A storyteller’s role is in service to two constituencies. Our subjects, and our audience. We owe both a full, fair and accurate accounting of reality. And we owe it to them to deliver that accounting in the most captivating and compelling way we can dream up. We’re the mediators between the wide world and those curious enough to seek its stories. Our work should do more than satiate that curiosity. It should reward it.
Engagement Projects
Engagement is about creating opportunities to turn an audience into a community. WNYC is blessed with an active and engaged listenership, and the generous contribution of their voices have been the building blocks of the work I’m proudest of, including a crowdsourced “Reading Their Names” audio memorial to New Yorkers who died of COVID-19, and a time capsule of our pandemic year.
Audio
Most of my experience in audio comes from my work at WNYC, as a producer for Brian Lehrer, All Of It, and various special Live Radio programs. I have also made some individual forays into longform explanatory projects, with an exploration of how modern web tools insulate us from propaganda.
Interactives
A story is more likely to resonate with an audience if they’re given the opportunity to participate in its telling. Data offers unique opportunities to invite audiences in. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I produced Gothamist’s infection maps and more.
Music
I make music and sound art under the artist name rubberFoot. My musical trajectory has been jam bands > Americana > world folk > experimental/contemporary classical > electronic ambient and beyond. I’ve dabbled in singer-songwriter/bedroom producer modes, as well as algorithmic music, live looping, and both electronic and folk ambient. I also make royalty-free scenic tracks for podcasts and other content creators.
Photography
While I was reporting on Long Island, I acted as the photographer for many of my stories. Here’s a collection of my efforts to create powerful images that help tell my stories.
Local Reporting
From the summer of 2017 to the winter of 2018, I was a reporter and then assistant editor covering three Long Island communities. Here are some stories that stuck with me.
THE SHORT VERSION
At the beginning of NYC’s pandemic spring, I leaned on my coding skills to create interactive maps and charts to provide situational awareness and social context to the unfolding public health crisis. As the crisis waned, I put those skills to use in organizing and executing community engagement projects to help take stock of the incredible year the city had been through. (See Interactives and Engagement Projects)
Since The Brian Lehrer Show launched it’s daily podcast (first as Impeachment, which pivoted in Feb. 2020 to general politics), I've been one of its lead producers. I’ve also produced for The Takeaway and All Of It. (See Audio)
After graduating in 2017, I became a reporter, then assistant editor for my hometown weekly. I honed my journalism fundamentals and earned several state and county awards. This work included: a year-long investigation into a local volunteer ambulance corp that had lied on state documents; interviews with students about dangerously slick floors and falling ceiling tiles; a tour of the “spooky basement” of a funeral home-turned Halloween store; and hundreds of often mind-numbing, yet sometimes exciting government meetings. (See Local Reporting).
In my spare time, I make music and sometimes, if you’d like, sound art. I’ve done singer-songwriter/bedroom producer stuff, ambient folk, algorithmic be-bop and explorations of the human voice. I also produce royalty-free music for podcasts/content creators. (See Music)
I never set out to work in photojournalism, but as a local reporter, expected to wear many hats and deliver soup-to-nuts print packages, I found I had a real passion for capturing the right visual to deepen the impact of a story. Take a look at the “Photography” page for some examples and stories about getting that powerful shot. (See Photography)