dan oshinsky dot com: A blog about journalism. And my mother.

I am a journalist, but the Merriam-Webster constraints to the word don’t really get at what I actually do.

To be succinct: if it ends in ‘er,’ I probably do it.

I am a: Reporter. Writer. Photographer. Producer. Graphic/page designer. Blogger. Twitterer. Spanish speaker. Copy/audio/video editor. (Actually, that last one ends in ‘or.’ Sorry.)

To make this thing easier: click on any of the titles below, and I’ll tell you more about what it means (and show you what I’ve done with it).

WRITING/REPORTING

I’ve covered the United States Senate and Major League Baseball, small town politics and the Summer Olympics. If I can get an Internet connection from there, I can cover it.

Below, I’ve broken down my clips by publication date. Some stories are hard news; others are features or blogs. ⁽¹⁾

Though I do not understand why, some people do just really enjoy reading my words. If you are one of these people (or my mother,) a larger, more semi-comprehensive collection of clips (sorted by publication) is available via this link.

• “Along for the Rodeo: An Argentine’s American basketball pilgrimage” (for KENS 5)

• “Into the fryer: A tour through the Rodeo’s fattiest food offerings ” (for KENS 5)

• “Pulte problems: Lessons to be learned from company’s history” (for KENS 5)

• “Spurs Roundup: The Fall of the Empire (Potius Sero Quam Numquam)” (for KENS 5)

• “The Cover Letter I’ve Always Wanted To Write” (for danoshinsky.com)

• “How I Dealt With Those Pesky Thanksgiving Questions” (for danoshinsky.com)

• “The Olympic Muzzle” (for The Rocky Mountain News)

• “Sign Here” (for The Rocky Mountain News)

• “The Greatest Free Ad Ever” (for The Rocky Mountain News)

• “Somehow Finding Their Way to Hash It Out” (for The Rocky Mountain News)

• “Hoping for an Olympic-sized miracle” (for The Rocky Mountain News)

• “Livo Had the Power, Got the Money” (for The Washington Examiner)

• “Nats Bats Still Impatient” (for The Washington Examiner)

• “5,000 Protest Chinese Imprisonment of Former Cambridge Resident” (for The Boston Globe)

For more of my clips, you should click here.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

I shoot primarily with Canon equipment, and I edit using the suite of Adobe software (Bridge, Photoshop and Illustrator). I work mainly on spot news assignments and sports.

Click on a title and the image will just appear (thanks to the magic of the Internet):

Sports Photos

• Blocked Sightlines.
• Champs.
• Face to Face.
• Head First.
• Kick It.
• Making Space.
• One-Armed Drive.
• Posterized.
• Say ‘Ah’.
• Victory.

Non-Sports Photos

• All Smiles.
• Flag waving.
• Go!
• Guitar solo.
• In the Grass.
• Leaving Trunk.
• Mixed messages.
• The brothers.
• Welcome, 2010.

For more of my favorite photos, you should out my Flickr page.

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AUDIO/VIDEO EDITING

I edit in Final Cut Pro and Audacity, and I use both Flash and Soundslides to create audio slideshows. I shoot on Canon video equipment and record audio with numerous devices, including Marantz recorders.

• Talking Tony Parker (on ESPN Radio 1050 in New York)

• “Beware of Landslide: Curious Signs Around Beijing” (for The Rocky Mountain News, produced with Final Cut Pro)

• “Tiananmen Square During Opening Ceremonies” (for The Rocky Mountain News, produced with Final Cut Pro)

• “08-08-08: Live in Tiananmen Square” (for danoshinsky.com, produced with VuVox)

• Beauty and the Kick Boxer (Slideshow, for The Columbia Missourian, produced with Soundslides)

• “Conspiracy Surrounds Plane Crash Death of Mexican Interior Secretary” (Video, written, edited and produced for Newsy.com using Final Cut Pro)

• “Zimbabwe in Crisis” (Video, written, edited and produced for Newsy.com using Final Cut Pro)

• “State Gas Tax Breakdown” (Flash map, for KOMU-TV)

For more of my videos, you should click here.

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PRODUCING

At KENS 5, I work as a Digital Media Producer. When I explain this to an eight-year-old, I tell them that I get to tell a lot of different stories in a lot of different ways.

But if that’s not enough, I’ll sketch out a bit more of the job: in the morning, I might be waist deep in our CMS, packaging video and text from our reporters for the web and working with our TV producers and assignment desk to break news online. Other days, I’m copy editing stories or designing graphics, curating a Twitter list or even creating an original .pdf that our anchors will push on air. When the job demands it, I’ll use Flash, Dreamweaver or my HTML/CSS skills.

Take the 2010 National Championship as an example. In the days leading up to the game, I put together this .pdf guide to the match-up, which we promoted on air. When our reported landed in L.A., I started posting a slideshow gallery of his photos from around town. During the day, I put together a Twitter list of media at the game, and I used our Twitter feed to engage the community to help us add to that list. And as the game progressed, I kept our website updated with the latest photos, text and Tweets from the Rose Bowl.

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