Shamless self-promotion

More than 20 years ago, Dave Barry famously opined on how news coverage can sometimes get distorted by reporters filling out journalism award applications:

At certain times each year, we journalists do almost nothing except apply for the Pulitzers and several dozen other major prizes. During these times you could walk right into most newsrooms and commit a multiple ax murder naked, and it wouldn't get reported in the paper, because the reporters and editors would all be too busy filling out prize applications. "Hey!" they'd yell at you. "Watch it! You're getting blood on my application!"

Well last spring we hardly had a naked ax-murderer charge into our newsroom. We did, however, have a round of applications to fill out for the California Newspaper Publishers Association's annual awards. The Review won 14 1st- or 2nd-place nods last year (second only to the L.A. Times), so we had some steep expectations for ourselves.

This year, I'm proud and honored to announce that we surpassed last year's total with 16 finalist nominations.

Three of the 16 finalist nominations carry my byline -- two of them individually, and one shared:

Local News:
http://hmbreview.com/articles/2008/03/26/news/doc47eab8e116a3b356534208.txt
(Caught the Air Force dumping untreated stormwater into the Pacific Ocean.)

Business & Finance:
http://hmbreview.com/articles/2008/02/27/news/doc47c4bcfbcc5d0661218629.txt
http://hmbreview.com/articles/2008/02/27/news/doc47c4be12e6c1d442247855.txt
http://hmbreview.com/articles/2008/02/27/news/doc47c4bcfbcc5d0661218629.txt
http://hmbreview.com/articles/2008/02/27/news/doc47c4bcbd6d427624950484.txt
(I wrote these four articles as a one-week package on how the recession was hitting the Coastside economy.)

Breaking News Coverage:
http://hmbreview.com/articles/2008/01/09/news/local_news/story01.txt
(shared byline)

I'll dispense with the faux self-deprecation because it would be all too transparent. Allow me only to say that I'm humbled to have worked with such an excellent staff that was committed to extraordinary work during a very lean year in journalism. I'm also grateful to all of my former teachers who instructed me how to hold my own in a very competitive and energetic newsroom.

Here's one footnote, though, to illustrate the vicissitudes of newsroom life these days: three of the five reporters and the one staff photographer who earned accolades this year have moved on to other pursuits. In other words, approximately 70 percent of the newsroom staff turned over in less than 10 months.

I have a lot of love for the Review, and will always wish it well. But that can't be good.

Summer idleness

I've been keeping a low profile this summer after a job change and the requisite training to finish the San Francisco Marathon (I wanted to break four hours, but I'm not complaining). Now that much of that is in my rearview mirror, I'm going to update this space regularly.

Finishing graduate school and jumping right into a reporter's chair at the Half Moon Bay Review was exhilarating, exhausting and educational. Who knew that it would take a summer of reading everything I could get my hands on and training for a 26.2-mile race in order to catch my breath? Gratefully, I think I finally have.

A few years ago, I placed a marathon high on my to-do list. It obviously took me a while to pull it off. Achieving that goal has given me some perspective. I needed some distance from Stanford, and even from traditional reporting, in order to get my bearings a bit. The next step in my career -- which will occur who knows when -- must be a strong one. And improving this space, thinking out many of the reactions and ideas that occur to me as I navigate our ever-shifting media cyberscape, I have concluded is crucial to taking that strong step forward.

But it's not just toward the ends of furthering my career that I wish to improve this space. (Honest!) I chose this career in the first place because I love stories. The more stories we hear, see or read, the richer our lives become. The better we learn how to tell our stories, the richer we make the world around us. A Detroit Free Press columnist recently pointed to Garrison Keillor's observation that stories are currency. I agree. And since I'll probably never become rich in dollars, I better damn well do my part by becoming a better storyteller.

Listen to what my living hero, Garrison Keillor, has to say: "Stories are basic currency, the dollar bill of conversation. ... You go to the grocery store and the checkout woman tells you that she wasn't at work yesterday because her dog had to be put down, the dog she's had for 13 years. That's a story right there, whether she amplifies on it or not, and her willingness to tell it to you is what moves her out of the ranks of the nameless and makes her real to you.

"And if we're not real to each other, then we're dangerous to each other." Stories, he said, "give us that simple empathy that is the basis of the Golden Rule."