Being a good communicator is somewhat essential to being a good storyteller. But there’s more to being a good communicator than just storytelling.
Working in fast paced newsrooms with large teams and lots of moving pieces has made me an excellent communicator. I’ve gotten really good at listening to what others have to say and need from me to make sure everyone is getting what they need, when they need it. I’ve learned how to be honest and direct, without being brutal.
Journalism is a team sport. Writers need copy editors, anchors need producers and reporters need leaders to refine their work.
I’m a good team player. I don’t take feedback personally, I don’t get involved in drama, I do whatever I can to move the team forward and I’m the first person to celebrate others’ success.
Simply put, I’m someone who can get things done.
I’m deadline driven and know that whatever I’m working on almost always impacts people down the line. If you ask me to do something, you can expect me to follow through.
I use AI to help me understand and create interactive media, particularly web pages (like the one you’re reading).
I don’t use AI to write any code for me, but rather, debug any broken code and learn new coding concepts/approaches that I’m not familiar with. I’ve got a good basic understanding of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. AI helps me advance that and create more complex and intricate designs.
When I use AI for research, I have it help me scrape the internet for sources.
I prompt AI to generate a curated list of sources that I then review and determine if the sources are legitimate, trustworthy and reliable before using them for any projects.
One of the most helpful uses of AI, in my opinion, is preliminary data analysis.
When I use AI for data analysis, I usually follow a pretty rigid process. I conduct all the manual cleaning, regressions and transformations myself (though I do sometimes use AI to explain some procedures). Then, I take a stab at interpreting. I get all my observations, interpretations and insights into one *very* rough document. I then ask AI to analyze and interpret the same results and see what nuances appear between my interpretations and AI’s.
This helps me get some clarity around my interpretations and put some structure around how I use data in my work.