My name is Connie Guglielmo ’83 and after a little less than a year on the DBAN board, I’ve stepped in to serve as president of the Daily Bruin Alumni Network.
Here’s why: In mid-December, DBAN’s co-founder and longtime president Lawrence Ma stepped down so he could shift his focus to endorsing student media as a member of the UCLA Communications Board. Thank you, Lawrence, for all the time and effort you’ve put into building up DBAN.
About me: I worked on the Daily Bruin news team as an undergraduate and got my first job — writing for an in-house public relations team — thanks to my many Daily Bruin clips. I used those clips again when I applied to graduate school in journalism, and after getting my masters in communication at Stanford, I was lucky enough to stay in the Bay Area and become a technology reporter and editor. After working for MacWEEK, Wired, Bloomberg and Forbes, I took on the challenge of serving as editor in chief of CNET, where I managed an award-winning, global, diverse and profitable newsroom (yes, there are such things.) After nine years as EIC, I switched roles in 2023 to become one of the first AI editorial strategists for a media publication. If you want to know anything about how generative AI like ChatGPT is going to upend our world, drop me a line.
As I look ahead to the rest of 2024, I’m eager to continue the work DBAN has been doing in providing mentoring and coaching to Bruin staffers, funding scholarships, adding alumni to the network, sponsoring internship programs for our students, engaging with the UCLA community to promote student media and working to support the award-winning staff at the Bruin.
BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP!
In addition to seeking new board members, we need help with all sorts of efforts — like mentoring and coaching students, organizing regional meetups and planning our alumni dinner. If you can spare even a few hours of your time, contact me.
Thanks for your interest in helping support the newsroom leaders of tomorrow.
Los Angeles alumni, join us April 23 at Citizen Public Market in Culver City from 6 p.m. onward to raise a glass, catch up and reminisce. Hosted by Sara Randazzo ’08 and Nicole Vas ’10. Please RSVP to Sara at randazzo@ucla.edu. Don’t live in Los Angeles? Let Sara know if you’d like to host a Daily Bruin alumni event in your city.
Big News
In 2019, Daily Bruin alumni Zach Aron ’94, Lawrence Ma ’95 and Robina Riccitiello ’84, in association with the UCLA Centennial Scholars Match Initiative, established the $112,500 Daily Bruin Scholarship Endowment. This endowment became fully funded in 2023 and awarded its inaugural scholarship to UCLA senior Sharla Steinman ’24, the Daily Bruin’s City & Crime Editor last fall.
Steinman, a transfer student from Topanga, California, aspires to enter a joint law and journalism graduate program upon graduation, and become the general counsel of a newspaper, magazine or television network one day. She said that the need-based $5,000 grant will help her immediately and reduce her student loan debt burden after college.
“I am grateful to be receiving this award at a time when my family and I needed it most,” Steinman said. "My work at the Daily Bruin has been life-changing and I am excited to continue contributing to the paper in the upcoming year."
The Daily Bruin Scholarship Endowment will be awarding another need-based scholarship of $5,000 in the 2024-25 academic year to a DB staffer. Beyond that, the co-founders are working with UCLA partners to establish a new enterprise reporting grant program for the Bruin, having been inspired by the Bridget O’Brien Scholarship of the 2010s. Ma and Riccitiello, as co-chairs of the DBAN Scholarship Committee, also lent a hand to the McNary family as they launched the Dave McNary Memorial Endowment benefiting Bruin staffers.
To contribute to the Daily Bruin Scholarship Endowment, please visit us online.
Tales From a Journalism Layoff
By Jeong Park ’17
Working in journalism sometimes feels like jumping from one raft to another, not knowing how sturdy the lifeboat is or if it will implode.
I've joked to people that I had finished my "tour of duty" through all the "bad" chain newspapers: Gannett, Alden and McClatchy. Yet, it was the Los Angeles Times, my hometown newspaper owned by a billionaire, that finally caught me in a layoff.
I remembered the pride and joy I felt when I first swiped my badge to get into The Times' office. An immigrant from South Korea, not speaking a nick of English when I came to the U.S., working for one of the biggest and most accomplished papers in America.
Yet, after responding to what felt like the 100th text and Twitter direct messages of condolence, I felt numb. Sadness washed over any anger and frustration I had with the company.
Over the few weeks that followed, though, I realized I had thought of all this incorrectly. It isn't the size or the prestige of where you work that matters. It is the work that you do that matters.
I think of spending hours following city council meetings until 2 a.m., serving as the only watchdog in town. I think of working with a (slightly grumpy) editor who painstakingly pored over every single word of a story to make sure it's accurate and fair.
I think of seeing someone working for a tiny Chinese-language newspaper getting information out to hundreds of thousands who don't speak English. I think of working with a photographer waiting for hours to take the picture of that perfect scene.
Those experiences remind us why journalism matters and how rewarding (and fun!) it still can be. The failure of journalism as a business and an industry does not mean the failure of journalism itself.
As I shift my focus to my next job in Seattle, working as an assistant metro editor for The Seattle Times, it's that realization that I hope to remind myself of every time I hear about another layoff in the industry. Because the process of journalism remains as vitally important as ever.
Just Shy
Our annual SPARK fundraising campaign pulled in donations from an impressive 75 donors last fall – thank you to all who donated! We hit $17,565 of our $20,000 goal. Your money goes directly to student scholarships. Even outside of the SPARK campaign, the scholarship fundis always open!
Road Tripping
Current Daily Bruin staffers met up with alumni in the Bay Area while covering the UCLA Women's Basketball games at Cal and Stanford — the end of an era as the Pac-12 breaks up. DBAN scholar and photographer Jeremy Chen joined Sports staffers Grace Whittaker, Alexis Hinkle, Lauryn Wang and Gavin Carlson on the road trip, meeting up with Sam Settleman ’23 and Lawrence Ma ’95 for dim sum.
Read the Bruin
As always, the Daily Bruin is full of great stories on the latest scandals, sports highlights and bright spots at UCLA. We particularly enjoyed – and were shocked by – this PRIME story on the black market for buying seats in competitive classes. Didn’t get into Physics 5C and need it to graduate? You can buy a spot for $50. Yikes.
Remember Your Pay?
No one joins the Daily Bruin for the money, but we’re interested in trying to chart the trajectory of staff stipends over the years. Do you remember what Daily Bruin pay looked like in your era? Email Sara Randazzo at randazzo@ucla.edu.
Class Notes
– James Richardson ’75 has joined the board of Capital Public Radio, Sacramento’s NPR affiliate. Richardson is a retired Episcopal priest and former senior writer for the Sacramento Bee.
– Paul Farhi ’79 capped a 35-year career at The Washington Post by accepting a buyout from the paper in December. He’s now freelancing, including recently writing a chipper piece for The Atlantic on whether American journalism is headed for an “extinction-level” event.
– Maya Lin Sugarman ’11 is out with a new podcast that delves into a piece of her family history. "Magnificent Jerk" explores the story behind a screenplay written by her uncle Galen that Sugarman was surprised to learn was based on Galen’s real life experiences as a young gang member in Oakland’s Chinatown.
Send Us Your News!
Have recent work or personal success to brag about? Email Sara Randazzo to be included in future newsletters.
