Aviva L. Brandt

aviva@eskimo.com
  Strengths

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                            

  • Creative, skilled writer and editor able to bring a subject alive in a story that sparkles.

  • Proven ability to manage multiple projects, work quickly and efficiently under pressure and on schedule as well as to rapidly excel in new environments. Excellent organizational and time-management skills. Self-starter.

  • Effective communicator, able to work with difficult personalities. Work well independently and as a team member.

  • Able to cultivate and maintain working relationships with reporters and editors at television stations, radio stations and newspapers. Experienced at planning for media needs and responding to their requests.

  • Able to rapidly pull together information from diverse and fragmented sources using interviews, the Internet and traditional research skills.

  • Detail-oriented, focused research on complicated subjects.
 

Experience

 

1999-Present Freelancer,           Portland, OR

  • Cayenne Communication, Portola Valley, CA. Write press releases, corporate backgrounders, fact sheets, success stories for a variety of the agency's high-tech clients, mostly in the semiconductor industry. Edit white papers, bylined articles, press releases. Also handle some media relations, including successful pitches to Wired Magazine, EE Times.

  • Timberline Software, Beaverton, OR. Write press releases, Web content, newsletter articles, success stories, contributed articles. Pitch to media.

  • Hewlett Packard, Vancouver, Wash. Write Web content.

  • Independent writer. Pitched and wrote magazine-length features appearing in Michigan Today, Daniels Business Review and others.

 

1999-Present       AP Newsperson (Part-time), Associated Press Portland, OR

 

  • Frequently assigned as day supervisor or broadcast editor. In both roles, choose which stories to cover for the wire for that day, assign and/or edit them for the wire.                                                         

  • General assignment writer.

1998-1999
Newsperson, Associated Press Seattle, WA

  • Covered two major civil trials, writing daily news stories and weekend analysis pieces over a combined five-month period. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Seattle Times and The News Tribune of Tacoma often chose to use my stories rather than staff the state’s tobacco trial or the so-called Wenatchee child-sex-ring civil trial.                                                            

  • Wrote dozens of spot news, business and feature stories, both generating my own ideas as well as covering breaking news. Coverage included Microsoft, Boeing and the court system.

  • Supervised weekend staffers, choosing which stories to cover for the wire and editing staffers’ copy.

1994-1998
Correspondent, Associated Press Yakima, WA

  • Responsible for covering central Washington state, writing a mix of spot news and weekend features, from a one-person office. 

  • Regular topics covered included agriculture, the Hanford nuclear reservation and the so-called "Wenatchee child sex ring" cases.

  • Generated and followed up upon creative feature story ideas for regional, national and international use.

1991-1994
Newsperson, Associated Press Charleston, WV

  • General assignment reporter. Specialties included the Legislature, the West Virginia Supreme Court, and the coal industry.

  • Frequently assigned as night and weekend supervisor, involving managing the state wire, choosing which stories to offer for national use, assigning stories to staffers and editing them for the wire.

  • Supervised the AP’s West Virginia election center for the 1992 presidential election, including nearly 100 stringers.

1989-1991
Editorial Assistant, Associated Press Charleston, WV

  • Created and edited a member exchange of stories for the state wire.

  • Coordinated photographs for bureau stories and transmitted them on the wire.

  • Created and maintained the bureau’s electronic database of news sources.

Tools

  • PC/Mac platforms

  • MS Office

  • Basic HTML

  • FrontPage

  • PageMaker

  • PhotoShop

  • Netscape/Internet Explorer

  • Pine/Eudora/Outlook Express/Netscape Mail

Lifelong learner

  • BA in journalism and religion, University of Iowa, 1989.

  • London Internship Program, Boston University, Fall 1988.

  • Recent self-study, seminars and classes have focused on databases, Web site creation, HTML, technical writing, editing, journalistic writing, public relations and quilting.

Honors & Affiliations

  • John L. Dougherty Award for outstanding work by a young AP writer from the Associated Press Managing Editors Association, 1992.

  • "Top 30 Alumni Under 30" list by The University of Iowa Alumni Magazine, 1993.

  • Women in Digital Journalism, member

  • PDX Writergrrls, member

  • Society for Technical Communicators, member
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