married to Los Angeles Times Web graphics editor and blogger

THE DEPARTMENT OF JOURNALISM PRESENTS
married to Los Angeles Times Web graphics editor and blogger Brady MacDonald. They live with their
daughter, Hannah, in a 1909 Colonial Revival home in Orange.
Ted Nguyen oversees public communications and media relations activities for the Orange County
Transportation Authority. His most-recent accomplishment for OCTA includes winning the
communications industry’s most-prestigious honor, the national Silver Anvil award from the Public
Relations Society of America in 2008 for best issues management program during a 10-day strike of bus
drivers. The previous year, the OCTA team won the PRSA national award of excellence for its community
relations program for construction outreach for the Garden Grove Freeway (SR-22). In 2007, Nguyen
was honored as the “PR person of the year” by PR News magazine at the National Press Club in
Washington, D.C. He led the OCTA team to be among the first public agencies to utilize social media,
and was a pioneer in launching a comprehensive website detailing the progress of federal stimulus funds
for transportation. In 2007, he helped raise funds to provide shoes, blankets, clothing and other essential
items for an orphanage in Siem Reap, Cambodia. He raised funds through his network of compassionate
professionals and personally delivered the much-needed items for the children in poverty-stricken
Cambodia. He holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Brigham Young University.
JOURNALISM DAY
2010
David Piechowski is the Director of Web Operations for KABC-TV in Los Angeles and oversees the staff
and content for both abc7.com (the news site for the local television station) and OnTheRedCarpet.com
(an entertainment news site). In addition to his other duties, Piechowski manages the delivery of ABC7 and
OnTheRedCarpet content across social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz. Prior to KABCTV, Piechowski worked at KGO-TV in San Francisco; KOVR-TV in Sacramento; and WBFF/WNUV-TV in
Baltimore. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Eric Richardson is the founder of blogdowntown, a site about life in downtown Los Angeles. For the
last five years the site has been committed to providing those who live and work downtown the news and
information they need to be the most informed and active members of their community. Originally from
South Carolina, Richardson lived in New Jersey and Michigan before coming out to Los Angeles to
attend USC’s Annenberg school and majored in communications. He previously worked as a
programmer, including stints at the Jet Propulsion Lab and at custom mapping firm Cartifact.
Kevin Sablan is a native of West Long Beach who grew up suspicious of the media, wondering “why
gang fights and concealed weapons at my school didn’t make the evening news or the morning paper.”
He studied software engineering at UC Irvine until the 1992 L.A. riots changed his perspective. He went
to work, got into retail and his tech background made him the company’s default web guru. After the tech
bubble burst, Sablan took a job at a local newspaper, thinking he would finally get a front-row seat to a
mainstream media conspiracy that blocked or skewed coverage of “my ‘hood.” Instead, he said, he came
to appreciate the diversity and energy produced by media coverage that comes in evolving, multiplatform packages that could help shine a light on “economically disadvantaged” communities like the
one he grew up in. Now, he lives in Orange County. By day, he heads up the Orange County Register’s
Web task force. By night he blogs independently on hyperlinks on an Almightylink.ksablan.com.
Ricca Silverio has more than 10 years’ public relations and marketing communications experience. She
is an account director at Bock Communications, Inc., where she has developed many award-winning
campaigns in the areas of media relations, global communication, and investor relations. Ricca also
currently serves as a part-time lecturer for the Journalism Department at California State University,
Long Beach -- her alma mater.
Friends Are
Joanne Tucker is a CSULB student majoring in journalism and medical anthropology. She is in the
University Honors Program and is a President’s Scholar. She started the Anthropology Student
Association in fall 2009 and recently did a PR internship for Toyota Motorsports’ Grand Prix. She is
currently the editor in chief of the Daily 49er, and was the news and city editor in the 2008-2009 school
year. She plans to get her anthropology doctorate in nonprofit administration.
Julie Wright is president of (W)right On Communications, which she founded in 1998. The firm offers a
full range of communication services and counts the Queen Mary among its clients. The agency’s core
services include media, social media, employee and crisis communications. She earned a master’s
degree in journalism in 1992 at the University of Western Ontario’s Graduate School of Journalism and
started her career as a radio newscaster, freelance writer, PR consultant, marketing director and,
eventually, public relations agency owner. Wright is incoming chair of the Cal State San Marcos
University Council and chairs the San Diego North Economic Development Council (EDC). She received
the Fran Aleshire award for her community leadership in 2009.
Cover image by Erica McClaugherty, Hailey Olsen and Tiffany Evans - JOUR 305, Media Design.
MAY 5 @ THE STUDENT UNION BALLROOMS
9 AM - 2 PM
FOR MORE INFO,
VISIT CSULB.EDU/JOURNALISM
OR CALL (562) 985 4981
Schedule of Events
9:15 a.m. Introduction – Raul Reis, chair, Department of Journalism
9:30 a.m. Keynote Speaker – Kevin Sablan, leader of the Orange County
Register’s Web Task Force. Topic: Journalists as Curators - Journalism is
evolving into a collaborative process, with citizens, companies and journalists
contributing to multi-platform conversations about information that matters to their
personal lives, businesses and roles that they play in their communities. Sablan
will discuss a new world of journalism, where news gatherers and distributors
participate in those social conversations, and extract elements to help them
develop and distribute, and promote relevant and timely stories.
10:30 a.m. – Social Media: What Friends Are For
• Chris Barr, editorial director, Yahoo!
