Peter Sachs

Chicago, IL 60625

Psachs (at) gmail (dot) com

 

Experience

2008-2009              Higher Education Reporter, Chi-Town Daily News, Chicago

•    Initiated a beat covering the City Colleges of Chicago, breaking stories revealing how the district skirted the Open Meetings Act and how its former chancellor used television station WYCC for political ends. Currently the only reporter in the city regularly covering the City Colleges, Chicago State, DePaul, Loyola and Columbia College.

•    In-depth reporting on Republic Windows investigated and detailed connections in Iowa far beyond other media outlets, ultimately leading to Republic boss’ recent arrest: “Prosecutors: Republic chief looted company;” “Employees, city officials struggle to keep Iowa window plant open;” “Anger, disappointment linger after Republic owner's Iowa deal;” and “Iowa lawsuit seeks $1M from company linked to former Republic owner.”

•    Dogged investigative reporting at City Colleges described a “culture of retaliation” against people who spoke up: “Retaliation, mayoral meddling alleged in City Colleges case” and “More indications of retaliation at City Colleges” just two examples. “WYCC political videos spark investigation, lawsuit;” “First Look: Fawning WYCC videos of Jones and Watson revealed” broke new ground on political misuse of district-owned TV station.

 

2007-2008              City Hall Reporter, The Bulletin, Bend, Ore.

•    Investigative reporting of used bus purchases led to the departure of two high-level officials and changes in city purchasing procedures: “Why aren't any of Bend's big blue buses on the road?” “City mechanic inspected buses, called them 'junk;’” “Bend official knew buses were bad;” and “Public Works director resigns” drew on thousands of pages of documents, months of reporting and interviews.

•    Innovative project behind “A voter — in 2 states? It’s not so unusual” required close collaboration with paper’s IT staff, graphic designers and copy editors.

•    Broke news of deep budget cuts, dug into past budgets to analyze Bend’s long-term financial problems and told readers how it would affect them. Similar reporting on city limits expansion provided easy to understand context that even city officials relied upon.

 

Since 2004              Aviation News Editor, iPilot.com, StudentPilot.com

•    Created a weekly online newsletter sent to about 60,000 pilots worldwide, compiling and verifying aviation news from a variety of sources.

•    In Fall ’08, shifted the newsletter to a Web site to increase readership, compete with other aviation news sites and increase advertising revenue.

•    In first three months of ad program, realized nearly $5,000 in new ad revenue, including successful collection of year-old invoice of nearly $2,000. Attracted several new advertisers to site based on strong retention of returning visitors.

 

2006                        Reporter, Egypt Today and Religion News Service, Cairo, Egypt

•    Egypt Today: editorial assistant with copy-editing and design duties; reported stories on Cairo’s third subway line and a civic education NGO.

•    RNS: reported on the growing debate in Egypt over veiled women.

 

2006                        Washington Reporter, The Bulletin and RNS

•    Reported on the changing relationships between Democrats and Evangelicals and on the continued struggles of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

•    Investigated links between timber company contributions and favorable legislation. Contributed to the widely cited Power Trips series, revealing congressmen who accepted money directly from registered lobbyists.

 

2003-2005              Freelance Reporter & News Intern

                                Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Walla Walla, WA

•    Provided supplemental coverage of the 2004 elections and reported extensively on the loss of local Greyhound bus service.

 

Education

 

Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University. MS Journalism, 2006.

Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA. BA Sociology, honors in major, 2005.

•      News Editor & Business Manager, Whitman College Pioneer, 2001-2003

•      Resident Assistant (RA), Lyman House, 2003

•      Master Electrician, Harper Joy Theatre, 2003-2005

 

Proficient in Dreamweaver, HTML, CSS, Final Cut Pro, Quark, Photoshop, Vectorworks, Illustrator, Microsoft Access, FileMaker and SPSS.

Certified flight instructor since 2005, pilot since 2002. Instrument-rated.

 

References available upon request.