasn’t part of the New Times chain that spanned from Phoenix to Fort Lauderdale. Even weirder, instead of moving out there, Mullin edited the “SLO” New Times from his Miami Beach home.

But almost immediately, he was in Teele-like trouble again. Last February, Mullin ran a cover story titled, “Meth Made Easy.” It included a recipe for making methamphetamine, which his reporter easily found online. Even so, many readers attacked the article as “inexcusably irresponsible” and “over-the-top and out-of-control journalism.”

This time, instead of a farewell column, Mullin penned an apology.

“We deeply regret having provoked the community outrage that has been so forcefully expressed in response to last week’s cover story,” he wrote. “We received hundreds of angry letters and phone calls. … Businesses withdrew advertising. Some people vowed to launch a boycott of those advertisers who remain. Certain individuals took it upon themselves to confiscate copies of the paper – many thousands of copies.”

But the very next week, letters to editor started leaning the other way. Some readers were rightfully concerned about their neighbors dumping thousands of papers – censorship akin to book burning, just without the flames. Wrote one, “Bravo New Times for making this complacent county think!” Said another, “Thank you, New Times! I wish you luck in gaining back the understanding of your faithful readers, who so beautifully missed your point.”

Two weeks later, Mullin was once again a former New Times editor. Said the SLO New Times general manager, "There was a problem knowing the audience."

These days, Mullin is working where he definitely knows his audience – and where he won’t ever get fired. As both the editor and the owner of the Biscayne Times (a hyper-local monthly that takes its journalism very seriously), the 58-year-old Mullin finally has the job security he's been missing the past couple of years.

Biggest difference between running New Times and the Biscayne Times?

At New Times, I answered to superiors as I spent their money. At Biscayne Times, I answer to no one, as I spend my own money. The autonomy is seductive, but it’s tempered by sobering financial realities.

After nearly two decades at New Times, why was it time to go?

The immediate cause of my departure in October 2005 was a fundamental disagreement with Michael Lacey, my boss and co-owner of the New Times company (now Village Voice Media) over my decision to publish verbatim excerpts of a public document: a criminal investigation into Miami politician Arthur Teele, who committed suicide the day our story appeared.

But that disagreement was really a symptom of a larger problem – namely, that I had grown weary of the job that had consumed me for nearly 18 years. If I’d been smarter, I would have taken the initiative two or three years earlier to announce my retirement.

And why to a “regular” newspaper instead of another alt-weekly?

I hadn’t been looking to purchase a newspaper, though I wanted to continue in journalism. The opportunity arose when the founding owner of the Biscayne Times, Skip Van Cel, contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in buying his newspaper.

I’d spent a good deal of time the previous year considering the future of journalism and had concluded two things: Print journalism wasn’t going to die in my lifetime, and nimble, smartly executed neighborhood journalism was financially viable. So the call from Skip was unexpected but fortuitous. Within a couple of weeks, I’d decided it would be a worthwhile gamble.

Biggest complaint about the way The Miami Herald operates? If you were publisher of The Herald, what would you do differently?

After so many years spent critiquing The Herald, I’ve grown bored with it all, so I no longer complain. Instead I’ve lowered my expectations – significantly. Besides, I’m now a competitor for advertising dollars as well as good stories. It’s not in my interest to help them improve.

How is New Times, and indeed all alt-weeklies, different today than when you first became an alt-weekly editor?

I became editor of the San Diego Reader, one of the original alt-weeklies, way back in 1977. That has provided me and other veteran alt-weekly editors some perspective.

One of the most striking things we noticed over the years was a marked ebb in the pool of talented young people interested in journalism – at least our form of it. Watergate inspired thousands of very bright and idealistic people to commit themselves to journalism. But that inspiration inevitably diminished, and so the brightest (if not the most idealistic) opted for med school or law school or Wall Street, when greed was good. Over time, that meant fewer and fewer great talents drawn to long hours and low pay at your local free weekly.

Where do you think newspapers will be a decade from now?

I think we’ll see more metropolitan dailies operated by privately held companies, even nonprofit organizations. They’ll take greater risks in adapting to a rapidly changing media environment, and they won’t demand sky-high profit margins. But I don’t know if they’ll survive. It’s likely we’ll also see more small publications, like Biscayne Times, taking bites out of the pie formerly dominated by daily papers, especially those in monopoly markets.

Anything you didn't quite anticipate when you took over the Biscayne Times? Does being both publisher and editor present any quandaries?

I didn’t fully appreciate the value of a really good advertising sales person. It’s an incredibly tough job, and vital to any publication’s success. As for the publisher/editor role, I haven’t experienced any serious conflicts. But then, I’ve been wearing two hats for only a few months.

One South Florida journalist you wish you could hire right now if you had the money?

As far as I’m concerned, money isn’t the big issue. More important is finding people who have a passion for this type of reporting: intensely local, intimately involved with the communities we cover, understanding that individual neighborhoods are microcosms of the larger world – for better and worse.

Career highlight so far?

Having played a significant part in building two newspapers (the San Diego Reader and Miami New Times) that have become institutions and will surely outlive me.

Career lowlight?

Discovering that a well-regarded San Diego freelance writer had fooled me with two fascinating and entirely plausible stories that turned out to have been completely fabricated. One of those stories was reprinted in another alt-weekly and led to a near-fatal misadventure in the California desert.

One thing you wish you would've known 20 years ago that you learned the hard way since?

Everyone makes bad hiring decisions. No employer anywhere has a perfect record. So don’t beat yourself up when someone you bet on doesn’t work out.

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into the skulls of new grads and young pros?

Nearly all successful journalists are naturally gregarious and possess an insatiable curiosity about the world. If you don’t have either, you’re probably in the wrong line of work.

Fun but not games

2007-09-16T06:56:00.000-07:00

an interview with…

STEVE SALEY
art director
Zimmerman and Partners

When you’ve designed projects for The Miami Dolphins, Florida Panthers, and Carnival Cruise Lines, your career must be all fun and games, right?

“Advertising is a business, not an summer arts-and-crafts class,” Steve Saley says flatly. “A new designer should understand the importance of knowing not only how to provide professional advertising design solutions, but also know how to prepare a professional business contract that will assure he’ll ultimately get paid.”

If Saley sounds like a killjoy, it’s only because he’s been burned like so many other designers who, when they first get out in the world, figure the boss will hand them groovy projects with long deadlines.

Since graduating from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale in 1977, Saley has overcome that new-grad naivete and won a whopping 68 local and regional ADDY Awards. He now works at the largest ad agency in the southeast United States.

When you were a student at the Art Institute, what was one misconception you had about working in the field?

