Recently, PublicSource was the subject of In The Spotlight, a part of the Heinz Endowments website that allows organizations they fund to tell their own stories.
It was an interesting time for us to do that for a couple of reasons. First, we have a number of new people in our newsroom: two reporters, a communications director and a multimedia intern. Second, it’s always good to ask people how they see their jobs. You learn a lot about them.
So, rather than telling you about our wonderful new staff members, please take a look at how they describe themselves. We’re excited to have them. They’re smart, hard-working and passionate about journalism. Then, let us know what you’d like to see us do with all this new talent.
Jeffrey Benzing
Reporter
So often, reporting on criminal justice becomes a list of incidents.
Shots are fired. Streets are taped off. Drugs are seized.
Chasing daily stories is a crucial part of reporting on a community. Citizens need to know where the crime is and how law enforcement is responding. But it’s just as important to take a deeper look at the issues that influence crime and how institutions are handling their obligations to keep the community safe.
Eric Holmberg
Data reporter
Data journalism is at the core of PublicSource’s mission – to dig deeper and write in-depth stories. I’m Eric Holmberg, one of the newsroom’s newest members, and my job is to help our reporters obtain records and analyze data for their stories.
But what does that mean?
Pamela Goldsmith
Director of communications
The landscape of journalism and the communications field has evolved immensely over the past two decades, leading me to adapt and embrace a precipitously changing environment.
Advancing toward this new territory has meant myriad changes for us all, requiring more resources, time and energy to explore its complexity and master new skills.
Molly Duerig
Intern
In early 2013, when I was a junior at Allegheny College, the school’s trustees considered leasing some of the school’s land for natural gas drilling.
As an editor of The Campus, the college’s student-run newspaper, I was pleasantly surprised when a Pittsburgh reporter called me about the topic, which I’d been covering for the paper.