Nick Masuda's two-decade career as a professional journalist has coincided with the transformation of the media business, and he's had to adapt, decamp and hustle persistently to keep pace with a constantly evolving industry.
A 2001 Gaucho graduate, Masuda started working just as technology began to disrupt and revolutionize the way people define, receive and exchange information, ending the centuries-old dominance of the daily print newspaper with the creation and ascent of vast new, innovative platforms and powerful networks that have thoroughly redefined "news."
Recently named Deputy Editor by the new management of the Montecito Journal, he brings a portfolio that not only reflects the multiple stops of a prototypical 21st Century journalist's professional odyssey -- Santa Barbara, Florida, New Jersey, Maine, South Carolina and Santa Barbara twice more -- but also the manifold storytelling skills of a present-day practitioner - from Adobe Suite page design and mobile app development to social media marketing and search engine optimization, not to mention the old school fundamentals of reporting, editing and photography.
In a conversation with Newsmakers, one in our occasional "Press Clips" series of spotlighting members of Santa Barbara's small cadre of working journalists, Masuda offered a behind-the-scenes glimpse at his duties, a combination of herding cats and making the trains run on time; highlighted this week's special 64-page real estate section in a 112-page issue, as well as some of the Journal's harder-edged reporting, like the sexual misconduct scandal at Cate School; and discussed his company's effort to expand and improve the Sentinel, its Santa Barbara-centric publication.
Beyond his considerable editing duties, he also steadily churns out his own stories, from the pregnancy of the zoo's Amur leopard and a sudden spate of rattlesnake sightings to the local impact of the Coastal Commission and the upcoming SB mayoral and council races.
Confident, competitive, intense and energetic, Masuda said his goal with the Montecito Journal is "to be the best."
“We’re not interested in being first, and with our weekly product, it's hard to be first," he said. "But we can be the best, or at least attempt to be the best, and I think that actually helps all of us in town that do journalism - it helps us all to push forward."
Check out our interview with Nick Masuda via YouTube or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here.
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