It was an entirely different industry back then, but as I remember, I thought that once I graduated and got working in the field, most of the assignments would be glamorous and highly visible, with decent budgets.

It didn't take long for reality to set in, and I was forced to learn how to make a client's dollar go a long way. Even when there's not a lot of money to spend, you should find a way to make it look as if there was.

If you had to do it all over again, anything you'd do differently?

I'd definitely find time to take a business course somewhere along the way. If I had, I wouldn't have had to make the mistakes that I did. A psychology class also wouldn't have hurt, either.

What kind of mistakes did you make?

One example of a close call: My very first job out of school was designing and producing a new start-up saltwater fishing magazine for a rather shady individual who, I learned, had a reputation of not paying his help. As I neared completion of the assignment and began discussing my final invoice, he began to get a little evasive about things. So when I completed the job, I told him that he could stop by my studio to pick it up.

When he arrived, I had the job stashed at a friend’s apartment nearby. When I asked him for the payment, he told me he’d have a check ready “later in the week” – but that he had to leave with the job to bring to the printer, on deadline. I sensed that if I let him leave with the job, I’d never see my check, so I told him he’d get the job when I got the check. After a minute of protesting, he left and returned with the check.

Lesson learned. If I’d known to have prepared an agreement first, outlining the job specs and my terms of payment, I wouldn’t have had to held the job for ransom.

Favorite professional design project to date?

Several years ago, I was a freelance creative director. I was contracted by a local agency to develop a creative presentation to pitch the FedEx Orange Bowl account. The agency's creative director had suddenly left them and, like any agency, they wanted to acquire this new piece of business.

The presentation's objective was to develop a revitalized image for the event – which included a new logo, print ads, billboards, collateral, event signage, even the game-day ticket.

This agency was one of six competing for the business, and because their creative director had just left, they were seriously behind schedule. Within 10 days, though, I developed a selection of new logo treatments, as well as several different graphic solutions. When the presentation was over, the look on the client's faces said it all. We were officially notified the next day that we had beat out our competition and had won the account.

The owner of the agency offered me the creative director's position, which I happily accepted. And nine months later, I was standing in the west end zone of Dolphin Stadium, watching the grounds crew spray my logo design onto the field. I think that was the best part of the job.

Best part of an average workweek? Worst?

The best part of the week is Tuesdays. The worst part of the week is Mondays.

Mondays are for generally setting up the rest of the week – by giving you a battle plan of the workflow – and for cleaning up work from the previous week. Tuesdays are usually when I'm most productive. And you can't leave off Fridays when, hopefully, you're wrapping up a few jobs.

If you could surgically implant one piece of career advice into the skulls of college students and young professionals, what would it be?

When you’re concepting – an ad, campaign, collateral, TV spot, whatever – you need to become intimately familiar with the audience that will see the message, instead of focusing on the latest photographic style, typeface, or Photoshop effect. If you get to know your audience and understand what you'd like them to do after reading your ad, then all the other creative considerations will easily follow.

Double trouble

2007-09-09T06:30:00.000-07:00

An interview with…

BOB NORMAN
reporter/blogger
New Times Broward Palm Beach

Last month, in a private dining room at the Westin hotel in Fort Lauderdale, board members from the South Florida chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists were gathering for their regular bimonthly meeting. In the small talk before things got started, someone asked, “Did you read Norman today?”

“Blog or column?”

What followed was a wide-ranging analysis of both “blog and column.” At one point, a board member loudly declared, “I don’t read that blog. Ever.” Another backed her up.

Bob Norman’s writing has always triggered strong reactions. But until he started his Daily Pulp blog in February 2006, his enemies were usually the government officials he investigated in his weekly print column. For instance, disgraced Hollywood Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom certainly isn’t a fan – Norman’s reporting directly led to Wasserstrom’s felony indictment last October. Norman also forced Gov. Jeb Bush to overhaul the North Broward Hospital District and uber-developer Michael Swerdlow to kill a massive condo project in Pompano Beach that would’ve ripped up a barrier island.

But when Norman launched his blog, he decided to dish it out to those who historically have a tough time taking it: other journalists.

While The Daily Pulp began as a critique of South Florida media, it sometimes wanders aimlessly, criticizing Israeli politics and expounding on sports (“Think I'll just talk baseball today…”). Indeed, while Norman’s column is impeccably researched and edited, his blog can be rife with typos and sporadically updated.

Still, there’s no journalist in South Florida who has successfully pissed off two different audiences with two kinds of media.

Biggest difference between your print column and the blog?

The column, I hope, is a professional piece of journalism that has both impact and some entertainment value. The blog – well, if it’s so much as coherent on any given morning, I’m thrilled.

Which is more fun?

Probably the blog, only because if it’s not fun, I’m not doing it. The column means more, though. It feeds my soul, even if some weeks it’s just a lousy Whopper with fries.

Looking back on it now, one thing you wished you knew before you started the blog?

Well, the terrible truth is that I’ve made a lot of mistakes on the blog, and what I’ve learned is that you need to use restraint. It’s so easy to push that button. It’s actually taught me a lot about how wrong everyone can be, and how you need to apply the old journalistic standards on every post.

Does the blog have a different audience than your column?

Hard to tell. The blog’s audience is smaller, for one thing, and it’s read largely by media and political types. I believe, or like to believe, the column has a more general readership.

How do you decide what goes on the blog? What goes in your column?

With the blog, I go by feel. My time is extremely limited, so whatever is quick and convenient to post gets up there, while the more work-intensive stuff sits around, sometimes eternally. My column is based on news value and interest – and whether or not I think I really have the goods on, say, a county commissioner or not.

Any advice for others wanting to start a blog that’s more than “look at me, I’m blogging”?

If you’re not the next Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, or H.L. Mencken, you won’t get many readers because of your keen insight and wit alone. You have a better chance for success if you follow the old adage “write what you know” and come up with a well-defined concept. The Pulp, for instance, started as a media blog and almost immediately got a base of readership from the three big newspapers. JAABlog, by Bill Gelin, is tightly focused on the Broward courthouse. You know what’s lacking in South Florida? A really good local politics blog.

You rate South Florida media on your blog. Now rate your blog. How’s it doing?

Fair to middling. It’s got decent readership, but my enthusiasm for it goes up and down. The key is not to force it. I find the thing has its own natural rhythm. Some days it’s slow – so I don’t post much, if at all. Other days, the thing fills up naturally.

You're married to Sun-Sentinel reporter Brittany Wallman. Does having a wife who works at the Sentinel help or hurt your blog or column?

She doesn’t help in terms of digging up dirt on the Sentinel, that’s for sure. That good woman is as loyal an employee to her newspaper as can be imagined. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

More likely, does your wife get crap about having married you?

