Professional experience
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
2008-
Visiting editor in residence. I teach reporting and writing II and am developing online courses in media editing and a remarkable history course. The history course is built around an unbelieveble collection of color images published by the Chicago Tribune in 1890-1940, long before I thought it was even possible. It should be fun.
DETROIT FREE PRESS
1990 to 2008
As recruiting and development editor, I coordinated talent acquisition and staff development for a newsroom staff of 300 through a 21-month strike, the move into our competitor’s building, the rise of online, the overnight switch from Knight Ridder to Gannett and buyouts. Have been on both companies’ corporate recruiting teams, most recently helping with creation of a Gannett Digital initiative.
• Helped the Free Press achieve newsroom diversity of 31 percent, highest among the nation’s 20 largest newspapers.
• Organized 16 job fairs and am helping the Online News Association organize its inaugural job fair in September, 2008.
• Since 1991, I have recruited at 52 of 55 NABJ, AAJA, NAHJ, NAJA and UNITY conventions, more than anyone in the country.
• Produced 100 Questions and Answers About Arab Americans in 1999. I posted it early on Sept. 12, 2001, it had runaway traffic and was named the educational site of the week. More than 30,000 print copies distributed.
• In 1997, launched the JobsPage, the dominant information source for newspaper careers. For its 10th anniversary, I reverse published it as a book (my fifth) and launched the newsrecruiter.com hub site.
• Created Ask the Recruiter blog in 2003. Since late 2006, it has been the featured element of the Poynter Institute’s Career Center. Peak unique views have been 200,000 per month. Am reverse publishing "The Best of Ask the Recruiter" in July, 2008, and publicizing it through online social netwrks including a Facebook group.
• An experienced online networker, I am active on
Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and have built private social networks on
the Ning platform for the Free Press (420 members) and the Kaiser
Interns (75 members).
• Work on Free Press Web team, as news editor and on our copy desk.
• Led staff training in harassment prevention, selection interviews, evaluations, conflict resolution (Achieve Global), diversity
• Contributing writer to Editor & Publisher, the Newspaper Association of America, UNITY, ASNE, J-IDEAS, Chips Quinn, more.
• NAA Diversity Committee’s Youth Recruitment Task Force
1983-1990
Copy editor, page designer, deputy executive news editor, Sunday Comment editor, youngest newspaper ombudsman in the United States.
THE OAKLAND PRESS (Pontiac, Mich.)
1976 to 1983
Copy editor, 1A designer, regional editor, columnist, editorial writer. I was one of the key newsroom people involved in the creation of a Sunday edition and participated in our conversion from afternoon publication to mornings and to a newsroom computer system.
OAKLAND UNIVERSITY
1980 to present
I am an adjunct faculty member and teach media editing. Have also taught news editing, editorial writing, basic news writing and photojournalism.
Education
University of Michigan
1976
Master's degree in journalism. With honors. Program included training in print, radio and television.
1975
Bachelor's degree in journalism with a minor in psychology and a secondary teaching certificate. With honors. Completed in three years.
Bringing the News Century-old postcards celebrate newsies in photographs and artwork, in groups or singly, black and white or color. The newsboys -- and girls, as well as a few adults -- are always portrayed in hard-knock ways. Feet and calves are sometimes bare. Patches cling to elbows and knees. They cover their heads with stocking caps or the floppy hats we still know as "newsboys." If there is inside you a scrappy, survive-by-your-wits newsie, you'll enjoy this collection of cards and carriers bringing news in old-fashioned ways. (Twenty-five images.) 