As a teenager I developed a strong interest in journalism. When I wrote for a campus paper during my college freshman year, I interviewed Jigmi Thinley who is a Minister in Bhutan and Melissa Jeka who was a semi-finalist for Miss America in 2000. Public radio is my choice of news.
I hold a BA in international relations from Brigham Young University. Unsurprisingly, I'm interested in politics, economics, and global affairs; my interest in politics has spurred me to volunteer for Republican and Democratic causes at local, statewide, national, and virtual levels.
Travel is an interest of mine. I've lived in Australia and Mexico and visited Canada and several cities in Western Europe.
Currently I work as an Internet communications consulting associate. Before that, I worked as a copywriter and search engine optimizer (SEO) for a web development firm.
The three recent books that I've read that have had the most profound effect on me are: Howard Kurtz's The Fortune Tellers, Jeff Cohen's Cable News Confidential, and Ken Auletta's Backstory.
Other than that, I'm an avid runner.
Late last night Assignment Zero's political editor Amy Atkins assigned me to cover ForumNext, a web 2.0 event that occurred this morning. To put this into more context, I informed her about the shindig late last night just after I learned about it myself. Sure, I was excited to cover the event, but it was in Salt Lake City while I was at work in DC. Fortunately, the web 2.0 company, Politic2.0, that hosted this digital town hall meeting -- with a dash of digg-style voting that also was mainly propelled by people who actually were physically there -- with Representative Chris Cannon of Utah's third congressional district streamed live video on the Internet. Further, my job also involves on-line political activity, and my boss easily gave me permission to monitor the shindig.
It was exciting as a civilian to "cover" an event. However, the fact that video stopped part way through for a few minutes was a bit of a challenge, but I kept on trying to reconnect. I succeeded.
During the event I shot off a couple of e-mails to Congressman Cannon and another participant, but I don't expect to hear back from them for a while. However, I found Politic2.0 co-founder Phil Burns's number so that I could call and interview him. With this interview to accompany several great quotes I scribbled down during ForumNext, I wrote a draft. Hopefully, it is at least somewhat useful to Amy and Assignment Zero.