It’s a sad situation for her. She’s a respectable professional with the misfortune to be married to a scalawag like me. But, and I’ve said this before, people just seem intrinsically to know not to blame her for my tomfoolery.

Do you and your wife ever argue at home about mainstream vs. alternative journalism? Get heated? Throw shit?

We have more important things to argue about – like who’s going to mop the floor, get the kid to football practice, and wash the dried toothpaste off the sink.

Which is the best newspaper in South Florida: Herald, Sentinel, or Post?

Pound for pound, I’d say The Post. They’ve been doing some great local corruption stuff the past year or two. Then The Herald, followed by the Sentinel, which is a shame. With The Herald on a downward trend, the Sentinel really had a chance to become the leading newspaper in Florida. But they chose to go with marketing gimmicks like the “Help Team” over real journalism, downsize the news department to ridiculously low levels, and fill the local section with re-written press releases masquerading as community news. I love newspapers, but what has – and hasn’t – happened to the Sentinel is just sad.

Any opinion of local TV news? Have you one really like? One you can’t stand?

I don’t watch much TV news, but I’ve found that Carmel Cafiero, of Channel 7, is a good investigative reporter. And Michael Putney at least tries to keep an eye on the political scene, though his stuff is almost always too broad to ever really truly mean anything. One thing I really can’t stand – that makes me turn the channel and possibly throw a shoe if one is handy is when local news leads off with a television show that airs on its own network. It’s sheer promotion and it demeans everyone in the operation. It’s done all the time with "American Idol" at Fox.

Best journalist in South Florida?

Jim DeFede, although he’s not doing a whole lot of in-the-trenches reporting these days, what with his radio and TV work. When he was at The Miami Herald and, even more so, when he worked for the Miami New Times, he was the epitome of a muckraking city reporter. If anyone is my role model in this business, it’s Jim. And this place needs him, if for nothing more than for his knowledge of politics in Miami and Tallahassee, which is unsurpassed. Another diamond in the rough is Michael Sallah, the investigations editor at The Miami Herald who won a Pulitzer Prize at the Toledo Blade for uncovering atrocities in Vietnam. I just finished reading the book on it, Tiger Force, and it’s quite gripping.

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into the skulls of new grads and young pros?

Well, I’d like to tell them that real journalism isn’t for apologists and yuppies. If you want to be comfortable and lead a nice pleasant existence, go into P.R. or the insurance game. Real journalism – not the official, corporate, pansy-ass bullshit that passes muster at the big dailies these days – is for rebels, misfits, and hell-raisers. Basically, it’s for the people who know that the road less traveled, while it might be one big bad bitch to tread, will ultimately lead them to a promised land called Truth. Or the wrong end of a gun. One or the other.

A career in brief

2007-09-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

An interview with…

ROCHELLE BRODER-SINGER
editor
SouthFloridaCEO magazine

When she ditched her PR job in Detroit and moved to South Florida almost a decade ago, Rochelle Broder-Singer was looking for more than a change in the weather. She wanted a new career.

“I pounded the pavement to research absolutely every publication – newspaper, trade journal, magazine, you name it – in the entire region,” she recalls. “It took me six months to find a job.”

But it wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. A magazine called Miami Business was launching another magazine called LatinCEO. The print journalism major (from the University of Evansville in Indiana) wanted to write.

“They wouldn't hire me as a writer because my previous job had been in PR, not journalism,” she says. “So they hired me as the research director. All my reporting skills helped other people with their stories. I think it was almost a year before they let me write so much as a news brief!”

She badgered editors for assignments – “whether on a news brief or writing a section of a story for another reporter” – and eventually clawed her way up from research director to assistant editor to associate editor. LatinCEO closed, Miami Business became SouthFloridaCEO, and one day, the managing editor spot opened up. “I walked into the editor's office and asked for the job,” she says. “I got it.”

When that editor left in January, Broder-Singer took over – eight years after she wasn’t allowed to write a brief.

Why do so many journalists say they want to work in magazines, when they have no idea what it involves?

I think it sounds glamorous. And they’re often more familiar with magazines than with newspapers. Many are voracious consumers of magazines. Others like long-form stories more than short-form and see magazines as a way to write those. Still others think the pace and/or the schedule will be better.

What's are the big misconceptions that newspaper journalists and students have about working in magazines?

The biggest is that it's a lesser form of journalism somehow, and also that it's easier or a step down the ladder. Some think all magazines' editorial content is advertising driven. We have that Chinese wall, not any different from any major newspaper. But I do know some magazines don't have that wall.

Before you got into it, what was one misconception YOU had about working in magazines?

That there would be lots of publications at which I could work! I didn't think about the limits of geography or the fact that I'd end up on a particular trajectory, or that the really, really big magazines are all only in New York and I don't want to live in New York.

What's the biggest pleasure and the biggest frustration working in magazines?

The single biggest frustration is probably the time lag. From the time you start reporting a story to the time your readers see it can be a couple of months or more. It makes it tough to get an exclusive, and it makes it tough to keep pieces timely. The other thing many people struggle with is juggling multiple projects with multiple deadlines. You might have something due in two days, in a week, in two weeks, in two months – but you have to simultaneously work on all of them. The expectation is that much of your work will have several weeks or more of reporting in it, so you can't simply wait until the week before to start on everything.

The biggest pleasure is having more time to work on the copy, especially as an editor. I rarely have to let things go if they're not up to the standard I want them to be at. I have the time, in fact the obligation, to keep editing them. Another pleasure, especially for us at this magazine, is getting to write for a very sophisticated audience, with a high level of education and understanding. You get to use sophisticated language and cover complex subjects. We also have the space to do a lot of analysis of what we're reporting on, and the time to give some perspective.

What was it like working in PR?

I won't lie to you: I didn't enjoy it. But I did learn a lot. It's made me more sympathetic to good public relations people I deal with in my work. You deal with a lot of rejection and competing demands of unrealistic clients and media trying to get good information. But now I understand how the industry works, so I think I can better navigate it to get the information/interview/photo shoot I need. It was tough to make the transition back to journalism, though. Editors didn't take me seriously because I'd been out of the field.

A career highlight that sticks in your mind?

A good portion of my career has been as an editor, so I think most of the highlights are about other people's work – stories they landed on covers after I'd edited them. But when I was doing more writing, I did get to interview Mike Jackson and Mike Maroone, the CEO and president, respectively, of AutoNation. I'm originally from Detroit, so the auto industry is very near and dear to my heart. Getting to interview a couple of died-in-the-wool car guys, who run the largest auto dealership chain in the nation and the largest company in Florida, was exciting for me.

Any amusing professional gaffes?

