Design High School
Resume:
Resume for
MARK A. ALLISON
Carlsbad, California 92009
**********@*****.***
WHAT I’M AFTER
To provide a wide range of outstanding writing, editing, and communications skills for
a vibrant publishing company.
WHAT I BRING TO THE PARTY
Reporting
For more than four years, I accepted the notion that people often bought my paper to see
if I got things right. It inspired accuracy, thoroughness and an unquenchable drive to
surprise readers.
I wrote stories that:
-- forced a county food bank director to quit because of her gross waste and
mismanagement;
-- revealed the state medical board was secretly investigating a small hospital’s
anesthesiologist’s performance;
-- and broke up 75 garage owner’s plan to illegally control auto inspection fees.
My time as a reporter made me relentless and resourceful.
Writing & Editing
Reporters trust me with their work because I believe in shepherding their best efforts.
I am demanding enough to rewrite twaddle, yet skillful enough to leave good storytelling
alone.
My efforts have helped develop influential stories about:
-- a flimsy politically motivated baseless drug probe of the Phoenix Suns;
-- an intense look at Joe Clark’s reign over a New Jersey high school;
-- a nasty streak of racial unrest in Iowa;
-- a look inside a $100 million fraud of an Iowa investment firm;
-- a stunning report about a white youth leader who recruited urban Connecticut black
teens for a college prep program only to torture and whip some of them on videotape.
Design & Graphics
Scintillating photography, pithy graphics, the right type and pages with space to
breathe mean as much as solid reporting and great writing.
Design and graphics are part of my fiber. My passion for papers is that substance and
style be treated as equal partners.
I am convinced great design provides a countenance of principle, establishing an
unmistakable architecture for a paper’s focus and voice.
On good papers, design and graphics are never afterthoughts. They are integral to
communication. I have advocated the marriage of text and graphics every day of my
newspaper life.
Management
Setting an example of diligence, encouraging creativity, staying calm under pressure
and sprinkling it all with humor are abiding traits of my leadership.
I insist of planning, manage a budget like it’s my daughters’ college fund, and demand
outstanding effort, yet my newsrooms are fun places to work.
Staff members know they have the freedom to try new ideas, the encouragement to dig
for tough stories that seem to be going nowhere, and the confidence that I care as much
about their work as they do.
I believe in setting tough goals and then providing opportunities for talented people to
grow. Superior standards have helped my teams stretch for remarkable achievements.
THE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE
Public Safety and Justice Editor
The State
Columbia, S.C.
June 2002 – November 2003
Led team of four cops and courts reporters at 115,000 AM
Running the police and courts desk for the state’s biggest paper confirmed I can crank out
great daily copy.
We covered the major crimes of a serial killer, a spree killer and a mother’s murder of her
family.
Sprinkled among crimes and police shootings were significant rulings on everything from
secret settlements to sodomy.
We made time for enterprise on prison problems, domestic abuse convictions, the rise of
meth, unreported campus rapes, a new look at crime rates and a growing gang problem
six years before police acknowledged it.
Executive Editor
North Idaho Newspaper Group
Coeur D’Alene, Idaho
July 2000 – January 2001
Top editor of 20,000 AM, staff of 32, supervision of North Idaho group of two other
dailies and two weeklies; tourism magazine
When I took as managing editor of The Press we went to work improving the morale,
performance content and presentation.
Major changes:
-- restored city editor and news editor posts;
-- defined responsibilities for the staff with new written job descriptions tied to new goals-
based performance evaluations;
-- installed planning systems that empowered reporters, helped editors navigate and
produce thoughtful presentations;
-- initiated written story budgets and two daily news planning meetings;
-- wrote mission for the newsroom and a specific code of standards and ethics;
-- improved decisions and cut errors by the staff with daily written critiques;
-- raised quality of journalism by focusing on stories about people and ideas;
-- upgraded Sunday special projects and features by insisting on better topics, graphics
and planning;
-- improved overall design by challenging photographers to shoot for story;
-- planned redesign with conversion to a 50-inch web;
-- formed reader advisory groups with circulation with door-to-door “quit” visits;
-- smoothed relations with other departments;
-- mentored a new communication committee that produced the company’s first
newsletter and guided the training and orientation committee
Presentation Maestro
Connecticut Post
Bridgeport, Conn.
October 1998 – June 2000
Worked with the editor/publisher to create this assistant managing editor’s position
at 80,000 AM
I left The Hour for the Connecticut Post bruised by a publisher who did not want the real
newspaper I created for him.
The bigger next-door competition promised to set me free. Editor Rick Sayers asked me to
work underground, stealthily putting into practice my vision that design and content work
best together. He wanted me to become the Post’s presentation maestro.
So I worked stints in every department features (health and religion), business, sports,
city and copy desks – teaching by example.
The AME job was never funded but my talent and energy made that paper better every
day.
Managing Editor
The Hour
Norwalk, Conn.
March 1995 – September 1998
Shepherded staff of 25 journalists at 20,000 PM daily
City Editor
Telegraph Herald
Dubuque, Iowa
September 1991 – February 1995
Ran city desk; Page One mentor of 40,000 PM daily
Pursued master’s in architecture
Clemson University
September 1988 – August 1991
Metro Editor
North Jersey Herald & News
Passaic, N.J.
September 1987 – August 1988
Ran metro desk of 83,000 AM daily
Deputy Metro Editor
Tribune newspaper group
Mesa, Ariz.
January 1987 – August 1987
Assignment/planning editor for 70,000 AM group (four dailies)
Regional Editor
Press & Sun-Bulletin
Binghamton, N.Y.
November 1985 – January 1987
Supervised three bureaus, two editions for 60,000 AM daily
City Editor
The Citizen
Auburn, N.Y.
May 1984 – October 1985
Ran city desk of 17,000 PM daily
Managing Editor/Reporter
The Evening Journal
Corry, Pa.
December 1980 – May 1984
Ran local news desk, editorial page for 4,000 PM daily
Editor/lead Reporter
The Star News
Hendersonville, Tenn.
May 1980 – September 1980
Supervised 11,000 TMC weekly
EDUCATION
Asbury University
Wilmore, Ky.
BA in psychology (1979)
4.0 in journalism courses; four years on staff of The Collegian, college student newspaper
KEEPING THE WOLF FROM THE DOOR
I have sold cars since 2003 at two dealerships in Columbia, S.C. – Pulliam Ford and Jim
Hudson Automotive.
INTERESTS
Architecture, baseball, photography, leadership, politics, women’s rights, First
Amendment, theater/movies, jazz/classical/70s rock, finding an agent for my novel,
enjoying my strong-willed daughters
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