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  1.  (83.1)
    I'm curious how many journalists we've got around here. If you're one, pop in an introduce yourself, your specialties and perhaps some of your work.
    I'm Brandon. I'm a freelance writer and photographer based on Portland, Oregon, although I'm currently spending a couple of months in Anchorage, Alaska. I write for Portland's Pulitzer-winning alt-weekly Willamette Week, as well as for Alaska's three major newspapers and some assorted publications. I cover weird music, weird cultural trends, weird art, and sometimes comics.

    My photos are here, my articles are here. Here's one about a guy who came into a shop I worked at to buy a container to put his dad's ashes, so he could get them out of the ziplock bag in his pocket, and here's one about the culture of public nudity in Portland, the lede of which is below. (It doesn't mention that I was dressed like Spider Jerusalem at the time.)
    I was down to my glasses and a pair of Superman boxers when I failed to answer in the form of a question.

    It was the Friday before Halloween 2006. I was one of the night's three Strip Jeopardy! contestants at No Fish! Go Fish!, a restaurant on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard. And it was time to lose another garment.

    I'd only been in town for a month, and Portland had yet to see me do the full monty. But the ladies in the crowd were shouting that I should take it all off, and the contestant next to me got her finger under the elastic band of my boxers and started to tug. I spent the next 40 minutes totally naked, perched on a barstool in front of 40 people.

    "That was really brave," my friend Jason told me on the walk home. "And you've got a pretty nice package."
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      CommentAuthorgilest
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2007
     (83.2)
    Yup, I'm a journo. Links etc are already online over here so I won't clog up the 'Chapel by repeating them.

    My speciality, for years now, has been technology. I like writing about internets and computers and things, but in the last year or so I've tried to make an effort to expand beyond that area. I'd like to write more stuff about parenting, history, and environmentalism. I need to generate the ideas and get writing them, instead of just *thinking* about it.
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      CommentAuthordswood
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2007
     (83.3)
    I'm currently working at the lone, local daily in Grande Prairie, Alberta. It's my first time working on a daily publication (I only graduated from j-school a couple of years ago), and as far as this place is from home for me, it really has been a great place to get my feet wet.

    As for specialties, I am technically their education reporter, but I think I'd have to say we're all pretty much general assignment out here - it's not a very big newsroom to begin with, and we're down a reporter and a shooter right now, so whoever is available covers whatever is worthwhile.

    I freelanced for TV Guide Canada in Toronto, Ontario before this (and before they stopped doing a print edition in this country), though I'm not sure that qualifies as journalism. It was fun though.

    My goals are to do a year out here in Alberta and then return home and find work there, and to focus more on photography at some point. There is a part of me enjoying that aspect of the work more than the writing lately, so I may even go back to school for it eventually.

    I will post some links sometime soon - I'll have to gather some weblinks and/or host some pdfs, as I don't have one place online where I keep them all. This may even manage to jumpstart an update to my physical portfolios - something I have been terribly neglectful of lately.

    But anywho, yes - hello!
  4.  (83.4)
    I'm also a soldier in the daily news trenches, working at a smallish daily newspaper in Northern California. My beat, which I manage to stick to more often than not, is crime, cops, courts and fire. Under normal circumstances this would be a pretty boring job, but I happen to be working in the most lucrative leg of what is known as the Green Triangle, the unofficial source for most of California's marijuana. This manages to keep things pretty interesting.

    In addition, the whole county seems to be a strange attractor, as evidenced by the fact that Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple once put down roots in the town where I live before fucking-off down south to kill himself, so the county has more than enough bizarre occurences to keep me scribbling.

    Hi.
    • CommentAuthorrobb
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2007
     (83.5)
    metalcowboy: is the green triangle that run with all the kayakers crossing the border from the vancouver pot grow-ops (ups?)? if so, what's the third point?

    journalist-ish. for what it's worth, i was a graphic design journalist for about one issue, nearly two. does that make me more of a "contributor?" "correspondent?" either way, freelance, not salary. currently researching design and illustration education for an article to submit to design trade rags and aiga, gag, and other groups with acronyms and budgets.
  6.  (83.6)
    robb:
    I think that might be something different. Around here, the green triangle refers to California's Humboldt, Lake and Mendocino Counties, the richest marijuana-growing areas in the state, or so I'm told.

    It's basically a combination of incredibly confusing marijuana laws, a lack of sufficient law enforcement to enforce the laws and counties with a lot of land which is mostly uninhabited. As an example, Mendocino County is over 3,000 square miles in size but has only 80,000 people, most centered in two inland cities and two costal cities.
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      CommentAuthorLuke
    • CommentTimeDec 2nd 2007 edited
     (83.7)
    Brandon: love the photo. Makes me wish I'd been at the show, which is about as good as a concert photo can get.

