Resume

Dan Friedell


McLean, VA 22102 703-829-5053 dan(at)danfriedell(dot)com

CAREER SUMMARY

  • Over 10 years experience in online, print and television journalism
  • Content management skills on multiple platforms; video and photo tools
  • Adept at working on both deadline and long-term projects
  • Skilled writer and editor (breaking news, feature stories, proposals, case studies and site copy)
  • Expert user of social media for promotion of stories and ideas

ONLINE/PRINT Journalism

2010-present Freelance writer and editor, Washington, D.C.
•Regular contributor to ESPN the Magazine (12 bylines in 2011 with more to come in 2012), The Fairfax Times and Sports News Television.•Regular contributor to Patch.comin Northern Virginia (over 150 stories covering news and sports since Oct. 2010).•Provide coverage of sports news to ESPN.com, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, NPR, The Sports Network and Northern Virginia Magazine.

•Wrote copy, produced email newsletters and migrated content for clients including 4-H and Society for Neuroscience using CMS tools, Dreamweaver and Photoshop.
2011 Adjunct instructor,
The University of Maryland, College Park
•Taught two sections of JOUR352, Introduction to Online Journalism, at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
•Semester-long class covered fundamentals of writing and producing stories for the Web, multimedia storytelling, use of social media, SEO, CMS tools (WordPress), basic HTML and CSS, Dreamweaver and Photoshop.•Produced two hour-long workshops on Online Sports Journalism for the Fourth Annual Shirley Povich Sports Journalism Workshop (April 2011).
2007-Dec. 2009 Online Editor, USA TODAY, McLean, Va.*
•Created and managed Olympics and NHL coverage for USATODAY.com.
•Wrote, edited and published stories; created and published photo galleries and audio Q&As, worked with graphics team to create video and multimedia projects. Used proprietary CMS and XML-based story publishing system.
•Learned SEO best practices for writing headlines and story briefs. Learned to look at search trends and keywords when writing copy for USATODAY.com.
•Led team that planned 2008 and 2010 Olympic Games coverage in concert with IT, graphics, editorial, marketing and senior management.

  • Responsible for managing a dozen Olympic athletes who regularly submitted blog entries for USATODAY.com. Consequently maintained relationships with athletes, USOC reps and athlete agents.
  • Helmed user interaction page during lead-up to the Beijing Games that asked readers to submit ideas for Olympic graphics.
  • Updated numerous Olympic pages to highlight heavily visited stories using data from Omniture reports on site traffic.
  • Primary writer and editor for “Going for Gold,” USA TODAY’s Olympic blog during Games period featuring breaking news, live event coverage and reports from staffers.

•Initiated and managed Olympic Facebook page and Twitter accounts leading up to 2010 Vancouver Games. Helped to create flash-based Twitter widget used to track stories, athletes and organize USA TODAY staff reports in 2009.

•Devised reader interaction campaigns — including polls, Q&A sessions, web chats, blog topics and “calls to action” — designed to connect USA TODAY staff members with their audience.

•Managed a pair of freelancers who augmented USA TODAY’s coverage of the NHL and amateur hockey. Worked with writers to come up with story ideas, managed deadlines and produced story packages 40 times per year.

•Doubled early season traffic to nhl.usatoday.com thanks to a successful photo gallery on the “alternate jerseys” worn by the league’s teams in 2008. The gallery allowed readers to vote on their favorite jerseys after reading opinions of a vintage clothing expert, hockey historian and jersey collector. (URL at danfriedell.com)

 
2003, ‘04, ’06-‘07 Editor, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, New York, N.Y.
• Edited and assured high quality of baseball game recaps and features – using text, photos and video – for display on MLB.com and MiLB.com.
Used proprietary CMS to create story pages and manage front pages for the site along with video compression tools and FTP to upload video files.
2000 Associate Editor, bike.com, Austin, Texas
• Wrote and edited stories for the Lance Armstrong-backed online cycling magazine and virtual bike store.
• Spent two weeks in Spain covering the U.S. Postal Service professional cycling team which went on to win that year’s Tour de France.

 

 

BROADCAST Journalism

2000-2001 Producer, Network News Service, New York, N.Y.
1999 Assignment Editor, KOB-TV (NBC), Albuquerque, N.M.
1998 Producer, Associated Press Television, London, England
1997 Production Assistant, ESPN, Bristol, Conn.

 

NOTABLE CONTRIBUTIONS

Published Freelance Writing* New York Magazine, The Sports Network, NPR, AP, Providence Journal, Baseball America, Greensboro News & Record, Syracuse Post-Standard, VeloNews and others.

Olympic Games

  • 2010 (Vancouver): Wrote stories for  NPR, TSN and New York Magazine
  • 2004 (Athens): Baseball, boxing, soccer and beach volleyball researcher for NBC.
  • 2000 (Sydney): Cycling PA for NBC
Application of Spanish language

  • Interviewed Spanish-speaking athletes for stories published by Bike.com, MLB.com and Marca.
  • One of two Spanish-speaking Olympic researchers for NBC/Telemundo in 2004.

 

Live television production

Video editor for CSTV (now CBS College Sports), associate producer and graphics producer for multiple professional cycling events.

 

 

 

PRODUCTION SOFTWARE

Design/Layout: Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, various content management systems
Video/Audio Editing: Adobe Premiere, Audition; Final Cut Pro; Avid Media Composer

 

EDUCATION

SYRACUSE UNIV., (Newhouse) M.A. Magazine, Newspaper and Online Journalism, 2005

BRANDEIS UNIV., Waltham, Mass., B.A., American Studies, Journalism, 1997

*View work samples

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