Clips

Though I’m no longer a full-time reporter, I can still occasionally don the fedora.

Quick turn-around features:
Under guidance of pickup artists, men learn to pick themselves up (02/03/11)
This required two days of reporting at a conference of pickup artists. I probably don’t need to tease you further.

The Date Me, D.C. blogger lives a public life (01/18/11)
I originally intended this to be one interview in a bigger project, but wrote it up as its own story (further explanation here).

Reporting-based aggregation:
Stephen Strasburg surgery and Tommy John: Reaction from across the Web
I had aggregation duty when big sports news broke in D.C. A simple list of headlines would have been boring; instead, I pulled the best nuggets from each link, assembled them together into a cohesive narrative, and smoothed out the edges with my own insight and reporting.

Dissecting big, breaking news:
Droves of reporters put Amish in spotlight they usually shun (10/03/06)
I was one of our four reporters sent to the scene of the infamous Amish shooting, and was let loose to find an interesting angle. I simply realized here that any average person would be horrified if plopped in the middle of the media cluster.

Covering the 2008 Presidential election:
More than 20,000 enthusiastically welcome Obama to Penn State (03/31/08)
Kerry’s back in state that aided him in ‘04 to stump for Obama (04/07/08)
Democrats shift campaign focus to small towns (09/14/08)
Can McCain win in Pennsylvania? (10/17/08)
A must-win state / McCain, Palin to hit area again together (10/24/08)
Now, it’s all about winning Pennsylvania (11/04/08)
Obama’s strategy pays off in Pennsylvania (11/05/08)
I covered the Obama campaign during the general election in what was considered to be an important swing state.

Using the web as a reporting tool in the early days:
Virginia Tech shootings: Local students shaken, but fine (04/17/07)
Using Facebook and AIM, I was able to get eight photos and interviews with VT students from our area in the hours after the shootings.

Alumni want state to save the school that saved them (02/08/09)
I was called by 50 graduates after searching for them through Facebook and Twitter. That was obviously way more than I needed, so I was able to sift through for top-notch interviews. My reporting techniques on this story were covered by beatblogging.org.

Long-term storytelling:
Grace’s new life at the Milton Hershey School (12/02/07)
I had four months to follow this 4-year-old as she started at a unique school away from her mother.

How to build a roller coaster (05/18/08)
I traced the creation of Hersheypark’s Fahrenheit attraction from a twinkle in someone’s eye to the first riders.

Following a big local story on my beat:
Layoff talk fills air with uncertainty (02/16/07)
Fear of layoffs weighs upon Hershey workers, community (02/23/07)
What would Milton do? (03/16/07)
Residents and workers filled with uncertainty (03/26/07)
Amid angers and tear, difficult choices near (03/27/07)
Some workers see buyouts as good news (04/04/07)
When The Hershey Co. announced as many as 3,000 layoffs, at first not letting people know which factories the cuts would come from, it had an enormous economic and psychological impact on the area. These stories were usually in tandem with pieces focusing more on the business aspect of the layoffs.

FROM THE COLLEGE DAYS:

It’s fun to look at where you’ve come from.

Many memorials, one day: As part of Penn State’s In-depth Reporting class, I flew to Mississippi and drove to upstate New York to tell the story of three towns who each believe they created Memorial Day, and how important that claim is to each town. Still one of my favorite stories.

Penn State students’ efforts to entice recruits break rules: I got this one exclusively, despite an ultra-competitive Penn State football-following media.