When management restructuring at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram eliminated my position (senior editor/reader advocate) in April 2008, I turned to freelancing -- a path many journalists fantasize about and a natural path for me. Retirement's not an option, but that's OK. I love my work too much to retire from it. And anyway, like Jack Benny, I'm still only 39.
I offer skills, knowledge and a network that I built during a rewarding career in the newspaper industry. Using those assets for clients, whether in ink on paper or in cyberspace, has introduced me to new dimensions of writing, editing and crafting coverage.
Journalists love nothing more than to help people, and helping folks meet communications needs is what I love most about freelancing. If you or your company needs outside expertise with external or internal communications, I'd welcome an opportunity to help.
Here's a quick look at me from several angles:
Experience:
Reporting and editing at The Dallas Morning News, Denver Post, St. Petersburg Times, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Management experience as managing editor then executive editor of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
Services
Op-ed articles, letters to editor, news features, magazine articles, coverage analysis and strategy, news releases, news kits, newsletters, newsletter analysis and development, issues research, media contact/navigation, Web/blog items, speeches. And I cook pretty well.
Affiliations
Society of Professional Journalists, Online News Association, Organization of News Ombudsmen (past member), Native American Journalists Association, National Conference of Editorial Writers (past member), American Indian Chamber of Commerce of Texas, Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. Former member of Associated Press Managing Editors and the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Folks for whom I've written
American Airlines Publishing, Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Fort Worth Business Press, Tarrant County College District, Brenco Industrial LLC, Balcom Agency, Star-Telegram.
Thank you for visiting my Web site.
To read my blog, please go to http://househunting.typepad.com
A writer's heroes
Reading and writing hold special places of honor in Cherokee culture and history. And no champion of literacy tops Sequoyah, top left, as far as I’m concerned. A mixed-blood Cherokee, as I am, Sequoyah invented the Tsalagi syllabary -- a system that created 86 symbols for the syllables in the Tsalagi language. Sequoyah’s syllabary was adopted by the Tsalagi nation in 1821. In months, thousands of Cherokees could read and write their own language. Attaining literacy took most about two weeks. Sequoyah ranks among the Western hemisphere's most brilliant forces for human advancement.
Literacy made it possible to publish the first Native American newspaper -- and the first bilingual newspaper in the Western hemisphere: The Cherokee Phoenix and Indian Advocate, which is published to this day. Launched on Feb. 28, 1828, in New Echota, Ga., and circulated internationally, the Phoenix was guided powerfully by its first editor, Elias Boudinot (Buck Oowatie), top right, a well-educated Cherokee with a strong sense of justice and social conscience. He crusaded against the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and many other injustices but also recognized the need to cooperate with the U.S. federal government. Boudinot was a brave editor, but eventually resigned to protest the tribal council’s intolerance of “diversified views.” One of their complaints about his writing is one we hear today: Keep reporters' opinion out of the news columns.
