Résumé for Jim
Bacon
Address:
9214 34th Ave. S.W.
Seattle, WA 98126
Telephone: 206-417-2663
E-mail: jimmiebeeee@comcast.net
GENERAL INFORMATION
I spent 23 years
in journalism, specifically newspapers: reporting, photography, editing, copy editing,
layout and design, electronic pagination, old-school paste-up and some typesetting. From
1983 to 1996 I worked for small-town weeklies and one monthly in Washington and Minnesota.
From 1996 to January 2007 I was a copy editor and paginator at the daily King County
Journal. I am an excellent editor, picky about accuracy, clarity, concise writing,
spelling and grammar, and following the publication’s stylebook. I have strong layout
and design skills and paginate quickly and accurately. I am a motivated self-starter and
need minimal supervision. I am comfortable with multiple projects and overlapping
deadlines. I am friendly and outgoing, enjoy interacting with the public and
co-workers, and am not shy about talking to people I don’t know.
OTHER WORK I HAVE DONE
Retail sales: I am a very active volunteer in
my church bookstore (since February 2005) as lead of my Sunday team. I ring up sales for
close to 100 customers on a typical Sunday. I also work closely with the manager
processing incoming stock, ordering new items and handling other behind-the-scenes
jobs as needed. I also enjoyed working in camera stores during breaks from college years
ago.
Radio: A brief career; I worked part-time from 1985-88 at a small AM station in
Quincy, Wash. while I was news editor of the weekly paper. I was an announcer and music
director.
GENERAL SKILLS
Photoshop: I can do basic photo
editing
Excel: general working knowledge of Excel — self-taught
PowerPoint: general knowledge for creating slide shows
Word: basic knowledge — general text editing, file merging; some work with
template and style editing.
Web page design: general HTML knowledge, self-taught; I learned it from creating
and maintaining my own Web site, www.jimmiebeeee.com, which I’ve run since 2001. I
can use page creation software.
Electronic pagination: I worked exclusively with Quark XPress for 12 years,
1995-2007.
Scanners: Proficient with flatbed scanners and somewhat with film
scanners.
Stylebooks for editing and writing: I am well-versed in the Associated Press
stylebook.
With software and
hardware I learn fast and generally master what I will work with every day.
OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION
Photography: My professional
experience has been on the weeklies I worked for.
My personal work, since 1967, is an eclectic mix, wide-ranging and sometimes quirky.
(See examples on my Web site: www.jimmiebeeee.com/life_scenes/lifescenes-main.htm.)
How-to guidelines: I am great at creating clear, concise how-to guides for
co-workers so anyone in my department (most recently for me a newspaper copy desk) can do
tasks they don’t normally do. At a Minnesota newspaper I worked for I designed and
compiled an illustrated, 70-page editing, style, pagination and computer guide.
MOST RECENT EMPLOYMENT
King County Journal
Daily newspaper based in Kent, Wash.; July 1996 to January 2007
POSITION: Copy editor
DUTIES: Read and edited stories, wrote
headlines and cutlines, designed and paginated. I worked in all departments except sports
— mainly in features from 2001-2007.
Highlights of my time there:
ˇ
I reorganized the long-neglected stocks
pages and redesigned them twice. I successfully completed two advanced training courses in
DewarView, the paper’s editing/pagination system. I often was the copy desk’s
“go-to guy” for troubleshooting problems that didn’t require Information
Services intervention, such as recovering lost pages.
ˇ
During my last two years I designed and
laid out the entire Monday Features section and designed pages for the Weekend and Sunday
Women’s Journal sections. I also worked on the Sunday career page and weekend real
estate pages during my six years in the Features department.
I left the paper in January 2007 after the company shut down the daily and laid me off.
EDUCATION
ˇ
Bachelor’s degree in Journalism,
1983, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Wash.
ˇ
One year of photography school,
1991-92, Spokane Falls Community College, Spokane, Wash.
PROFESSIONAL
REFERENCES
Mike Plaster
Former news editor (and my most
immediate supervisor), King County Journal
Phone: 425-396-7908 (home)
425-785-2167 (cell)
E-mail: plaster8@centurytel.net
Barbara Morgan
Former executive editor, King County Journal
Phone: 206-817-4566
E-mail: bmorgan000@comcast.net
Laura Pierce
Kent Reporter editor and former
King County Journal features editor
Phone: 253-872-6677, ext 5050
E-mail: lpierce@reporternewspapers.com
John Brodrick
Manager of New Dimensions
Bookstore at Center for Spiritual Living in Seattle
Phone: 206-527-8801, ext. 211 (office); 206-819-6932 (cell)
E-mail: JohnB@cslseattle.org
LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION
From Mike Plaster
From Laura Pierce
(Updated March 11, 2008) |
