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Welcome!
Welcome to RobBignell.com, my personal Web page. Here you'll find information about my journalism experience, awards won, samples of newspaper work, answers to frequently asked questions and more. |
What's new with Rob?
- Clean sweep! At the California Newspaper Publishers Asociation in July, The Daily Triplicate won three first-place awards for its work under Rob's editorship: Spot News Coverage, Investigative Reporting and Front Page. Other awards received (for which the paper was a finalist) included: General Excellence, Editorial Pages, Business/Financial Story, Feature Story and Arts and Entertainment Coverage.
- Rob has written a guest column for a new astrobiology magazine, "Alien Worlds", that is set to debut Feb. 8, 2008, in the United Kingdom. The column eplains how astrobiology - even if it never succeeds in finding extraterrestrial life - will transform science and the world. The publisher/editor of the popular magazine invited Rob, an avid blogger on astrobiology, to write the premier issue's column. Among a number of other European countries where the magazine will be available are Ireland, Greece, Poland, Sweden, Israel, Norway and Austria, but it only will be available online in the United States.
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How it all began
I became a journalist because of a garage sale.
One nauseatingly hot day during the summer of '78, when I was 12 and bored thanks to my mother's obsessive need to stop at every garage sale, I offhandedly picked up from a shaky table the "Reader's Digest 1974 Almanac." It was for the year Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, and the 750-plus page volume recounted all of the Watergate events, particularly how two Washington Post reporters uncovered each shady dealing. I became enamored with this real life "story" that rivaled any television drama or reading class rubbish from school.
The almanac cost my mother a quarter, quite a bargain as it kept me from complaining the rest of the afternoon.
Suddenly I became a news junkie, tuning in nightly to Walter Cronkite, reading the local dailies and even cajoling my mother into buying a Newsweek subscription. It all revolved around my addiction to the stories reported: the intrigues, the strategies and the complicated twists and plots, like how an illegal business deal in Iran was connected to a war in Nicaragua, which was connected to a pretty secretary in the Pentagon. It put Tom Clancy to shame.
This site primarily is intended for those who want to know more about me - readers of my newspaper, potential employers and members of the media or the communication industry who need biographical information.
The site is divided into eight sections - resume, references, awards, sample works, personal biographical information, frequently asked questions, links to other journalism Web sites and contact information. Some sections, particularly the resume area, include additional pages that go into each item with more depth.
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