New job!

Just started, but not wasting time. This first-person package got mad play online and picked up by NBC affiliates across the country.

A quirky presidential primary story for Presidents’ Day? Just what the station ordered! And I didn’t fall off the roof. In retrospect, I see a bazillion errors, but you do what you can with a 4pm deadline.

Here’s how NowThis (an NBC News partner, so all I got was the glory) cut it:

Tijuana Border Crossing

Tijuana Border Crossing 12/17/15 (enterprise)

Hello Kitty Turns 40 with Convention in LA

Hello Kitty Con 11/31/14 (day turn)

Student debt burdens multiple generations in rural Kansas

Here’s an enterprise story that took me to the rolling prairie of Western Kansas, where I got to know a lovely family: Lori, Jon and Elyse Bigler.

My package was just part of the AP report. AP produced an interactive along with the text story by Josh Boak.

Package on water infrastructure generates hits

I will be the first to admit that I might have grumbled a bit when I got this assignment. An exhaustive look at the degraded water infrastructure across the US… I’m usually not scared of wonky stories, but this was Not a natural video story.

Then I grumbled some more while poring through seven wire stories to identify a handful of representative locations and interviews. But with some help from a colleague in Iowa, this package came together.

Collaboration paid off. It got picked up by 31 stations/outlets – the most for 2015. Here’s how KTVU in Oakland used my package to fill 5 minutes in their 4pm newscast and send viewers to their website, which hosted AP’s interactive map.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think this was my best package ever. (Tho it wasn’t bad for only 2 days of shooting and a day to write and edit.) But I do think it’s a powerful example of cross-format collaboration.