Staff Real Estate

Edmond M. Jacoby

Editor and Writer

*** ***** *****

Buellton, California 93427

Tel.: 805-***-****

Mobile 805-***-****

Email: ************@*******.***

Summary of Qualifications

Experienced journalist with a twist: newspaper editor and writer with particular emphasis on business

and politics who has a career background as a practitioner in both fields and as a journal-published

economist.

Professional Experience

2007-2008 Santa Ynez Valley Journal Santa Ynez, Calif.

Editor

The Valley Journal was a struggling also-ran in an affluent but quirky area of California’s Central Coast

half-an-hour north of Santa Barbara. Stretching from the Reagan Ranch to Michael Jackson’s

Neverland Ranch, the Santa Ynez Valley is a region of vineyards and horse and cattle ranches

intermingled with tourist attractions and Vandenberg Air Force Base. The owner of the

Journal hired me to turn a shopper she had bought a year earlier into a “real” newspaper

that commanded community respect and shaped community opinion. I redesigned the

newspaper, staying with the tabloid format but eliminating frills and thin stories and

replacing them with hard news coverage of serious local issues, increased the news

staff five-fold, and even commissioned an around-the-world travel series that proved

to be the Journal’s most popular feature for ten consecutive weeks. In-depth coverage

by the Journal in August and September 2008 of a water district reorganization bill led

to public opposition to the previously obscure legislation and presaged its veto by Gov. Arnold

Schwarzenneger. In less than a year, the Valley Journal was transformed from the tab to which nobody

paid any attention into the community’s leading source of news and opinion.

2006 Santa Barbara News-Press Santa Barbara, Calif.

Business Editor

Hired to help rebuild a seriously crippled newsroom in the wake of a midsummer

clash between ownership and senior editors, I refocused business coverage and

coaxed the limited business staff to produce more and better stories, eventually

spinning some business stories off to A1 placement. I stepped in to fill the

demoralizing leadership void that had developed in the newsroom, jeopardizing

daily news coverage on a wide range of beats. The newsroom’s cityside reporters turned

to me as their mentor and informal editor pro tempore. I often ran the twice-daily news

meetings, served as liaison between desks of origin and copy desk, acted as wire editor and gave

most pages their final pre-press read in addition to supervising the business desk and writing regular

features for the business page. Eventually, however, my position became untenable after

management settled on a policy of wholesale punitive firings, gutting the staff and disabling the

newsroom beyond hope of recovery. Two years later, the News-Press remains an empty shell.

2003 - 2005 North County Times Escondido, Calif.

Staff Writer

As a business and labor reporter, I covered a wide variety of news and feature stories over the

span of two and a half years, winning a couple of awards in the process. My work included extensive

coverage of the region’s grocery clerks’ strike in 2003 and 2004, as well as other labor

disputes, and I shaped the Times’ coverage of California’s ongoing retail gasoline

price problems and its electricity market. I devised the North County Index of Local

Stocks, a regular feature in the Times for 15 months, that followed a selection of

local corporate issues. I also covered real estate, banking and business

development, and reported on economic forecasts. During my tenure, I was the

author of most of the newspaper’s staff-written news analyses.

2002 - 2003 Mountain Democrat Placerville, Calif.

Staff Writer

My principal beat at the Democrat was water, a particularly important issue in the Sierra foothills.

Included under that rubric were the El Dorado Irrigation District (the largest water purveyor in the

area), several public utility districts from Folsom Lake to Lake Tahoe, the county water authority and a

couple of state water agencies. I also covered business, interagency issues and the county’s Local

Agency Formation Commission, state and national forestry issues and Indian gaming. I also wrote

occasional features.

2001 - 2002 Independent practitioner St. Petersburg, Fla.

Public Relations Consultant

Retained in Spring 2001 as a consultant for an investor group that owned

several historic St. Petersburg hotels, I was confronted six months later with the

challenge of overcoming the impact on travel and tourism of the Sept. 11, 2001,

attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. My solution to the

problem not only salvaged lost business for the investor group, but was so

beneficial to the city that I received accolades from Mayor Rick Baker and from the

city's marketing department.

1993 - 2000 LaPlaya Communications Coronado, Calif.

Principal

LaPlaya was a public relations firm that specialized in media placement for political

issues clientele. In addition, under a contract with a Baltimore firm, for 4 years I acted as

editor-in-chief of a 400,000+ circulation monthly publication, conceptualizing, planning and

designing each issue, including contracting and supervising printing and distribution.

1965 - 1992 (Various employers) Washington, D.C.

Staff Writer / Reporter

I was a staff writer for various news organizations, including the Washington Star

and the Washington Times, where I was a White House Correspondent, and

WUSA-TV. I also held editor positions at the Washington Times, United Press

International and business publications Regardie's Magazine and F-D-C Reports.

In addition I was a reporter for the Loudoun Times-Mirror of Leesburg, Va., and

the Herald of Rock Hill, S.C., and editor of the Port Packet in Alexandria, Va.

Additional Professional Activities

At various times Northern Virginia & Washington, D.C.

From 1990 to 1992, I was a guest lecturer in journalism at Trinity College in Washington, D.C., and

a course instructor of non-fiction writing and of writing for publication at the

Shenandoah Writers Conference and at Northern Virginia Community College, both

in Northern Virginia. From 1969 to 1972 I was a journal-published research

economist for the Social Security Administration in Washington, D.C., and in 1982 I

was vice president of a Washington think-tank, the Free Congress Research and

Education Foundation. I have on a number of occasions been a panelist on

television public affairs and current events programs, notably on C-SPAN in Washington, D.C., and on

KPBS in San Diego, commenting on or analyzing weekly news developments.

Education

1963 - 1965 George Washington University Washington, D.C.

1967 - 1969 American University Washington, D.C.

After meandering toward a degree in political science at G.W.U., I dropped out for two

years and worked as a reporter at a Washington, D.C., television station and

newspaper. Having sampled life in the real world, I returned to school as an economics

major at A.U., completing the bachelor of science program in 1969. I later completed six

hours of evening postgraduate studies in economics at A.U. in 1971.

Journalism Awards Received

First Place, “Excellence in Journalism” award from the San Diego Press Club in the

category Daily Newspaper - General News in October 2004; Second Place,

“Excellence in Journalism” award from the San Diego Press Club in the category

Daily Newspapers - Features in October 2004; and “Best Investigative Report in Real

Estate” award from the National Association of Homebuilders in 1988.

References

References are available on request

Availability and Salary

My availability and salary requirements are subject to negotiation.

John Van Doorn was business editor at the North County

Times when I began working there in May 2003. In addition to

being my supervising editor for approximately nine months, he

is a senior editor at the paper and in that capacity continued to

edit my work from time to time when it was destined for A1.

Before joining the North County Times - John became bored

with retirement - he had been deputy editor of the Op-Ed page

and of Week in Review at the New York Times, managing editor

of the New York Post, executive editor of the Toledo Blade and

editor-in-chief of Business Month Magazine. His reportage from

Vietnam for Newsday won him the Ernie Pyle Award in 1965.

John can be reached by email at *********@*******.***

or by telephone at 760-***-****.

Contact this candidate