Most of the amusing gaffes revolve around me trying to speak Spanish, since I'm a gringa and only studied the language. I once spent hours calling chambers of commerce in Latin America. I was supposed to be asking them about the largest corporations in their nation. Instead, I kept asking them, in Spanish, about their fattest business.

Any weird/awful dues-paying stories?

Earlier in my career, I had a boss who regularly screamed at me. I was paid well, so I kind-of considered myself as having "hazard pay." It didn't faze me until one day in the bathroom someone in the company who didn't report to her said to me, "I'd never want my daughter working for someone who spoke to her like that." In between full-time journalism jobs, I did have a couple of other careers, with some weird work. One of them was working as a technical writer for a government contractor. I wrote service manuals for 7-ton and 10-ton military trucks. One of the projects involved writing the service manual as the prototype truck was being built out in the shop. I spent a lot of time crawling on the trucks, doing things like taking apart exhaust systems and putting them back together.

If you could surgically implant one piece of career advice into the skulls of college students and young professionals, what would it be?

Sharpen your reporting skills whenever possible. It sucks, but you have to pay your dues. That job working a beat, covering a city out west, is incredible preparation for whatever you want to do next. Work it hard, seek out news stories, assume there are really interesting stories out there. Attend the city council meetings.

The people I've worked with, and hired, who have done that – whether it's working for The Miami Herald's Neighbors section or working for one of the suburban weeklies – understand how to sniff out news, source a story, turn a "no" into a "yes" for an interview request, and can tell when someone is giving them a line or really telling the truth.

The defiant idealist

2007-08-26T14:37:00.000-07:00

An interview with…

JEFF BURNSIDE
reporter
WTVJ-Channel 6

“I got into television news to make the world a better place,” Jeff Burnside says. “I know that sounds preposterously idealistic.”

He adds, “But I don't apologize one bit.”

For two decades, Burnside has been a defiant idealist in a pessimistic industry. In an era of quick-and-dirty, slash-and-burn coverage, he’s won numerous journalism awards, both regional and national, for his long-form and investigative stories.

“I’ve exposed cults, puppy mills, government wrongdoing, corporate malfeasance, polluters, and jerks,” he says proudly. “I especially like to force a public figure who is trying to avoid accountability to answer the public's questions.”

A career highlight?

I was the first, I believe, to expose the U.S. Navy's damage to marine mammals through powerful sonar. It's since become a heated battle between the white house and environmental groups.

Any weird/awful dues-paying stories?

I've had my nose broken twice, been pistol-whipped, and nearly crashed in a helicopter. I’ve also been tackled by Ted Bundy's brother. Then there’s every hot summer afternoon in South Florida, wearing a suit and slamming a story together in a rickety live van with lousy air conditioning.

How competitive is South Florida as a broadcast news market?

Very competitive – in a bad way. It's perhaps the most sensational market in America. Each station seems to want to be more sensational than the other. Lots of key demographic viewers (rich, loyal, smart) crave quality. Why not go after them instead of the viewers everyone else is fighting over?

Can’t competition can be a good thing?

If you keep your standards. Your competitive spirit should push you to excellence, not make you sensationalize. It's a fine line when you're out in the field, trying to make your story more compelling than the other guy. Your boss may like your story if you scream and shout. But if you keep your standards instead, in the long run, your viewers will like you even more – and that, in turn, will make your boss like you a whole lot.

Can that really happen?

The optimist in me believes that smart news managers pop up every now and then – those who understand the simple adage that doing compelling journalism attracts viewers, especially the kind that managers crave: smart, loyal, and rich.

Viewers vote for good journalism when they watch good journalism and tell their friends. If they turn off the television altogether, managers must descend to scramble for those viewers who are left. Conversely, viewers who watch crap are voting for more of it.

Do print journalists appreciate what you do?

Oddly, in this visible business, reporters get very little feedback. But I think many of them are glad to see someone doing investigative journalism. I've been treated well by my colleagues and I appreciate their support. It means a lot to me.

I think print reporters scoff at most TV reporters – and for good reason. But some of the print guys gradually come around to acknowledging the broadcast reporters who have been doing good work for many years, regardless of whether they are investigative or daily.

Do other daily TV reporters think investigative journalism is worthless? Or are they jealous?

If they thought investigative reporters were worthless, they probably wouldn't tell me. Jealousy? I doubt it. They might think, "If I had two weeks, I could do a great report, too." But that kind of thinking shows naivety.

What’s wrong with sensationalist TV reporters?

Everything. When I see them at a news conference or the scene of a news event, I cringe inside. How can they be so sleazy? How can they put themselves above the story? They got into this business for the wrong reason, and they make it harder for those quality reporters to maintain the integrity of the profession.

If you could surgically implant one piece of career advice into the skulls of college students and young professionals, what would it be?

Stop acting like a TV reporter.

Most rookie reporters need to learn how to talk to the viewer. Just talk normally, but with more volume and projection. When your volume goes up, don't let your pitch go up, too – that's how you get whiny reporters.

You should act like you know what you're talking about – because, in fact, you should know what you're talking about.

Anything else?

1. Don't force yourself into your story just to be on TV. Stand-ups can serve a real purpose, but they don't exist just so your mom can see you on the tube.

2. Read All The President's Men and watch Good Night And Good Luck. Then you'll get it.

Online all the time

2007-08-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

an interview with...

JADE WALKER
overnight editor/producer
Associated Press

If it weren’t for the Internet, Jade Walker wouldn’t have a job. Or a hobby. Or a Pulitzer.

Walker works the graveyard shift as an editor for the Associated Press website. She was doing the same for The New York Times website during and after 9/11, and she was part of the team that assembled a special section called “A Nation Challenged.” It ran both in print and online, winning the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

During daylight hours, Walker tends to her half-dozen blogs, some of which have drawn national attention. They range from the morbid (Blog of Death) to the oddball (Eccentric Employment). And even though she’s worked in New York City since 2000, she moderates an online community called SouthFLWriters – because she started it when she lived down here and can’t find anyone willing to take it over.

Rather than let it die, the University of Miami graduate still maintains that listserv, as well as two others for New York City writers. So if anyone grasps the nuances of both the New York and South Florida markets, it’s Walker.

Advice for South Floridians who want to move to NYC and start a career?

New York City is the publishing capital of the United States, if not the world. Most of the major media outlets are here, so it's a lot easier to obtain part-time or full-time work in publishing, TV, radio, newspapers, and online.

Freelancers can meet and pitch editors in person at networking events in Manhattan. And for those writing fiction or poetry, inspiration dwells on every block. But to survive, you really need to network like a fiend and work hard.

So I urge all writers and editors to build a career somewhere else before heading to Gotham. Starting at the bottom here is possible, but doing so and keeping a roof over your head really stacks the odds against you.

