Writing

My journalism career has taken me across the country, with reporting stints at (among other places) a major metropolitan daily newspaper, a national online news outlet, and a regional nonprofit news startup.    

I have covered media, higher education, health, business, politics, sports, the environment and the arts. I created and produced podcasts and started a blog aimed at young readers. Here are samples of my work.

MediaShift

• What Research on ‘Measurable Journalism’ Tells Us About Tech, Cultural Shifts in Digital Media (April 2018)
• How Digital News Startups Choose Between For-Profit and Non-Profit Status (March 2018)
• The New Sports Journalism Playbook: Premium Local Coverage for a Low Cost (July 2017)
• Teaching News Literacy Through a Virtual Classroom (June 2017)
• New Research Shows Students Are Largely Unaware of News Personalization (March 2017)
• How to Fight Fake News and Misinformation? Research Helps Point the Way (December 2016)
• Foundations Take Myriad Approaches to Combating Misinformation, Fake News (December 2016)
• The Power of Empathy, Personal Narrative and More Lessons from the Story Movements Conference (September 2016)
• J-Schools Try Different Approaches to Training Aspiring Engagement Editors (June 2016)
• Practicing What They Preach: J-School News Services Track Engagement and Impact (June 2016)
• How the Nonprofit Newsroom Behind the Panama Papers Investigation Measures Impact (April 2016)
• Audience Awareness and Comprehension: The Seldom-Measured Metrics (February 2016)
• News outlets experiment with ways to personally engage paying members (October 2015)
• Explaining the increasingly popular job of engagement editor (August 2015) at news outlets across the country

Yahoo! Sports’ ThePostGame

• When the madness ends: How college hoopsters navigate European options (April 2017)
• Behind the scenes (April 2015) with the Big Ten Network documentary series ‘The Journey’ at the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament.
• ‘Still No Cheering in the Press Box‘: Jim Murray, Pulitzer Prize Winner (May 2014).

Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism

• Chapter on Jim Murray (April 2014) for e-book, “Still No Cheering in the Press Box,” on prominent sports writers. Also published on front page of Yahoo Sports‘ ThePostGame.
• Donald Sterling: How Much We Knew (May 2014) Examines past press coverage of the disgraced Los Angeles Clippers owner.

American Journalism Review

• Learning to Do It All (April 2012) Exploring the question: Do news organizations really expect recent college graduates to be jack-of-all-trades journalists?
• Going Long About Sports (April 2012) What is the future of narrative, long-form sports writing on the web?
• The Lonely Life of a Third-Party Candidate (November 2012) Third-party candidates rightly claim that most of the press ignores them. But what about the news outlets that don’t?

St. Louis Beacon (Now St. Louis Public Radio)

• Out of Prison — Now What? Reentry Programs Help Those Returning to Community Life (March 2010) Part of a series investigating issues of race in St. Louis, Mo., this piece looks at programs that seek to help ex-convicts make the transition from prison to their lives on the outside.
• Turnout Among Young Voters is Increasing, But Will It Be Enough to Change the Outcome? (September 2008) A look at the prospects of the under-30 vote making a mark in the 2008 presidential election.’
• More and more, high school athletes have stopped playing the field to concentrate on one sport (November 2008) Trend story about increased specialization among young athletes.
• Coworking spaces: traditional office, low overhead (July 2010) The rise of shared office spaces.
• Trying Times for Arts Groups that Lean Heavily on State Funding (July 2010) Examining the impact of Missouri’s budget shortfall.
• Missouri’s first poet laureate moves poetry toward the center of society (November 2008) Profiling a prominent Missouri writer.

Inside Higher Ed 

• Frozen at the Podium (January 2008) Public speaking is a scary proposition for college students, as this article shows.
• YouTube Studies (September 2007) Profiling a college course that uses the web’s top video-sharing site as a teaching tool.
• Elephant Not in the Room (May 2007) Empty seats in the classroom irk college professors across the country.
• Four Campuses, Much Green Talk (January 2008) A sampling of global warming “teach-in” day events features faculty panels, classroom discussions and environmental demonstrations.
• NCAA in Orlando: Mickey, Minnie and Myles (January 2007) Division I vote override, release of report on athletes’ majors highlight the association’s annual convention.

Los Angeles Times

• Cooling Burnout (January 2004) With high school athletes, how much training and competition is too much?
• Van’t Hof’s a Smash on the Court (May 2004) Profiling a high school tennis star.
• A Sweet Spot for Success (April 2004) Covering a college tennis tournament in Ojai.