2005 [ Multimedia editor — INLAND EMPIRE NEWS GROUP, based at The Sun in San Bernardino, Calif. ]
Once the Los Angeles News Group decided to consolidate its design desk in West Covina, Calif., bold design slowly became an unrealistic daily endeavor in favor of the greater production effort. As our more talented designers left the business, the ranks were filled in with people with less eye and skill for higher-end design, and the workloads and time constraints offered fewer and fewer windows of opportunity for me to grow our design pool.
Meanwhile, our websites were atrocious — not just in terms of design, but the daily production routines were not conducive to breaking news. The online team was lacking in news judgment, and its cadence wasn’t at all in line with the newsrooms. So I was put in charge of reorganizing the online team, adjusting schedules to meet the demand of the newsrooms, improving communication between the web team and city desks, and establishing workflows that allowed for expedited posting and updating.
2013 [ Digital News Director — LOS ANGELES NEWS GROUP, based at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario, Calif. ]
To further the digital progression of the nine newspapers across greater Los Angeles and into the Inland Empire, digital teams across LANG were brought together into a more cohesive team. Two of us were named Digital News Directors, and we set out to streamline — and enhance — digital production of the nine websites while working our way into the planning structure of nine city desks, an evolutionary process that continues to this day.
TODAY [ Emerging platforms director — Managing mobile, social media & data projects for the LOS ANGELES NEWS GROUP, based at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario, Calif. ]
As our digital team began to function more cohesively, it became evident that we needed more attention paid to our mobile apps and social media. We were also recognizing the need for a point person for data projects.
Social media had already been defaulting to me, as I had the interest and greater understanding of social media best practices. And once we dedicated a digital team member to focus on daily social programming, we began to make strides almost overnight.
Mobile, being the “new frontier” of sorts, had intrigued me as I’m always looking to broaden my skillsets and understanding of how readers find our content. Taking on this role was a big endeavor that definitely challenges me and my understanding of what it means to be digital.
The data projects part of my job is one I don’t have the opportunity to pursue as frequently, but is one I hold dear as it feels like my link to good old-fashioned journalism. Social media bears much resemblance to marketing; mobile is much about digital mechanisms and strategy, and quickly becoming an arm of basic production. But data projects are a chance to get to the facts, work on their presentation and shed light on the complex in a way that (hopefully) leads to understanding — for reporters and editors, and eventually for readers.
Gina Dvorak 