Also, save up several thousand dollars before you send out the first resume. Unless a company intends to relocate you – which is rare – you'll need lots of dough to pay for moving costs, temporary housing, first/last/security on an apartment, set-up fees for utilities, food, subway cards, etc.

How do you build that career first?

Learn the trade in local markets and build up a top-notch set of clips before you start applying for jobs in NYC. Create a personal website and/or maintain a blog. Really get your name out there as a reliable source for intelligent and unique content. Join professional organizations, get to know the publishing leaders in your area, and pay attention to what's happening in the industry.

Can you do all that down here? Lots of locals say this market sucks…

Many great writers and editors have launched successful newspaper and magazine careers in the tri-county area. Others have used the Bermuda Trianglesque nature of South Florida as inspiration for their fantastic novels and nonfiction books. Cost of living is also much cheaper there, so writers/editors who are just breaking into the publishing business can find a place to sleep while they learn the trade.

And not many places offer three major daily newspapers and dozens of weeklies to pitch. The alternative papers are always looking for new blood. Online work is becoming more steady, and if you're bilingual, you're already a step ahead of most applicants.

For those who focus on fiction, poetry or screenwriting, location is less important. You simply need a computer, an Internet connection and the willingness to work on your words. If you need help honing your craft, most of the local universities and community colleges offer writing courses. The University of Miami, my alma mater, even conducts a screenwriting workshop online.

You tout SouthFLWriters as one way of succeeding down here. Its biggest strength? Its weakness?

SouthFLWriters is an incredible resource for job opportunities, publishing news, and networking. Best of all, it's free. The biggest weakness is uneven participation. We have over 400 members, and probably 20 of them post on a regular basis. A few really go above and beyond, dedicating time each week to helping the local writing community, but the majority remain in the shadows. Even when face-to-face events are planned, attendance is spotty.

One thing you wish you knew before you embarked on a media career?

I wish I knew more about the business side of publishing. I knew going in that I wasn't entering this field to be rich. Nor did I expect to work 9 to 5. But I didn't realize how many people would request that I work for free and give away the rights to my content – or worse, promise to pay me and then not do so.

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into the skulls of new grads and young pros?

To flourish on the Web, I urge new grads and young pros to have solid news judgment, snappy headline skills, a passion for accuracy, and the ability to work quickly and efficiently. They should also know how to: copy and paste text and art into templates, edit/create audio, edit/create video, know their target audience, study the changing nature of media/publishing, understand search engine optimization, and know how to interact with the public.

Does blogging help or hurt your paying career?

My blogs have definitely helped my career. They've allowed me to explore my interests, write on a daily basis, and build up a huge readership – my blogs have been featured on BBC Radio, CBSMarketwatch and in USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. If I wrote articles for a local newspaper or magazine, that wouldn't be the case. And when prospective clients/employers Google me, they find the blogs and get a good sense of my personality and writing style.

Advice for those blogging for fun or future employment opportunities?

Be professional. Don't post crap just because it's easy to do so. And put your name on your work, too – anonymity will do nothing for your career. If you're a journalist, create a blog that doesn't feature opinions. If you're already working for a media outlet, clear your blog idea with your editor and learn the company's guidelines for online posts. Finally, view your blog as an online tattoo. Create something you love, something you're proud to share with others – but assume everything you post will be on the Web forever.

Danger and design

2007-08-12T16:36:00.000-07:00

an interview with...

JOE PAUL
creative director
The Creative Underground

Before he turned 21, Joe Paul was a U.S. Army sergeant and interrogator. After he was honorably discharged, he trained as a commercial diver.

“My first dive job was at a nuclear power plant, cleaning and repairing the cooling tanks,” he recalls. “When the dossimeter in my helmet beeped, it meant I had enough radiation for the day.”

A few years later, he changed jobs again, this time to “a career far more dangerous” – graphic design.

After graduating from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale and paying his dues (including “dangerous” work at a place called Déjà vu Adult Entertainment), Paul is now creative director at a small but growing design and PR firm in Boca Raton. The Creative Underground has had clients who sell everything from beer to biotech. But so far, those clients haven’t included the Army or a nuclear power plant. Yet.

How did you get from interrogator to diver to designer?

I’ve always been an artist, but as a kid I didn’t know I could do it for a living. So I joined the Army to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And while being an interrogator was an interesting experience, it was time to move on. I was convinced that commercial diving would be perfect, so I moved to Seattle and did that for a while. But my problem is that reality rarely lives up to how it is in my imagination.

On a visit home to Florida, I checked out art school, pretty sure I’d hate it. But after I took a tour, I knew this is what I was born to do. The strange thing is, several interrogator friends of mine have ended up in a creative field – either as artists or writers.

When you were a graphic design student, what was one misconception you had about working in the field?

I thought it would be easier to break into the industry. I had a great portfolio, but nobody was hiring people fresh out of school. Even Mac Temps said, “Come back in a couple of years.”

I had to pay my dues by doing layouts part-time at a small print shop. But I learned a lot about the printing process, and that helped shape my design. My advice to recent graphic design graduates: Consider the first two years of your career as grad school, and don’t expect to get paid what you’re worth until your third year.

Any weird/awful dues-paying stories?

At the print shop I worked at, the owner drank on the job and was pretty unpleasant to deal with. His jobs were always late, and he’d make me lie to the customers. One day he went for a bike ride and got hit by a truck.

Near the end, he couldn’t pay me, saying he’d get me next week. But after a couple more weeks without pay, I said I couldn’t come in until he paid me. He didn’t call me back for a couple of weeks, then when he did, it wasn’t to say he had my money, but to accuse me of stealing his computer equipment! Luckily, a few days later, fate rescued me with an awesome full-time design job.

What's one big misconception that non-designers have about what you do?

I told a cousin that I was a graphic designer and he said, “Cool, can you design some flames for my car?” If you look in the want ads, that’s what they mean by “Graphics.”

If you could surgically implant one piece of career advice into the skulls of college students or young professionals, what would it be?

It’s not about the school you went to, your level of design education, or a fancy portfolio case. Quality of work, experience, and personality win the job. Bonus advice: Keep your classmates and co-worker’s contact info. After a few years in the industry, they make great contacts. Sometimes it is about who you know.

Best part of an average work week? Worst?

Best: It could be 10 p.m. when I get home, but if I stayed late because of a creative brainstorming session, I feel excited and mentally charged.

Worst: Compared to other jobs I’ve had, this is a cake walk. But when the creativity runs out, it’s mentally draining – even depressing. I have to keep finding new ways to stimulate creativity and keep things fun.

What was your favorite professional design project to date?

