Multimedia Editor

The organization…

The newspaper for the Peralta Community College District

The Laney Tower is the student-run newspaper serving the Peralta Community College District (PCCD).  Our audience includes the students, faculty, staff and administrators of the PCCD’s 4 campuses; Berkeley City College, Laney and Merritt Colleges (in Oakland) and the College of Alameda.  Although our newsroom is located at the Laney campus, we attempt to cover many of the events and causes that are important to our disparate audience.

 My responsibilities…

I am very happy to have been appointed the Multimedia Editor at the Laney Tower.  This newly-minted (and unpaid) position at the non-profit student organization runs from semester-to-semester.

Primarily, I see this position as one of disruption.  I have the distinct advantage of incorporating new media techniques at a legacy media organization (think: pulp-and-rabbit ears.)  During this current digital revolution, audiences are increasingly seeking information from the devices they carry rather than from the newspapers of yesteryear.  Therefore, we need to tailor our content to the media platforms our audience prefer.

In order to facilitate this paradigm shift, I call on my professional background as the Director of Media Communications to implement industry-standard best practices in new media content delivery.  Additionally, I bring sustainable productivity improvements to the Laney Tower production processes from my MBA in Social Entrepreneurship.

Ultimately, an organization has to ask itself “what business are we in?”  Is the Laney Tower still in the newspaper business?  To stay relevant, a media organization has to evolve with the times.

Not just “change for change’s sake.”

There are considerable business reasons for catering to our audience’s digital preferences.  Migrating the content-delivery platforms from analog channels to digital also makes sense to the bottom line.  By delivering digital content we can track our audience’s engagement.

Previously, in the pulp-and-rabbit ears days, a media organization could only guess at the number of people it reached.  This is critical because by analyzing the audience engagement data, we are better able to offer businesses the opportunity to advertise to our audience.

The important concepts to remember are these:

1. Content is key!
2. The content is not changing, only the medium.
3. The medium itself is not the message.

I want my legacy at the Laney Tower to reflect the paradigm shift from newspaper-as-content-delivery-mechanism to an organization that delivers digital content to their audience across multiple content platforms.  While my tenure is most likely temporary, I hope that the recommendations I suggest will endure.

Consequently, I am responsible for the following activities:

• Media Production
  • Produce/Edit audio/video features/podcasts
• Content Creation
  • Digital, print, social media/web content, film/video production
• Pitching stories that are interesting to our audience
• Outreach
  • Liaising with parallel media organizations
• Productivity Tools
  • Implementing Slack as our collaboration tool to facilitate team communication and file-sharing

So, can I interest you in some work samples?

#writing: Articles I’ve submitted, some published

#audio: The podcast series we started this year.  “#TheForceAwokens” is about the recent documentary on Oakland’s beleaguered police department, others about the connection between the A’s and its fan community.  More podcasts to come!

#video: The video I edited about the thing (in progress).

How will this help your company?

So, you say you are looking for a candidate with excellent persuasive writing skills?  Additionally, someone with the digital literacy skills to develop content for the platforms your audience uses?  Likewise, an experienced professional with over 15 years of managing teams and projects from beginning to end?

Well, look no further!  I bring all of that to my temporary position as Multimedia Editor with the Laney Tower and I’ll be happy to share that with your organization! Call me today!

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