It’s always months between entries here, but I’ve been busy.
I feel like I started this chapter of my life in two steps, or more like a prologue and chapter.
The prologue is USC. I went into grad school with basically one journalism skill – photojournalism.
I spent a year and a half crying in therapy about being a one-trick pony and got there to find out I was kind of right (it’s fine…now).
Everyday, no matter the media, there was always a day that cohorts would get a breather because they’d somewhat done it before. I was drowning everyday because I had no text, video nor audio experience.
(college’s journalism 101 that I was required to take for photojournalism was a joke and I wrote four stories the entire program, sorry not sorry about it)
I remember going to USC’s preview day and asking the grad program adviser if there were photo classes or they liked to emphasize photography and he was like, “Um, no.” So when I got there I made it a point to shove photography into everything I did. After all, I had to show them that I could be good at something.
So anyway, now the chapter.
I’m hired at the non-profit, largely because of my visual experience. They’re struggling with the appearance of the site and want to do a redesign as a Hail Mary fundraiser with NewsMatch. Cool. We make it.
So I’m there, working with one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. He’s teaching me all kinds of stuff… actually reminds me of my college adviser who is my favorite person in the world. We’re grumpy, kindred spirits.
It’s the two of us, producing content, but manageable because he’s in charge and my safety net.
Then he quits six months in, and I’m the only one doing the journalism, and everything that comes with managing the editorial side of a website. (I would have too if I were in his place, so we’re still friends)
Like two to four years after having this one-trick chip on my shoulder I’m now a one-man-band. I do have a final safety net with the co-founder of the site, but for the daily functions, it’s me.
So now our non-profit has run out of funding for the last time. The large grants that we had said they overextended themselves during the pandemic and aren’t funding media at the moment.
I’ll have a job through the election, maybe until Thanksgiving. I definitely didn’t want to be at the helm of a publication as it fails, but I’m going down with the ship.
So now I’m slowly job hunting, available mid-to-late November.
My range of duties is actually pretty hard to write in a cover letter. It almost sounds dumb how many things I have to do, but I guess that’s the problem I’d rather have than the one I did before.
Some photos of news, just because. San Gabriel Mission church fire.