My favorite is one I’m just finishing up with my fiancee’s help. It’s our wedding invitation that looks like a pirate map: with cool distressed edges, rolled up, then sent in a Corona bottle filled with sand and shells. That required a lot of beer drinking, but hey, it was for a good cause...

If you had to do it all over again, anything you'd do differently?

I’d try to be nicer to people. And I’d never charge family for design work.

Alternative smart ass

2007-08-05T05:56:00.000-07:00

An interview with…

JAKE CLINE
editor
City Link

In this interview, Jake Cline offers only one piece of good advice, and that’s at the very end. The rest of his answers are snarky, silly, and/or sophomoric – kind of like the alternative weekly he oversees. And both seem to like it that way.

What’s more instructional is his history. After graduating from the University of Florida in 1993, Cline says he “spent the following year working as a laborer for my father’s construction company, as a freelance writer, and as a part-time copy editor and reporter for a trade magazine geared toward the office-filing-systems industry.”

He published his first freelance article in XS (City Link’s predecessor) in 1995, followed by stints as a music columnist, copyeditor, entertainment editor, and managing editor. He became editor 16 months ago. Part of his success has been his adaptability: He sardonically lists one of his previous titles as “waterboy,” but over the past decade, no job was too big or too small – and now he has the biggest job in the place.

Created by the Sun-Sentinel in 1991, the original XS was the first major alternative publication launched by a Top 100 newspaper. From the Miami New Times to the Columbia Journalism Review, the irony of an “alternative press” owned by a “mainstream press” was pilloried and parodied.

Under Cline, City Link has spurned the typical alt-weekly model that favors long cover stories on local government for the power crowd. Instead, his focus is on entertainment for working guys. And if you don’t like it, he doesn’t care. Which is pretty darn alternative, actually…

What’s the difference between City Link and the Sun-Sentinel?

The Help Team.

What’s the difference between City Link and New Times?

On average, about eight pages.

Biggest misconception that other journalists have about you, your job, and your publication?

You’d have to ask them. I’m only concerned with what readers think of the magazine. When I’m writing or editing, the opinions of other journalists never enter my mind. I leave that to those journalists who like to carry on about awards and whatnot. But that’s probably because I’m allergic to plaques and ribbons.

Looking back on it now, one thing you wished you knew before you took over City Link?

That I would have to attend so many meetings. I would have asked my boss for a more comfortable chair.

Any advice for a journalist who wants to run a publication someday?

If you like working from home, going into the office only when you must, knowing what it’s like to be outside in the fresh air at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday and not owning a single pair of khaki pants, stick to reporting. Otherwise, have at it.

Experts say print is dead and twentysomethings only read online. But City Link is still fat. Why is that?

Hey, who are you calling fat?

How does Sun-Sentinel ownership affect City Link, both for good and ill?

The good: The Sun-Sentinel throws an amazing holiday party. The ill: That holiday is Arbor Day.

One piece of advice you wish you could surgically implant into the skulls of new grads and young pros?

Before sending out a query letter or email, make sure you’ve spelled the name of the publication and its editor correctly. I can’t tell you how many pitches I’ve received addressed to Jake Clein, Jake Klein, Jay Klien, and Jake Clean – at City Links, Citi Link, and Citylink magazine. If you can’t spell my name correctly, how the hell can I expect you to get a source’s name right? Particularly if that source is Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Man behind the curtain

2007-07-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

an interview with...

STEVE BOYER
assistant news director
WPBF-Channel 25

Since the late ’80s, Steve Boyer has worked in the newsrooms of WFOR, WPLG, WSVN, and WPBF – more than half of South Florida’s seven English-language news stations. He’s seen it all, but you’ve never seen him.

The University of Miami graduate has had titles like “assignment manager” and “assignment editor,” which means he’s never on camera. And he likes it that way.

More than seeing his face on TV, Boyer loves “the constant deadlines, reporters doing stand-ups, the battle for stories in the morning meeting, anchors going live with breaking news, and the whole chaotic control room scene. The workday flies by. It's truly never a dull moment.”

So basically, Boyer prefers an adrenaline rush to an ego fix...

Why behind the camera instead of in front of it?

I never loved the whole on-air scene. I enjoyed watching people who were good at it conduct interviews and go live. But I preferred the whole process of newsgathering from the assignment desk perspective. I liked taking that call or hearing something going down on the police scanners, knowing about things first, and figuring out the logistics of getting people from Point A to Point B. I loved watching it unfold on the air, knowing I had a hand in getting it done.

An average day for an assistant news director?

My job is about 50-50 editorial and administrative. I attend the morning and afternoon editorial meetings and pitch my story ideas and help guide the assignments. I handle recruiting, performance reviews, scheduling, and vacation allotment. I liaison between the news department and the engineering, production, sales, and business departments. I orally critique the 4, 5, and 6 p.m. newscasts with the anchors and producers every day.

The biggest misconception average folks have about your job?

The sheer administrative weight of the job. I’m part ATM machine, travel agent, talent coach, equipment procurement manager, snack-and-beverage provider, confessional priest, big brother, coach, and cheerleader.

You've taught broadcast classes at UM. What were some of the students' misconceptions about working in the field?

Most thought being a reporter would be this glamorous, fabulous, awe-inspiring position of respect. In fact, reporters are private-first-class soldiers in the newsgathering war. In reality, it's a hot, sticky, constantly changing, thankless job in a world where people yell at you to get off their property, everybody has an opinion about your hair, the live truck doesn't work, and someone is always saying, "Why do I have to work with that photographer?" You never hear any praise but constantly receive criticism.

For someone who wants to steal your job, what do they need to do?

Be well read. Be a leader. Be a good (maybe the best) listener in the newsroom. Sometimes be the first to arrive and the last to go home. Manage fairly and consistently. Keep your temper in check, but don't discount the effectiveness of an occasionally loud voice.

Walk a mile in your colleagues' shoes. Occasionally, I try to get out on the road on a big assignment with reporters and anchors and photographers – like the gubernatorial election, the presidential debate, post-Katrina, and the Space Shuttle Columbia explosion. No one can tell me I haven't been there in the heat of the battle, or that I don't understand what they're going through.

You've also worked for four South Florida stations. Are all they largely the same?

Every station has its own personality. I worked at WPLG during its glory years, when every newscast was No. 1, we broke every big story, and we had the best on-air talent in the market. No one could touch us. Then WSVN went independent and expanded their product into the Newsplex, and the market went schizophrenic. It was a period of chopper wars, and everyone went breaking-news crazy.

Now WFOR is trying to emulate WSVN, which is tough to do. WTVJ is suffering from budget cuts and has dropped significantly. WSVN is strong and true to their brand and position. And WPLG dropped their 5 p.m. news in favor of Dr. Phil but is stronger than ever in the mornings and at 6 and 11 p.m.

