Multimedia producer Skillern puts fresh twist on the News

Tim Skillern

Rocky Mountain News multimedia producer Tim Skillern ('98) says that for a glimpse of the future of news, there's no place like a homepage.

"This job is really what 'they' mean when they talk about super-journalists – having to do all sorts of things on different deadlines," he said.

"Mostly I do page design and graphic design for the (News) Internet site, but I also update the site with the latest news, which often means writing my own 5- to 7-inch stories on breaking news. That's where I use traditional journalism the most.

"I also report, film and produce TV-like video stories for the site to bolster print stories and large print packages. I do tons of database programming in SQL (a computer language used in Internet databases). I also have written for the features department every now and then."

Skillern, 26, took a circuitous route to online journalism.

"I was actually a really late entrant into the journalism school after I vacillated between American history, English and dance, among other pursuits. After realizing the industry probably didn't need many dancing journalists, I decided my senior year to concentrate fully on writing," he said.

"I picked journalism because I figured I'd always be a sports writer; interestingly, although I'm still in the newspaper business, I didn't end up as one.

"I was a sports-writing and copy intern at the Boulder Daily Camera the summer after my junior year, and I worked part-time in sports my senior year. I was a Dow Jones online intern with the Austin American-Statesman after I graduated. I then did a two-month stint doing my best George Costanza impersonation – unemployed and living with the parents – until I went back to the Camera, where I worked on the (newspaper's) Internet site for about a year."

While Skillern worked at the Camera, it won Editor & Publisher's Eppy Award, what he said was then the online equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, for its coverage of the murders at Columbine High School.

He went to work at the Rocky Mountain News, like the Camera an E.W. Scripps-owned newspaper, at the beginning of 2000.

Looking back, he said, his success is based on the hands-on experience he gained. "Internships. Internships. Internships. I know we all heard this a lot in school, but it's true. It's much easier to find a job – maybe even one you'll like – if you have more internships. That's really the only way journalism students get jobs, even if it's Nowhere, Nebraska."

That's not to say he was all work and no play.

"I remember the parties, but then again, I did go to school in Boulder. What else did you expect me to say? I also remember how alternately hot and cold it was in Macky's basement."

In his free time, Skillern said, he can usually be found somewhere away from a computer, although he makes an exception by helping the Denver Press Club with its Web site.

"I snowboard. I try to stay away from computers as much as possible when I'm not at work," he said.

"I haven't turned my home computer on in about three months."

skillernt@rockymountainnews.com