    I'm hammering a niche on the borders of science reporting and comedy, and people are paying me for it so it seems to be working. Also the usual freelance bag of concert reviews and other local stuff - the best of which will be being paid to run a column on "Urban Phenomena", if I ever extract the money from the chancers.

    I love doing daily articles - I've found my output has more than doubled since starting them, not only the article you're being paid for but the ones you write now that your mental motors are spinning at high speed.
    • CommentAuthorjohnplatt
    • CommentTimeDec 2nd 2007
     (83.8)
    I'm a journalist (in addition to working as a marketing consultant). I contribute daily articles about endangered species to Plenty Magazine, and work for a few technology and business publications as well. You can find links to several of my recent articles here.


    John
  9.  (83.9)
    Luke: Thanks! That was a damn fun show. It's Portland's ninja rock band Fist Of Dishonor. And your describing working daily makes me want to try it. I love working for weeklies, but I imagine working at a daily would make me a better, or at least more efficient, writer.
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      CommentAuthorLuke
    • CommentTimeDec 2nd 2007
     (83.10)
    Brandon: Then go for it. You don't need to be working for anyone to do it - stick up a section/site I can check and start writing daily, and I can check in. And start checking online listings looking for daily bloggers (it was a crappy low-paying keyword hunting site that got me started daily, and I've moved on to far better grounds since then).
  11.  (83.11)
    i am just getting my feet wet, i currently do sporadic comic columns in maximum rocknroll as well as just starting out for a horror/pop culture website. i'm hoping to continue with this in a serious capacity. i have had some things on the online version of our local weekly in phx, and keep half assedly writing new ideas to submit that i keep managing to not get around to.
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      CommentAuthorJohn Smith
    • CommentTimeDec 2nd 2007 edited
     (83.12)
    In theory I'm the news director of a radio station on the eastern shore of Maryland. In practice I assemble AP news copy every morning for a radio show. That said, I put it on my cards and get press credentials into random events.

    Also, I've done a few pieces for CBR (Baltimore and NY con coverage) so technically I'm a "freelance industry journalist."
  13.  (83.13)
    journo in training.

    Hard graft, sometimes satisfying. The best job I never had.
  14.  (83.14)
    an example of the LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO RANT aimed at the CHRISTIAN VOICE:

    When you have a religion that espouses “Turn[ing] the other cheek” as a major principle (Matthew 5:38-42, NIV, Bible™ fans!) then you have to expect to be ignored after a while. A predatory school-yard bully will only hunt where the meat is tastiest and at its most succulent, which is when the victim shudders and its fear-centre’s hormone production reaches crisis-point. No hunter worth his salt ever got an adrenaline buzz from the quarry taking every attack on the chin: There’s no sport in it.


    www.lwymmd.blogspot.com

    Christian Voice wind me up. Whenever I hear that name I get the opening to Captain Scarlett...

    "This is the voice of the CHRISTIANS"

    a fish-shaped light glides across the moon-scape...

    am I wrong?
    • CommentAuthorsamishah
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2007
     (83.15)
    News Producer for Dawn News. Pakistan's first and only 24 hour English language News Channel.

    Done some work as a field reporter as well, but am mainly in charge of producing the News bulletins and outdoor coverage. Channel launched 6 months ago, and since then I have covered more suicide bombings and riots than I care to remember. Had a gun pressed to my head twice (once by political activists, once by agitated cops). Been 200 yards away from the big suicide explosion during Benazir Bhutto's motorcade that killed over a 100 people (my camera man was severely injured). I have also been attacked by lawyers and been baton charged by cops.

    Never a dull day in Pakistani news.
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      CommentAuthorJohn Smith
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2007
     (83.16)
    @ samishah-- I'm glad you do what you do.
    • CommentAuthorsamishah
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2007
     (83.17)
    Heh, so am I John.

    Used to be in Advertising before this. Spent all day trying to figure out how to make a crappy brand of crisps look nutritious. And finally one day had enough of it. Dawn News hadn't launched then, when I joined. It was just me and 5 other people sitting in a room trying to figure out what to call the channel and how to make it different.

    That was over a year ago. Haven't had a day of regret yet.
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      CommentAuthorJohn Smith
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2007
     (83.18)
    Let me ask you this-- it's clear on our end all the trouble you guys are dealing with, but I'm wondering the average Pakistani's take on things. Does Musharraf have the people behind him? And would things actually get any better with Bhutto and/or Sharif back in government?
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      CommentAuthorobliterati
    • CommentTimeDec 7th 2007
     (83.19)
    I'm having a time out until I can learn some manners.
    Hey Brandon, when you get back to Portland say hi to Mr. Gillingham for me. We went to school together at one point.
  20.  (83.20)
    Obliterati -- Heh! Small internet. I only met Ian briefly at the Association of Alternative Newspapers convention, but he seemed like a good guy.

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