If you could surgically implant one piece of advice into the skulls of new grads and young pros, what would it be?

Be a concise and accurate writer. Be stingy with your words. Adjectives and superlatives are not your friends. And never be clever, when what you really need to be is clear!

Switching sides, not jobs

2007-07-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

an interview with...

RICH POLLACK
co-owner
Pollack Communications

In 1980, Rich Pollack was a cop reporter for the Sun-Sentinel. In 1989, he was an assistant city editor for the Sun-Sentinel. In 1994, he was the mouthpiece for the Sun-Sentinel.

In 15 years, Pollack went from journalist to “corporate communications manager” – and part of his job was being interviewed by other journalists. He also wrote speeches for Sun-Sentinel executives and published Between Editions, the paper’s biweekly internal newsletter.

These days, he runs his own corporate communications company – and he’s writing just as much as he did as a reporter. It can be a speech for an insurance executive, a newsletter for the Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce, or a "strategic communication plan" for Horses and the Handicapped of South Florida. He and his wife Carol have also ghost-written a book.

“Writing is my passion,” Pollack says. “There’s a line in Spiderman when Peter Parker’s uncle tells his nephew, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ As writers and editors, there are times when our words carry enormous consequences. The power of those words should never be taken for granted.”

What's the biggest lesson you learned when you went from reporter to editor?

There are two.

The first I learned during my time as a night editor. I had a stack of stories to edit, but one of our reporters was working on a breaking story and was having trouble. Being an old cop reporter, I picked up the phone and chipped in. A short time later, another editor called me, wondering why he wasn’t seeing more stories being processed. When I told why, he calmly imparted these words of advice: “You can’t do your job when you’re doing someone else’s.”

The second lesson is about treating reporters with respect and dignity. Another editor told me that it’s often best to criticize the work but praise the individual. Most good writers are proud of their work, so harsh criticism can shatter their confidence. If a reporter is told that he or she did a good job on a story as a whole but that the structure could use work, they’re more likely to come up with a better final story.

What's the biggest lesson you learned when you went from an editor to spokesman?

Coming from a newsroom, it’s easy to assume that the hours on the business side are easier and more reasonable. Big mistake. The work requires a lot of new skills, and there are twice as many balls in the air to juggle. For me, the change in tone and mission were tough obstacles to overcome.

When working in a newsroom, you have to write for the reader. When writing public relations or corporate communications, your focus is more on writing for the speaker. Those who understand how to do both at the same time are the ones who have the greatest chance of success.

What's the biggest lesson you learned when you went from spokesman to business owner?

You learn about the dangers of “The Oprah Factor.” When no one is standing over your shoulder and you’re working from home, it’s easy to go into the family room and turn on Oprah. Those who succeed resist the urge to discover the latest addition to the Oprah book club and instead handle the tasks at hand or look for ways to create new opportunities.

Which job was the hardest: reporter, editor, spokesman, or communications business owner?

For me, the hardest was probably working as an editor, because managing people is challenging. Managing journalists is something only a very few can do well – and I’m not one of them.

Here’s why it’s so tough: As an editor, we tell our reporters to go out and not take “no” for an answer. Yet when they come back to the newsroom, we expect them to take direction without question. Reporters need to question authority, even if the authority is an editor. It should always be that way.

Best part of your job now? Worst part?

When you own a business, it’s satisfying to watch it grow and, just like a little kid, stand on its own feet. There’s also a tremendous sense of freedom and flexibility knowing that when you have many clients, you can walk away from one or lose one and survive. Still, you never want to let that happen.

The down side is that if you don’t work, you’re not making money, especially if you’re a one- or two-person business. Vacations are hard to come by, and you probably end up working seven days a week.

Your opinion of South Florida newspapers when you first got in the business? Now?

I’ve been in the business for 30 years and have to say that the papers are better, by and large, than they were when I first got here. The quality of writing is actually better in some cases.

That said, there’s some concern that over time, newspapers have lost their sense of humor a little bit and forgotten the importance of generating the “Hey Mabel” stories. People love the offbeat and the quirky – that’s why Judge Judy is still on the air and why a story about a man suing his dry cleaner for $50 million is headlines.

But newspapers tend to focus more these days on their role as keepers of the record. There doesn’t seem to be the hometown feel we had a few years back, when the high-school homecoming parade was just as important as a drug-related shooting.

The future of newspapers as you see it?

Newspapers will be with us for a long time, but they’ll need to be more entertaining, more creative, more relevant to the interests of time-starved readers – and more provocative.

Most readers would probably tell you that they’d rather know why there was a police car on their block last night than read about another shooting in a drug-infested neighborhood. Yet newspapers continue to place their resources on what they see as the bigger story. We’ll see that start to evolve, especially if newspapers want to keep readers.

One piece of advice you'd surgically implant into the skulls of new grads and young professionals?

For anyone going into corporate communications or public relations: Never lie, never lie, never lie.

For those who want to be journalists: Writing is a craft that takes years to learn. There are some freelance writers who are frustrated because they’re not able to get a fulltime job as a writer. But the truth is, to really be considered a writer, you have to go through an apprenticeship of sorts and really hone your skills. And you darn well better know what AP style is and how to use it.

What floats her boat

2007-07-15T05:13:00.000-07:00

an interview with...

MELANIE NEALE
student employment advisor
The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale

Who's the expert on landing a graphic design job in South Florida? She’s a boating columnist with a master’s degree in creative writing from FIU.

But Melanie Neale is also the job-placement expert at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, which boasts 94.4 percent of its students find design work within six months of graduation.

When Neale isn’t writing her regular column for Cruising World or freelancing for other boating magazines, she’s “editing resumes, talking on the phone to employers, running around on class visits, staging and conducting mock interviews, and getting an insider’s view of the job-hunting process from the time the job is posted to the day the student starts working.”

And when she’s not writing or working, Neale is literally out to sea. She’s also a licensed captain.

How’s the market for graphic designers these days?

The good news is that design jobs are everywhere – especially in urban areas like South Florida, where there are numerous advertising agencies, publicity firms, realtors, magazines, newspapers, and print shops. But there are also less-obvious jobs.

A good friend of mine worked as the creative director for a small local retail store, and they kept him busy designing their catalog, promotional pieces, tradeshow booths, and even the interior of the store! Almost every business needs a designer. Those who can afford to hire one usually will, and those who can’t tend to pay freelancers. If you’re really organized and aggressive, you can make a decent living freelancing, especially in an area like South Florida.

Starting salary for a new designer?

While still in school, design students are making $10 to $20 an hour working part-time. Just out of school, the average range seems to be $25,000 to $40,000 a year.

This depends, obviously, on their experience and their skills. The highly employable graduate will have at least two internships and part-time design and freelance work on his or her resume.