• John Canalis, editor, L.A. Times Community papers
• Kevin Sablan, OC Register online guru and social media expert
• Joanne Tucker, student/Daily 49er editor
• Moderator —
­­ Barbara Kingsley-Wilson, lecturer/Daily 49er adviser
NOON - Lunch
1 p.m. - Concurrent Panels: What The Revolution Means
For News Media:
• Nancy Luna, Fast Food Maven blogger for Orange County Register
• Eric Richardson, Downtown News blogger
• Dave Piechowski, ABC 7 web operations manager
• Chris Jennewein, president, San Diego News Network, SW Riverside News Network, Orange County News Network
• Moderator —Danny Paskin, professor of journalism
For Public Relations:
• Julie Wright, president, Wright-On Communication, which represents the
Queen Mary and oversees its social media outreach
• Ted Nguyen, manager of Public Communications & Media Relations,
External Affairs, for the Orange County Transportation Authority
• Jennifer Baker-Asiddao, senior vice president in the Marketing Brand
Strategies Group, GolinHarris
• Megan Enloe, freelance new media strategist
• Moderator —Ricca Silverio, lecturer, Bock Communications account director
5 p.m. – Awards Ceremony at the Anatol Center
Biographies
Jennifer Baker-Asiddao is a senior vice president in the Consumer Marketing group of GolinHarris. She
is responsible for overseeing some of the agency’s largest consumer accounts, including California
Avocado Commission, Hass Avocado Board, Water Pik, Inc. and Arbonne. She also serves as one of the
chief media strategists for the agency’s clients in the Western Region, creating and implementing
strategic media campaigns and training media spokespeople. A public relations professional for more than
20 years, Baker-Asiddao has played a key role in campaigns for some of the world’s most recognized
brands including Walt Disney Home Video, Dreamworks Home Entertainment, AEG Live, Caesars
Entertainment, Station Casinos, Inc., Strategic Hotel Capital, Inc., Arrowhead Pond, Walt Disney Resorts
and Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., among others. Baker-Asiddao graduated from California State
University, Long Beach, with a bachelor of arts in journalism/public relations and a minor in marketing.
Chris Barr, a self-proclaimed Yahoo! fan since he met founder Jerry Yang in 1996 during a CNET TV
interview, officially joined Yahoo! in 2007 and serves as its senior editorial director. Barr’s editorial career
spans 20 years with his online career rooted at PC Magazine in the 1980s — a time when the online
experience was not comprehensible to most writers. Barr found the Internet era exciting and gamechanging, which prompted him to serve as the founding editor-in-chief for CNET. Originally slated as a
television network devoted to technology, Barr was able to see how an online media property could
revolutionize the way the world consumes editorial content. Barr wrote a book on how to build Internet
startups, and began advising numerous companies — including McKinsey & Company, Cisco, HP,
Fujitsu, Bloomsbury Publishing, and Sony PlayStation — on audience development, and editorial and
content strategy.
John Canalis is the editor of Los Angeles Times Community News, South, which publishes the Daily
Pilot, Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot and Huntington Beach Independent, as well as the OCNow news
site and GameOnOC sports site. Prior to that, he spent 10 years at the Long Beach Press-Telegram,
where he held a variety of positions, including city and business editor, assistant city editor, editorial
board member and columnist. Before the Press Telegram, Canalis worked as a contract stringer at the
L.A. Times Orange County edition and as a reporter at an Orange County Register weekly paper. In
2005, Canalis began teaching journalism part-time at California State University, Long Beach. He has a
bachelor’s degree in journalism from CSULB and an MBA from Pepperdine University. He lives in Long
Beach with his wife, a magazine editor, and their 4-year-old daughter.
Megan Enloe has a background in physics, mathematics, and teaching, but her passion is new media.
Enloe discovered podcasting early in 2005 and immediately became an enthusiastic listener and
participant in the podcasting community. In 2007, she transitioned from fan to content producer with her
own show PodcastJunky and her blogs, Podcastjunky.com and later MeganEnloe.com. She is now
president of OC Podcasters. For the past year, she has been the Community and New Media Liaison for
a Southern California marketing firm, handling the social media for Wild Rivers Water Park and other
clients. Enloe is now a freelance new media strategist, helping small-to-medium-sized businesses take
advantage of ever-changing Social Media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs and more. She
graduated from Cal State Fullerton with a bachelor’s in physics and a minor in math.
Chris Jennewein is president of U.S. Local News Network, a startup publisher of local news websites in
San Diego, Riverside and Orange counties. SDNN.com, OCLNN.com and SWRNN.com reach a
combined monthly audience of 500,000 people. From 2001 to 2008 Jennewein led The San Diego UnionTribune’s SignOnSanDiego.com, one of the most popular and profitable newspaper websites. Previously,
he was vice president of operations for Knight Ridder Digital in San Jose. Under Jennewein’s leadership,
Knight Ridder introduced the nation’s first complete online newspaper at the San Jose Mercury News in
1993. Jennewein is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the London School of Economics.
Nancy Luna is a reporter and blogger at The Orange County Register. She writes Fast Food Maven,
which is consistently among the top two most-read blogs at the Register. Luna graduated from Cal State
Fullerton in 1992. She joined the Register the same year, and has covered city government, crime,
courts, transportation, medical industry, health care, consumer news and retail. In 2005, she began
writing about the food and restaurant industry. After testing a beta fast food blog on MySpace, Luna
officially launched the Fast Food Maven blog in the summer of 2007. The key focus of the blog: news
and trends involving fast food chains and fast-casual restaurants. The blog also features stories on
takeout foods found at supermarkets, and cheap but chic meals offered at Orange County fine dining
restaurants. Fast Food Maven was named “Best Blog” in the 2009 O.C. Press Club Journalism Awards.
It was also named “Best Food or Cooking Site” in the 2009 “You’ve Just Been Spotted” awards. Luna is