I grew up in Concord, Calif, which, if you're not familiar with the Bay Area, is about an hour and a half away from San Francisco (because traffic). I graduated from Concord High - super original name, I know - in 2014, and made the six hour trek to LA to start my education at what my grandparents would call the "University of Spoiled Children."
I'm now a junior at USC, where I'm majoring in broadcast and digital journalism and minoring in digital studies.
I've known I wanted to be a journalist since I was a wee seventh grader, working on my middle school's newspaper. I love telling stories, especially ones that help people understand something they wouldn't otherwise experience. I think video makes that storytelling much more effective - the voiceless aren't just given a voice, they're given a face too.
And now, with everyone and their grandmother using social media, we have an opportunity to share those voices and faces in places people already spend their time. The process - of finding a story, shooting it, writing it and editing it, with the added challenge of figuring out what platform it belongs on and how it should look there - is so exciting and creative.
My home-away-from-home is the Julie Chen/Les Moonves and CBS Media Center, which I just call the Media Center because man is that a long name. Right now I'm working as an executive producer for our nightly news broadcast, Annenberg TV News, and as an editor for the JEDI (Journalism for Emerging Digital Innovation) team. No, I don't use the force - I use video and images to tell stories natively on social media. It's my job to figure out how to make content that works on social, especially on mobile.
I'm also working at NBCLA, as an intern for Mekahlo Medina. I'm helping him experiment with social, plus practicing my writing and producing for TV news.
After college I hope to work as a producer for a social driven outlet like Buzzfeed News or AJ+, or produce for a network news show.
When I'm at home, wearing my normal human hat and not my journalist one, you can usually find me drinking coffee, eating pasta, talking about feminism with my roommates and re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer over and over and over again.
Have questions, comments or want to check out my work? Connect with me here.
