Valley Record staff expands
Published 2:21 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008
SNOQUALMIE — Community members will soon notice
two new faces combing the Valley for news. The Snoqualmie
Valley Record last week hired a photographer and a sports reporter.
The staff additions are the first in a series of investments
being made by the Valley Record’s new owner, Horvitz
Newspapers Inc., publisher of King County Journal newspapers, said
Jim McKiernan, Valley Record general manager.
“These were the two positions we felt were critical, because
in the past, it had been just me doing both,” he said. McKiernan
has been a busy jack-of-all-trades for the five years he and his
wife, Karen, have owned and operated the Valley Record.
Now McKiernan will focus on behind-the-scenes newspaper
operations, such as budgeting, customer relations, planning,
interacting with the community and filling in during emergencies.
“But don’t figure I’m out of the picture,” he said. “Don’t
be surprised to see me on the sidelines with the camera because
I love it so much.”
McKiernan said the two new employees would round out
the staff and enable the paper to rise to a new level.
“The sports reporter, Becky Christopherson, can provide
more in-depth coverage of teams in the Valley,” he added. “Becky
seemed to be a natural to fit into that position. And she’s easy to talk to.”
McKiernan added that the biggest challenge she will face
is to get coaches to provide her with statistics on a regular
basis. Christopherson graduated March 2000 from Western
Washington University with a bachelor of arts degree in general studies and
a minor in print journalism. She lives in Snoqualmie with her
husband, Ryan, who tests games at Nintendo in Redmond.
In addition to sports, Christopherson has written
about other topics and said she’s looking forward to getting to know
the Valley and it’s student-athletes, parents and coaches.
“I want to be able to cover all the sports and give everybody
a chance to be in the paper; make sure they get the attention
they deserve,” she said.
Christopherson has played sports all her life and
especially enjoys track and cross country.
Bruce Savadow has joined the Valley Record as its new
photographer. He has 15 years of photography experience under
his belt and earned a bachelor of fine arts at the Maryland Institute
of Art in Baltimore, Md. He has worked for various papers on
the East Coast, including the Baltimore Jewish Times.
Locally, Savadow shot pictures for the West Seattle
Herald, the Ballard News-Tribune and the Highline Times. He has lived
in the Seattle area for five years.
“This is a photographer’s paradise,” he said of the Valley
and the Puget Sound area. “I love it because Seattle’s such a
culturally rich city, then you drive an hour and find snow-capped
mountains and then desert.”
Savadow became interested in photography after college, and
he thought taking pictures would be a hobby.
“But I fell in love with it,” he said, adding that he
especially enjoys doing documentary portraitures of artists at work and
is interested in meeting the Valley’s artists.
“It’s a tool for getting me involved in events and
peoples’ lives,” he said of his profession. “You get exposure, and you
get to see things you don’t normally see with photography.”
With several state and Society of Professional
Journalists (SPJ) photography awards, Savadow is a great addition to
the staff, McKiernan said.
“It’s rare that a weekly newspaper gets to have a
photographer with his degree of
experience,” McKiernan said. “The photo
quality of the newspaper will now go up tenfold.”
