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Fellow, Reynolds Journalism Institute | August 2010 to May 2011

The Reynolds Journalism Institute selects six fellows each academic year — two from the current faculty and four from elsewhere. I was fortunate to be selected this year, and the fellowship allows me to focus entirely on one project related to the journalism industry. The project I proposed and am now carrying out explores the changing nature of the relationship between journalists and their audiences. Journalism today can be more of a conversation than a lecture. It’s more relational, or at least it can be. I am taking a cross-disciplinary approach to researching the topic of engagement. I’m interviewing journalists about what engagement means in their newsrooms. I’m also looking to fields like marketing, anthropology, civic activism and community organizing to find out what journalists, who are relatively new to this concept, can learn from those experts about what it means to engage, and how we know if we’ve done it successfully. I will host a symposium in the spring on the metrics and measurements of engagement.

Associate professor, Missouri School of Journalism | December 2003 to present

In my seven years at the journalism school, these are the courses for which I have been the professor of record.

J4500/7500, News Design: Students in this class work under my direction on the staff of the Columbia Missourian, and I also see them in the classroom, when it’s my turn to teach it. The class teaches layout, visual storytelling and story framing, along with graphic design principles as they relate to journalism (typography, grids, color, etc.).

J4301/7301, Multimedia Planning and Design: I proposed and developed this new course, and I taught it for the first time as a topics class in Spring 2010. It fills a huge void in the journalism course offerings and serves students across sequences.

J4700/7700, Participatory Journalism: Students in this class work at MyMissourian.com, an arm of the Missourian dedicated to readers telling their own stories. Students also learn about blogging, social media, the culture of the Internet and how the relationships between journalists and their audiences are changing.

Design editor, Columbia Missourian | December 2003 to August 2010

As the design editor for the Missourian, I taught visual storytelling to the students who produced the newspaper, both in print and online. I worked with students before publication to plan and craft story packages, teaching them to answer readers’ questions and reflect the tone of the stories through design techniques. I also worked with reporters and editors to discuss storytelling techniques and story forms during the information-gathering process.

During my time at the Missourian: I prototyped a groundbreaking Web site for use with a one-of-a-kind publishing system emphasizing context in the news, working with developers to design a user experience that emphasized the unique nature of the system. I prototyped and launched a weekend magazine-style newspaper. I raised the level of visual sophistication of the newspaper in general. I supervised the conversion of the newsroom from PCs to Macs, and from Quark to InDesign.

Sarasota Herald-Tribune | 1998-2003

The Herald-Tribune is a New York Times Regional Newspaper Group publication that produced five zoned editions a day and jumped on the convergence train quickly. When I arrived there in 1998, the paper had already launched a 24-hour cable news channel in the newsroom. While at the Herald-Tribune, I served as assistant news design editor, features designer, kids page section editor, business news editor and copy editor.

Wichita Eagle | 1996-1998

The Eagle was a Knight-Ridder publication at the time I was there. I was a member of the presentation team, and I worked my way through just about every section while I was there. I was one of the principal front-page designers and also redesigned the Family section.

The Paper | Summer 1996

As a reporting intern, I was one of three staff writers at a weekly in Juneau, Alaska, that emphasized in-depth news reporting.

Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel | Summer 1995

I was a copy editing intern on the features desk.

The Oklahoma Daily | 1994-1996

I was fortunate to discover my love of journalism while working for a campus newspaper that operated under high standards and was recognized as one of the best nationally. During my time there The Daily was also named the second-best Oklahoma newspaper with a circulation greater than 9,000 (college and professional papers included). I rose through the ranks from copy editor and copy desk chief to reporter to managing editor and editor in chief. The most I ever learned quickly about journalism was during the one-week period following the Oklahoma City bombing, which we covered as a local story under my direction.