What do bosses tell you they want from designers?

I probably speak with 30 different employers in a month. Naturally, they want someone who can do it all – who knows HTML and web design, and who can write advertising copy and plan events. Copywriting is a really important skill, and a design student who takes the time to learn it effectively and includes great copy in his or her portfolio will stand out above the rest. Copy that’s grammatically incorrect or full of typos is a sure-fire way not to get the job.

What’s some practical advice for students and pros?

Create a website and keep it up. If you do lots of freelance work, list your clients. Make sure your resume is there and is easy to find. Post your design samples. Ideally, the domain name is the designer’s name – an email address like joe@joedesigner.com is more impressive to an employer than hotbeachbum@hotmail.com. For someone who doesn’t have web-design skills, Yahoo Small Business is really inexpensive and easy.

What about resumes?

Your resume should be hip and colorful, created in Photoshop or Illustrator, and beautified by your most stunning design work. But it shouldn’t have images of palmetto bugs all over it (unless you’re applying for a design job with an exterminator).

And yes, we’ve seen a resume with bugs on it. Avoid them, drug images, guns, naked women, and cigarettes. It doesn’t matter what your personal tastes are when you’re applying for a job. And take the controversial stuff out of your portfolio, unless you think the situation calls for it. For example, if you were applying for a job designing promotional pieces for a night club, scantily clad men and women may be acceptable.

One piece of advice you wish could be surgically implanted into students’ skulls?

If you’re a student and you haven’t completed an internship, then get out there as fast as possible and find one. Finish it and move on to another one. Try as hard as you can, while you’re in school, to work in your field. “Assistant designer” looks much better on a resume than “sales associate.”

Aren’t internships a bit dicey?

Many employers are looking for student help or for interns simply because they want someone to do the work of a professional for next to nothing. We screen every company that takes our students on as interns, to make sure that the students will be supervised by a design professional and won’t simply be fetching someone’s coffee.

Three major mistakes design students make when they seek a job?

Inflexibility is the biggest. It’s important for a student to be able to go to an employer and say, “I can design exactly what you want” – even if the student would rather draw comics than design logos.

The second big mistake is simply not using the phone. I think this is partially because they’re artists and are completely comfortable behind a computer screen – and, of course, because we live in the age of digital communication. But it’s nice for an employer to associate a voice with a name. People are much more likely to remember the applicant who was polite and well-spoken over the phone than the one who simply sent an email.

Number three goes hand-in-hand with number two. Lots of designers, for whatever reason, don’t follow up. A handwritten thank-you note mailed directly after an interview will, hopefully, arrive at the employer’s office while he or she is in the critical decision-making mode. An email is good, but not as good as a note. And a note and a phone call are even better!

Parting advice?

As with everything else, it helps to be good at networking. Who will write you a recommendation letter? What will people say about you when an employer calls for a reference? Try to be outgoing, enthusiastic, and energetic – whether you feel like it or not.

Write hard, play hard

2007-07-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

an interview with...

TOM TUELL
editor
Key West Citizen

For more than a century, The Citizen has been the only daily newspaper in the Florida Keys (first issue: April 29, 1905). So who would blame Tom Tuell if he rolled into work after a morning of snorkeling, did a little light editing after lunch, then drank away the evening on Duval Street?

Tuell would. Whenever he posts job openings, he boasts, “The Keys are a paradise to those who love the outdoors.” Yet he never fails to add, “The Citizen is a small newspaper (10,000 circulation), but we take pride in our aggressive coverage and commitment to readers.”

Translation: Beach bums need not apply.

How is journalism in the Keys different than, say, Miami or West Palm?

The reality of working at The Key West Citizen (or our community weeklies) is this: It’s one of the best places in the country to practice journalism.

It's an environmental reporter's dream. We're at the tail end of the Everglades ecosystem, we’re home to a host of endangered and threatened species, and we have the only living coral reef tract in the continental U.S. At sea level, global warming literally hits home with readers.

All other beats also are entwined with the environment. Growth regulations are among the strictest in the state because, in many respects, we've reached or exceeded the islands' environmental carrying capacity. Strict development regulations mean property rights issues are constantly in play. Nearshore water pollution, which adversely affects fishing and diving industries, led to a mandate for advanced wastewater treatment by 2010. Soaring land values create much political pressure to find loopholes in development regulations.

Then you throw in about four million tourists per year, and you have a balancing act of economy, environment and quality of life. We are a Petri dish of interrelated issues.

The biggest mistake your job applicants make?

The biggest may be unavoidable: The "living in the Keys" concept embedded in their imaginations usually does not match reality.

Sure, the fishing, diving, kayaking and sailing are great, but the newsroom is still fast-paced and often stressful. (My sailboat hasn't left the dock in years.) The added economic stressors – including the reality that owning a home here is an impossible dream for most – wears heavily after a while.

At the other end of the spectrum is the seasoned (and often overqualified) applicant who sees a job at a small Keys daily as semiretirement. I like to hire mature employees, and I don't mind if they plan on retiring in a couple of years, but I expect the same passion for the job from them as I do anyone else on staff.

What’s your job turnover like?

The most frequent opening is for page designers. There hasn't been an opening for a photographer in a decade. Reporter openings average about two per year for news, and about the same for sports.

The Citizen newsroom has seen relatively low turnover compared to other Keys businesses. I attribute this to two factors: Decent wages for a small daily – entry-level reporter salaries range from $36,000 to $40,000 – and most people willing to put up with the high rents are here because they really want to live in this environment.

How does your staff cope with the high cost of Keys living?

The cost of living in the Florida Keys is a challenge for all professions, but especially for workers in the early stages of their careers who earn less than their more experienced colleagues.

Most Citizen staff members rent apartments in Key West, sacrificing space for convenience and atmosphere. Clearly, rent consumes a larger percentage of a paycheck here than elsewhere. It’s easier for two-income couples to make ends meet than it is for unattached employees who frequently must seek out roommates.

Those of us who own homes generally live outside the city, where homes are more affordable. I commute 50 miles each way from Marathon, but that’s largely because my wife works 40 miles in the opposite direction. Most of our commuters live within 15 miles. (Any commute through the Keys is far more pleasant than comparable time on South Florida interstates.)

What’s your philosophy on hiring?

I try to keep a mix of experience levels in the newsroom, though I rarely hire new grads. One exception is the assistant to the editor position. In that capacity, an employee spends a year or more doing obituaries, news briefs, calendars and such, while becoming familiar with newsroom operations and local issues.

Otherwise, experience requirements range from a year or two for the crime beat to five years or more for a government beat. We draw from our community newspapers in Tavernier and Marathon for about 20 percent or our reporter hires.