Work Background:
Deep Background? There's a lot of it.
I've worked in the playgrounds and trenches of journalism, production and publishing in broadcast, cable, online, digital multimedia and print at a time of major transitions. As the great digital convergence swept across history, buying two community newspapers seemed like a retro but reasonable thing to do. In this last chapter as managing editor with the newspapers, our stories have won numerous California News Publishers Association (CNPA) and National Newspaper Association (NNA) awards for investigative journalism, public service and editorial writing.
In the next chapter coming up, what entrances me most is how immersion in nature is so nurturing when nearly every facet of our culture ensnares us (and our imaginations) in tangles spun by artificial-intelligence bots. More to come on that ....
I've worked on national and regional broadcast series and syndications, cable and online projects for The History Channel, Discovery, PBS affiliates, 20th Century Fox and special projects such as the 54-part "Computers, Freedom and Privacy" video library (for universities, libraries, and governments) to document the early breakthroughs of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
My past print stories have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Arizona Daily Star, City Magazine, The Tucson Weekly, The New Mountain Pioneer, The Mountain Enterprise and national magazines such as High Performance, Digital Media, Spectrum/Salon, The Independent and Online Access. Stories and commentary at the dawn of the world wide web for Digital Media, Cable-Telco Report and SPECTRUM covered culture and policy issues on convergence of digital networks.
Shortly after receiving the masters degree (while raising my son in Arizona) I taught Media Technology, Production, and Mass Communications while building an analog-digital television studio for the four-campus Pima Community College. I also served on the Tucson Cable Commission as Public Interest Chair to create a fully interactive urban system. Crazy how today we can do all that on our pocket phones.
With a group of artists led by Dean and Dudley Evenson from Soundings of the Planet, I had the privilege of reporting on People to People Diplomacy projects in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and Ukraine, then returned independently twice to report the early days of glasnost and perestroika, followed by the Velvet Revolutions of Eastern Europe. Those are projects to be revisited.
I also had the fun of developing a systems integration concept and a team to build an interactive brainwave-driven immersion experience in a 2,000 sq. ft. rainforest setting for a Digital Multimedia Festival showcase at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
The Bread Crumb Trail Through the PBS Jungle is my book written as a survivor’s guide for independent producers, complete with maps tracing the labyrinthine pathways traveled by public broadcasting dollars (now being updated).
A breakthrough report on identity theft for LA Times (their first ever on the subject) helped change California state law (for the first time) to make individuals legally considered the owners of their own identity—and therefore the victims of identity theft, rather than credit card companies.
The "California Burning" series of 2021 (and 2022) for The Mountain Enterprise won NNA's "best investigative series" award, for exploring breakthrough new fire science that calls traditional fire prevention practices into question and examines the public policy implications for helping communities to survive in today's changing climate conditions.
Working with the Museum of Creativity pilot project design team to invite the public into experiences to explore the creative process through many lenses is a strong memory. More work into the healing power of creativity remains a prime passion. I've had the honor of contributing to numerous seminars, radio presentations and television interviews on these subjects in the U.S., Australia and for Japanese television.
"What's next?" is the real question, isn't it?
