Brandon Smith-Hebson — a journalist

How are you? Glad you’re here.

I’m a journalist and a foodie. I try to craft my articles like I craft my dishes: with as much intrigue as balance.

I’ve been a reporter for the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun newspaper since June 2011. Did a lot of science and environment reporting. In late April 2012 I was named city hall reporter.

Springfield works closely with its sister paper, Dayton Daily News, so my pieces often appear there.

Speaking of the Daily News, several times I’ve examined the use of tax dollars in conjunction with its “Eye on Government” team. They develop stories for use across the company’s several Ohio papers, radio and TV stations.

My biggest investigation so far has been about pink slime in schools. Beef producers weren’t being that honest with schools about whether they use it.

Food’s my guilty pleasure. You’ll find a running tally of my cooking and dining exploits at twitter.com/foochebag. (Who can you make fun of, if not yourself?)

A couple years ago I interned with Steve Dolinsky, who writes for public radio in Chicago and appears on WLS-TV, the ABC affiliate and top news station there. For his reports over the years, Dolinsky has won 12 James Beard awards, the “Oscars” of the food world. Here’s a sample using our footage dubbed with my writing:

Before my time with Steve, I cooked for an underground dining collaborative for about eight months. Here you can see and read about dishes for which I served as prep cook and/or line cook. Once upon a time I was a volunteer chef-instructor with Common Threads, an organization that teaches kids from low-income families how to cook.

Here’s my full food resume if you’re interested.

And here’s a journalism resume. Feel free to call my cell at 740.505.0038 with any questions, or e-mail brandoniamsmith -at- gmail -dot- com.

Looking for clips? Here’s a compilation of my best work at the Springfield News-Sun, minus the pink slime thing.

If you’re looking for more diverse examples of my work, here they are in alphabetical order. Otherwise they may get jealous.

• Blogging on the site proper. As you can see, it’s not regular anymore, but read the archives and you’ll find my news judgment and style.

• Commentary and columns. Check out this op-ed column following the announcement of the sudden loss of 10,000 jobs in my coverage area. This and other columns were used by producers at 60 Minutes to report its story on the incident. In a different vein, here’s my iPad commentary from the week after its unveiling.

• Creative nonfiction. Three short pieces were published in The Cedarville Review‘s 2010 edition. Read the first here, the second here, and the third here. (Disclaimer: they’re artsy and not particularly upbeat, but they’re real.)

• Daily coverage of life in a community. I’ve done this for the Washington Court House, Ohio Record-Herald and Wilmington (Ohio) News Journal newspapers. This includes drug crime and absurd crime, local government and boards of education, features and big stories, like this one I team-reported.

• Investigative work, longer-term. My multi-part series on pollution near Dayton, Ohio appeared in five newspapers in four counties. I also applied the story to a TV news report and other multimedia.

• Photography and some voice work. In December 2009 I shot the underground dinner I later became a part of. Also see this narrated slideshow about a company whose ideas could translate into lithium-ion batteries with double today’s capacity.

• Satire. Some issues just have to be roasted. I wrote Onion-esque pieces for a now-defunct local satire site, and have sent up other subjects as well.

• Tweeting until the cows come home. Hit me up on twitter.com/foochebag. I’ve live-blogged speeches by Bobby Kennedy, Jr. and Arianna Huffington.

• Video production. My YouTube channel has various items of interest, mostly produced for school applications.

I’ve made available a small selection of other clips published summer 2008 in the Wilmington (Ohio) News Journal.

I’m proud to have won the 2007 prize for best editorial writing in the company I worked for at the time, for a series of op-ed columns on life in a small town. I won the top award over against editors and publishers from the 17 daily papers Brown Publishing Company owned.

Some positions require letters of recommendation. My former editor at the News Journal, Dan Liggett, wrote a lovely one. My closest former colleague at the News Journal, Gary Huffenberger, also wrote a superlative one. If a third is required, I’ll submit a letter from novelist-professor Gregory Belliveau.