The story goes like this: In the autumn of 2004, a former motion picture lighting technician, film school veteran, and bartender Googled the words “media ethics,” discovered Poynter, found Romenesko, and quickly stumbled across links to a nascent media blogosphere, where people were saying what he had been thinking.
That was me discovering that I wanted to work in the media.
Immediately. I wanted to help.
I dropped everything and started graduate school at San Jose State University. Long before I was finished with my degree, I had my first full-time jobs in the news business.
It’s now 2021, more than 15 years after someone first handed me a paycheck for doing anything related to online news.
- Here I am on LinkedIn.
- Are you into clips? How about a few old clips.
A Brief History
WordPress VIP // November 2017 – Present
Director, Business Development and Partnerships
(WPVIP is part of Automattic)
Chalkbeat // December 2015 – October 2017
Director, Product and Growth
Gannett // September 2010 – December 2015
Director, Product Management 2015
Director, Portfolio Management 2014-2015
Director, UGC & Site Solutions 2012-2013
Product Manager, Local Sites 2010-2012
Publish2 // April 2009 – August 2010
Director, News Innovation
AUGUST 2009: Publish2 acquired Wired Journalists
JULY 2009: Launched version 2.0 of ReportingOn.
MAY 2009: M.S. in Mass Communications conferred.
GateHouse Media // October 2007 – April 2009
Director of Community Site Publishing
OCTOBER 2008: Launched ReportingOn version 1.0.
MAY 2008: Won Knight News Challenge grant for ReportingOn.
JANUARY 2008: Launched Wired Journalists with co-founders Howard Owens & Zac Echola.
Santa Cruz Sentinel // October 2006 – October 2007
Online Editor
JULY 2007: Covered “Wharf to Wharf” 5K run live online, using early technology to send audio and photos to Twitter.
JUNE 2007: “10 obvious things about the future of newspapers you need to get through your head.” #
Oakland Tribune // July 2006 – September 2006
Reporter, ANG Regional Desk
CLIPS: Organic farming certification, Bay Bridge welders, Wind turbines, BlogHer 2006
The Spartan Daily // July 2005 – May 2006
Webmaster, Staff Writer
Redesigned the student newspaper site twice, leading a transition between hosting and content management system providers. Set up the first RSS feeds for the site and trained student editors to manage content and comments.
Ryan Sholin 