Photographs are an important part of storytelling and can often tell a story on their own. After a brief workshop hiatus, our first Sacramento Press workshop for 2012 will be on photojournalism. (The Journalism Open workshop wasn't a typical workshop for us.) John Hernandez will teach an introductory photojournalism workshop from 6:30 - 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 21 at the Sacramento Press office called "Introduction to Photojournalism." Hernandez is a Sacramento-based photographer. He has professional experience in wedding, portrait and social documentary photography as well as various multimedia platforms, including audio slideshows. He has freelanced for ABS-CBN, a Filipino American news ch

We are currently seeking highly motivated reporter interns to cover local stories in our community. Your Role: As an intern at the Sacramento Press, you will be a huge part of our day-to-day success. Function as a writer and cover local beats. Explore a variety of story types – profiles, sports and event coverage, reviews, press conferences and more. Meet story deadlines and generate story ideas. Be a resource for our other writers, encourage and recruit. Form and cultivate relationships with local businesses, clubs, and resource providers (PIOs, librarians, ombudsmen, historians). You will be armed with the resources (digital cameras, voice recorders, professional photographers) to do on

The Sacramento Press is seeking a dynamic editor-in-chief to oversee the day-to-day operations of the newsroom. This position will play a key role in expanding the presence and reach of The Sacramento Press into the surrounding media market. We’re looking for someone who is ambitious, confident in their ability to learn quickly, and focused on creating compelling content for the local communities. Excellent writing and reporting skills and good editorial judgment are essential. The ideal candidate will bring lots of ideas for new ways to present stories online, through text, photos, or videos. Experience in using a content management system is a plus, as is experience in podcasts, editi

Need a push getting started on your article for The Sacramento Press Journalism Open 2012? We've got a workshop for that. Bring your story ideas and questions about the writing contest to our Journalism Open workshop Tuesday, Jan. 17. We will go over how to enter photos: standalone or accompanying, judging criteria, past winners and how to develop your stories by including sources and doing research. The workshop will be from 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. at The Sacramento Press office. Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Sacramento Valley Station station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks. We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as th

The Sacramento Press’ “To Catch an Error" contest has ended for the month of December. We are excited to announce our winner, Steven Chea! Chea received a total of 46 points for catching minor spelling and grammar errors in stories by community contributors and editorial interns. Thanks to everyone who entered! If you missed last month’s contest, it’s time to start hunting again. Beginning today, we will wipe the slate clean and start our January contest. January’s winner will receive two tickets to see Paula Deen in the meet and greet section. One runner-up will receive a $15 gift card to Monsoon.  The deadline for entries will be midnight on Jan. 31. See below for complete rules. If

Another year has passed and it’s time for reflection. The Sacramento Press has been lucky to form new relationships with some very talented contributing writers and photographers while strengthening our relationships with contributors who have been with us all along. Our region had many notable events that will forever ingrain 2011 in Sacramentans’ minds. When the “99 percent” occupied Cesar Chavez park and when Gus Vina left his post as City Manager, our community contributors were there to report. When the first cars inched their way down K Street and when the Sacramento City School Board considered relocating campuses, our community contributors were ready with notepads and cameras.

The Sacramento Press’ “To Catch an Error” contest has ended for the month of November. We are excited to announce our winner, Marion Millin ! Millin received a total of 54 points for catching minor spelling and grammar errors in stories by community contributors and one of our staff reporters. Thanks to everyone who entered! If you missed last month’s contest, it’s time to start hunting again. Beginning today, we will wipe the slate clean and start our December contest. December’s winner will receive a complimentary lunch for two at Zocalo. Due to the New Year’s Eve holiday, the deadline for entries will be midnight on Dec. 30. See below for complete rules. If you have any feedback or

After seeing that The Guardian newspaper had made its list of stories public to its readership for a two-week trial and invited them to participate by contacting its reporters, we thought it would be a good idea to do the same at The Sacramento Press. Often, our editorial team learns about important facts and sources after our stories have been published. We value the knowledge and contributions that our readers and commenters add to the conversation thread, and we’d love to incorporate that into our stories as we are reporting. We would also like to encourage more people to get involved as community contributors. Casey Kirk, director of community outreach, works closely with a group of

Here at The Sacramento Press, we want to provide you with the tools you need to confidently deliver your message to readers. To help polish your voice, we provide free copy editing to all of our community contributors. While we don’t require you to have your article edited, we strongly encourage it since articles are permanent once they are published. It’s always helpful to have a second set of eyes review your work! The best part is, it’s a fast and easy process. Just send a draft of your article to journalism@sacramentopress.com and an edited copy will be returned within 24 hours, ready to copy and paste. We offer copy editing every day except Saturdays. A couple quick tips about the c

“The nature of the media is changing,” said KXTV News10 reporter George Warren at Thursday evening’s video storytelling tips and shortcuts workshop, hosted by The Sacramento Press. Warren is an Emmy-winning reporter/multimedia journalist. He recently celebrated his 30th anniversary working with News10. He started started creating videos when he was a senior in college and has shot with primitive videotapes and 16mm film. “The equipment today has gotten so good that it’s easy for one person to go out and produce really good content in just a short amount of time,” Warren told the audience of about 30 aspiring writers, journalists and community members. Warren used his own recent videos t

Thank you to everyone who attended Jeffrey Callison's workshop on "The Art and Craft of Interviewing" last month. If you missed the workshop, you can read the recap and watch the video here. The Sacramento Press has another first-time workshop presenter for September: KXTV News10 Reporter George Warren. Multimedia journalist Andrew Nixon taught a workshop in July titled "Intro to Video Storytelling;" we'll resume the topic of video storytelling with Warren's workshop: "Video Storytelling Tips and Shortcuts." The workshop will be from 6:30 - 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 22, at The Sacramento Press office. Warren will discuss how to produce memorable stories with minimum time and effort. Warre

Jean Stephens, who taught journalism at Sacramento City College for more than 30 years before retiring in 1986, died Saturday at age 85. The cause of death was complications from diabetes. Although she never worked in a newsroom as a professional reporter or editor, Dr. Stephens' imprimatur is set on front pages, best-seller lists, radio, television, movie screens and even the digital screens over which she chose to retire rather than face. Under her tutelage, students who were interested in art, music, business, government or nothing at all went on to careers as diverse as the managing editor of the Sacramento Bee, a blues musician on the radio and a designer of backgrounds on "Star Wars

The Sacramento Press is excited to announce that Jeffrey Callison will be teaching a workshop at our office in August. Interviewing is part of the foundation of journalism. It’s how reporters get a lot of their information, including the personal angles and anecdotes that make stories come alive. But how do you conduct a successful interview? There are some simple rules, but you also must know when and how to break them. Jeffrey Callison has interviewed many thousands of people over the years – both as host of Capital Public Radio’s daily program “Insight” and as a reporter. On Tuesday, Aug. 9, from 6:30 - 8 p.m., he’ll discuss “The Art and Craft of Interviewing” in a workshop at the S

We had a great turnout for our sports writing workshop earlier this month. Thanks to Sam Amick and those who attended. To read the workshop recap, click here. Video is an important part of storytelling that can be difficult to incorporate without the right equipment and editing knowledge. Andrew Nixon will teach a video workshop from 6:30 - 8 p.m. Wednesday, July 27 at the Sacramento Press office called "Introduction to Video Storytelling." Nixon is a Sacramento-based multimedia journalist. He has professional experience in photojournalism, as well as various multimedia platforms, including motion graphics, web platforms, and video journalism. He has freelanced for Patch.com and interned

You know who you are, but when you write for The Sacramento Press, our readers might not. That’s part of the impetus behind today’s site update concerning disclosures. We have added a new section to our “write article” page that pokes and prods everyone from staff to community contributors to disclose personal and professional affiliations to anything discussed in stories. This update goes hand-in-hand with an update to our terms of use policy, which now requires a disclosure in any circumstance where a contributor has a “personal or professional interest in the subject matter of such article.” The interface is clean and simple and is just a text area that allows you to add a short des

Thanks to those of you who came to our Bias in Journalism workshop earlier this month. If you missed it, you can read the recap here. For July, we are excited to announce a new workshop presenter – Sam Amick. With the Sacramento River Cats season well under way, the Sacramento Capitals tennis team starting in July and the buzz building for the next Sacramento Kings basketball season – there will be plenty of sports stories to be covered on The Sacramento Press and on blogs, etc. Amick will teach a workshop on sports writing at the Sacramento Press office from 6:30 - 8 p.m. July 12. Amick is currently an NBA columnist for Sports Illustrated at SI.com. He received his degree in journali

It is every journalist’s duty to provide the facts as they are, but does bias still manage to exist in journalism? This was the question posed by Clare Noonan, editor of 11 East Bay Patch.com sites and speaker at Tuesday’s workshop at The Sacramento Press. While both Noonan and almost all 14 participants answered yes, Noonan said there were ways to pinpoint personal opinion as a reader and avoid it as a writer. In order to provide objectivity, Noonan said that writers should make sure that facts are accurate and that the reporting is fair. Referencing a University of Michigan website, Noonan listed five areas where bias can occur: word choice, omissions, limiting debate, story framing a

What began with an adult beverage and a frustrated Twitter post quickly led to a series of grassroots efforts to keep the Kings in Sacramento.  Radio personality Carmichael Dave, founder of #HereWeBuild, was relaxing in his backyard when he discovered that the Anaheim City Council had voted to pursue efforts to bring the Sacramento Kings to Anaheim.  “I thought this is frustrating and I’m ticked off and I want to let people know,” Carmichael Dave said. “So I tweeted out, ‘Carmichael Dave votes one-to-nothing to issue $200 into a fund to build a new arena. Whose with me?’” Then the explosion happened which soon resulted in the HereWeBuild, HereWeStay and SacDeflated.com campaigns, and th

Thanks to those of you who attended our review writing panel Thursday with Rachel Leibrock, Carla Meyer and Nick Miller. Read the workshop recap here. We will have another workshop this month titled, "Sac Press Tools and Tricks." Geoff Samek, vice president of product for The Sacramento Press, will highlight some of the newer and lesser-known features of the website. Samek will also give a quick overview of important web technologies that come in handy in the current media world. He will answer any questions you may have about the site and its functionality and features. The workshop will be from 6:30 - 8 p.m. May 26 at our office. Badges will be awarded to participants for attending t

With Concerts in the Park kicking off Friday and the California Music Circus season around the corner, there will be lots of opportunities to review shows, both indoors and outdoors. Looking to share your great or not-so-great experiences with others? The Sacramento Press will hold a panel on review writing at our office from 6:30 - 8 p.m. Thursday, May 12. Three panelists will teach you the do’s and don’ts of review writing and share some of their own experiences. This is a great opportunity to ask the pros how they review concerts, theater, comedy and other performances. The three panelists are Rachel Leibrock, Carla Meyer and Nick Miller. Leibrock writes about arts and culture for t