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Couple of media move memos from last week involving the local newspapers. First, an intern converts his opportunity into a job, from the LA Times' acting Sports editor.
To: The Staff
From: John Cherwa, Acting Sports Editor
I’m excited to announce that Zach Helfand will be joining the Sports staff as a reporter. His first assignment will be UCLA basketball.
Zach is one of those rare finds that we couldn’t let go after an incredibly successful internship here where his work was consistently among the best in the Sports section. While a student at Michigan, Zach had summer jobs at the Trentonian (N.J.), Baltimore Sun and Philadelphia Inquirer. Even though his major was business administration, he was drawn to journalism and joined the Michigan Daily as a freshman and was named sports editor as a junior. One investigative story he did on student ticket prices at football games resulted in the school changing its policy and giving students better seats at a better price. During his sophomore year Zach doubled as an elementary school Spanish teacher, doing six classes a week.
He has a keen eye for seeing beyond the obvious and describing things in ways that allow his subjects to jump out of the story and into your mind as evidenced by his visit to LeBron James’ neighborhood or recounting the story of Fleetwood Walker, who was really the first African American to play major league baseball in 1884.
Even though he is only 22, Zach has covered such big events as U.S. Open golf, the NCAA basketball tournament and the major league baseball playoffs. But before writing about other big sports events he wants to check off visiting five more states, so he can close the book on all 50.
Please join me in re-welcoming Zach to The Times. His promotion is effective Monday.
And the Orange County Register has hired two former LA Times staffers who had worked at the Register before — Ferrell just returns from the failed LA Register experiment. The memos are from editor Rob Curley and managing editor Donna Wares.
We’re thrilled to announce that Sherry Stern returns to the Register today as our new Assistant Managing Editor/Magazines.
As you probably know, the magazine division is moving to the newsroom this month. Sherry will work with the staffs at Coast, OC Family and Southland Golf.Sherry spent 24 years at the Los Angeles Times, most recently as Deputy Arts and Culture Editor. Among her many jobs at The Times, she served as managing editor for the Los Angeles Times Magazine. She helped launch and was editor of two sections that in their time were quite successful for The Times: Calendar Weekend, a tabloid guide to events and trends in arts and entertainment, and TV Times, a weekly TV listings magazine that included 16 glossy pages of stories and features about television. Her other jobs at The Times included Deputy Features Editor and Daily Calendar editor.
Before joining The Times, Sherry worked for five years at the Register. When she left in 1989 she was running the features copy desk. Her first job in journalism was at the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, where she held a variety of positions including TV Critic, feature writer, business writer and general assignment reporter.
She earned her master's degree at Northwestern University and her bachelor's at USC. She lives in Lake Forest.
Please join us in welcoming Sherry!
Rob & Donna
And again from Curley and Wares:
We're delighted to announce that David Ferrell is returning to the Register as a writer in the newsroom's magazine division.
Dave previously worked as a special assignment reporter on the business staff and for the Los Angeles Register. He started his career at the Register after graduating from Cal State Fullerton and went on to work at the Los Angeles Times, where he was part of two news reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of the Los Angeles riots and the Northridge earthquake. His dark-comedy baseball novel, Screwball, was a Book-of-the-Month-Club selection and has been optioned by Universal Studios. Dave also has written for Los Angeles Magazine and Los Angeles Weekly. He lives in Long Beach.He starts Jan. 12 and will report to Assistant Managing Editor/ Magazines Sherry Stern.
Rob and Donna
