Peter Erikson's Resume (Last updated November 6th 2009)

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Peter Erikson

Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area, CA

661-912-6701 (cell); 909-461-3621 (home)

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OBJECTIVE

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  Seek work as business desk editor in a newsroom where well-edited copy and excellent headlines are appreciated.

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SUMMARY

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  • Edit stories swiftly and accurately; question suppositions and discrepancies; rewrite unclear or wordy content while honoring author's voice and intent; ensure copy is unbiased, clear, concise and grammatically, factually and mathematically correct.
  • Knowledgeable about business, Wall Street, the recession and the economy; health care, education, the climate debate, renewable energy and politics.
  • Select nuggets from multiple services (AP, New York Times, McClatchy, Hearst, Kaiser Health News, Bloomberg, etc.) and combine them into one comprehensive report when big news breaks.
  • Post content to Web.

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BACKGROUND

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  Experienced in variety of roles:
  Copy editor: Worked on universal desk and managed desk on Friday and Saturday nights for Press-Enterprise in Riverside.
  Copy desk chief: Supervised 15-member crew for Bakersfield Californian.
  News editor: Led 10-person copy desk, laid out A Section, selected wire copy and chose story play for Stars & Stripes in Tokyo.
  City editor: Assigned stories, communicated with Stripes journalists around globe; worked via phone with Washington, D.C., crew.
  Sports copy editor: Can cover professional, collegiate and prep sports.   

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ACHIEVEMENTS

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  • Created extensive staff style book from scratch for Californian. Guide included area history, names and places, preferred spellings and paper's policy about libel, sources, etc. Integrated with AP's guide online.
  • Met all deadlines on Friday nights, when news pages had to be off floor early so Press-Enterprise copy desk could begin editing high school football copy.
  • Sole Honolulu Advertiser editor to prepare three-part series on Hawaii's prison system. Corrected discrepancies, double-checked facts, names, titles and dates. Ensured graphics and photo captions jibed with stories. Wrote all headlines.

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SKILLS

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  HTML, Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe Acrobat Professional, InDesign, QuarkXPress, QuarkCopyDesk, CCI, Microsoft Office.
 

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WORK EXPERIENCE

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April 2008 - October 2009
Copy editor

The Press-Enterprise

Riverside, Ca.
  Edited stories, wrote headlines, chose wire content, led copy desk on weekends; filed content to Web site; designed pages.
  Press-Enterprise cut work force in October for fourth time this year because of declining revenue and falling circulation.

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March 2007 - April 2008
Copy desk chief

The Appeal-Democrat

Marysville, Ca.
  Managed five-person copy desk; designed main news section on QuarkXPress; edited stories, wrote headlines and selected wire content; wrote performance evaluations. Arranged paper's daily presence on Newseum. Helped cover, and then file to Web, late-breaking stories.

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October 2006 - December 2006
Copy desk chief

The Bakersfield Californian

Bakersfield, Ca.
  Worked as slot; evaluated staff; helped paper roll out new print format. Hired staffers and created editing tests to test job candidates. Helped edit, and quickly post, stories onto Web site.

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June 1997 - January 2001
News editor/Assistant Pacific Desk editor

Pacific Stars & Stripes

Tokyo
  Arrived as copy editor; took over as news editor several months into job. Job was especially important as paper had no executive editor at the time. Ensured computer system worked properly. Hitting deadline was critical: Papers had to be flown early to Okinawa, South Korea and Guam.

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EDUCATION

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College of Marin

Kentfield, Ca.

AA

  • Journalism

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San Francisco State University

San Francisco

BA (3 classes shy of degree; plan to meet requirement)

  • Journalism

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