State College, Pa.

Editor-In-Chief

April 2011 – April 2012

Managed a 175-student news division of editors, reporters, photojournalists and designers at Penn State’s independent, 20,000-circulation student-run daily newspaper during my senior year of college

Organized and led award-winning breaking news and investigative coverage of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal and the death of former football coach Joe Paterno

• 2012 Best Student Newspaper, The Princeton Review
• College Newspaper of the Year, 2011-12, College Media Matters
• College Hybrid Publication Gold Crown, Columbia Scholastic Press Association
• Pacemaker Award, Associated Collegiate Press
  

  Here is a lot – A lot of interesting content, well-reported content, appealing content. Great use of photos, displayed well, enhancing solid reporting of controversial events.”

• First Place Website, Keystone Press Awards
• Daily Collegian Hall of Fame, 2011-2012 staff inducted in 2012
• @dailycollegian named one of BuzzFeed’s 90 best Twitter accounts of 2011

Edited opinion page; wrote columns and editorials; launched sex column “Mounting Nittany”

• National 1st Place in Editorial Writing, Collegian editorials
  2011 Society of Professional Journalists’ Mark of Excellence Awards
  

Improved organizational structure of Collegian’s editorial division by implementing independent staffs for social media (which grew Twitter followers from about 7,000 to more than 20,000) and multimedia; combined news and sports copy desks into a universal hub

Worked at least 60 hours per week at the Collegian, in addition to being a full-time student; read my senior column here

Budgeted the paper daily and assisted with page one design

Served as a member of the Collegian, Inc. Board of Directors

Represented The Daily Collegian on the Penn State Student Leaders Roundtable

More Experience

Beat & Copy Editor・Dec. 2009 – March 2011

Managed and assigned campus and arts staffs of about 30 reporters; developed story ideas; edited copy

Designed and proofread broadsheet and magazine pages; wrote headlines and photo captions; edited local, national, international news and sports articles for content and style

Reporter・Sept. 2008 – Dec. 2009

Wrote about student life and the Penn State administration, including tuition, budgetary concerns, and lawsuits against the university; covered Penn State Board of Trustees and Faculty Senate meetings

Covering the PSU Scandal & death of Joe Paterno

In the year that the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal erupted at Penn State University and legendary football coach Joe Paterno died, rule was simple: The Daily Collegian had to provide consistent and accurate coverage for our core audience: students.

Meanwhile, people from across the nation turned to the Collegian for updates. The Collegian flew off newspaper stands, even a special edition that came out on a Sunday. A student painted an entire gallery of Collegian-inspired works (above). Print was relevant.

At the end of the fall semester, I wrote about the experience for the Collegian Alumni Interest Group. After graduating, I penned a column on what the campus was like as the scandal erupted.

Here are a few front pages from that year:

Monday, Nov. 7, 2011

We presented a weekend’s worth of headlines in a nontraditional layout for Monday’s front page after were filed against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011

I stopped the presses before we redesigned this front page following a late-night Board of Trustees meeting and riots on campus.

After Penn State football coach Joe Paterno was fired, President Graham Spanier resigned, and students took to the streets rioting, it became clear our standard opinion page wasn’t going to cut it.

Around 1 a.m., pushing our press deadline, I erased the entire page and reinvented our opinion page.

This edition also contained a commemorative edition for football coach Joe Paterno who announced his long-awaited retirement, only to be fired by Penn State’s trustees hours later.

Sunday, Nov. 13, 2011

For the second time in the Collegian’s 125-year run, we printed a Sunday edition, covering a student vigil, a Board of Trustees meeting and the first Penn State football game that Joe Paterno hadn’t coached in some six decades.

Simply put, we didn’t think the news could wait until our Monday edition hit stands.

Monday, Jan. 23, 2012

Covering the death of Joe Paterno: