Jump to: Experience || Education || Awards and Honors || Skills
Experience
Berkeleyside | Berkeley, California
Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor (April 2021-Present)
- Guided direction of Berkeley’s main news outlet — a nonprofit news site with a daily publishing schedule, upward of 2.5 million visitors per year, over 15,000 daily newsletter subscribers, tens of thousands of social media followers and about $500,000 in annual support from thousands of readers.
- Placed focus on investigative and accountability reporting, hyperlocal explanatory neighborhood pieces, wall-to-wall coverage of big breaking stories, inclusive storytelling and sourcing, and thoughtful, in-depth feature writing.
- Expanded and diversified newsroom by successfully applying for two Report for America corps members; wrote newsroom’s first-ever transparent pay policy for freelancers; planned election coverage; built story-tracking system in Airtable; oversaw creation of a wildfire preparation guide, a week-in-review newsletter and a newsletter covering arts & events.
- Supervised and coached early-stage reporters covering education and the environment in pursuing hard-hitting stories exposing long-ignored abuse by a high school teacher and mismanagement of toxic gas below a city park.
- Successfully nominated direct reports for six awards from the SF Press Club and SPJ NorCal, including a freedom of information award for speaking “truth to power” and an award honoring Northern California’s “outstanding emerging journalist.”
Southwest Journal | Minneapolis, Minnesota
Editor (March 2019-December 2020)
- Directed the newsroom of a free 30,000-circulation, biweekly community newspaper serving 21 neighborhoods in Southwest Minneapolis. Supervised a staff of two full-time reporters and one web editor.
- Managed a $35,000 annual freelance budget supporting the work of dozens of reporters, columnists, photographers and editorial interns. Assigned, wrote, edited and mapped placement of articles in coordination with design and advertising staff.
- Crafted digital strategy and oversaw the paper’s website and social media accounts. Website received more than 1.6 million annual page views, and average monthly traffic rose by over 70% during tenure.
- Won awards for enterprise reporting, hard news writing, social issues coverage and arts journalism from the Minnesota Newspaper Association and the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists (MNSPJ). Led paper to victory in best issue, general reporting and general excellence categories. In 2020, the paper’s staff won eight MNSPJ Page One awards — more than any other non-daily newspaper in the state.
- Spearheaded the paper’s first-ever donation drive, which brought in over $55,000 from hundreds of readers.
- Developed a paid editorial internship program for the first time in the paper’s 30-year history.
Finance & Commerce and Minnesota Lawyer | Minneapolis
Web Editor and Staff Writer (fall 2015-spring 2019)
- Managed the websites, social media accounts and digital strategy of a daily and a semiweekly newspaper, including leading a cross-departmental team to introduce new products and features.
- Edited freelance and staff stories for print and digital publication.
- Used web traffic analytics to regularly strategize with colleagues about the best ways to tell and share stories online.
- Wrote cover stories and a regular political and legal history column.
CBSMinnesota.com | Minneapolis
Web Producer (summer 2014-fall 2015)
- Wrote breaking news and feature stories.
- Made final editorial decisions on homepage content and rewrote television news packages as web stories.
- Created breaking news alerts and communicated with more than 100,000 Facebook fans and 50,000 Twitter followers.
- Wrote a perfect headline: “Tennis coach is game to set consecutive match record”
Patch.com | Twin Cities
Local Editor (summer 2011-winter 2014)
- Edited and managed community journalism websites in the Minneapolis area.
- Told stories through narrative writing, pictures, videos and social media.
- Covered breaking news, crime, courts, city council, education, sports, business and features stories.
Washingtonian Magazine | Washington, D.C.
Editorial Intern (fall 2010)
- Wrote articles on real estate and Washington events for print and web.
- Contributed research and writing to features packages, fact-checked articles and listings.
Atlantic Media Company | Washington, D.C.
Research Associate (spring 2009)
- Researched proceedings of the 110th Congress for the 2010 edition of “The Almanac of American Politics.”
The Mac Weekly | St. Paul, Minnesota
Editor in Chief (fall 2009)
- Supervised staff of 20 editors, managed $30,000 annual budget, made final editorial decisions.
Education
Macalester College
Graduated magna cum laude (May 2010)
- Bachelor of Arts: Political Science, Sociology
Georgetown University
Study away program
Awards and honors
- Led Southwest Journal staff to victories in the general reporting and general excellence categories of the Minnesota Newspaper Association’s (MNA) 2019-20 contest, in the general reporting category of the MNA’s 2018-19 contest and in the best issue category of the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists’ (MNSPJ) 2019 Page One Award contest.
- Won first place in the social issues category of the 2019-20 MNA contest for a Southwest Journal story about a nonprofit dedicated to helping immigrants tell their stories.
- Won first place in the arts and entertainment category of the 2019-20 MNA contest for a Southwest Journal story about a teenager who co-curated an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
- Won first place in the arts and entertainment category of the 2018-19 MNA contest for a Southwest Journal story about children’s book author and illustrator Eliza Wheeler.
- Won first place in the arts and entertainment category of the 2019 MNSPJ contest for three Southwest Journal stories on Wheeler, on the beer can artist Chuck U and on the expansion plans of HUGE Improv Theater.
- Won a 2019-20 MNA award in the hard news category for a Southwest Journal story about a developer planning to bulldoze an apartment building it had been sued for damaging.
- Won a 2019 MNSPJ award in the enterprise reporting category for a Southwest Journal story about the Minneapolis Police Department’s mindfulness training program.
- Won a 2017 MNSPJ award in the feature writing category for a Minnesota Lawyer story about Joseph Lobdell, a 19th century transgender pioneer.
- Hearst Journalism Fellowship Finalist
Skills
- Computer: WordPress, Newspack, Airtable, Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Datawrapper, Flourish, Parse.ly, iMovie, Social News Desk
Zac Farber 