YDR Insider

To help you get to know our newsroom staff a bit better, a series of question-and-answer posts with each journalist will run on Mondays. This morning, meet staff photographer Chris Dunn.

You’ve seen her photos in print and online and her videos at ydr.com. In fact, the most recent gallery page in the Living section was shot and reported by Chris herself. She also contributes regularly to the Twenty & Change blog, musing on everything from modern, tech-y love to Thanksgiving with friends.

Name: Chris Dunn
Lives in: York Township
Hometown: Houston, Texas
Position at the YDR: Multiplatform photojournalist
Years with the YDR: Since May 13, 2011
Graduated from: The University of Missouri
With a degree in: (Photo)journalism, Spanish
Twitter, Facebook, email, Google+ if you have it: Twitter — @christhedunn | Facebook — facebook.com/christhedunn | cdunn@ydr.com
| G+ – christhedunn
Whatever you’d like to tell us about yourself: I like to rub my youth in the face of my more veteran colleagues. Unfortunately, karma has already come back and slapped me in the face: I now have a bad knee after getting taken out by a football player while covering a York Catholic game.

1. What made you want to become a journalist? My mom made me go to a “girl power” conference where they tried to brainwash girls aged 9-12 into thinking that yes, we can do math and science. At the end of the day, the keynote speaker was a local broadcast reporter I recognized from the evening news program. After I’d been overwhelmed by engineering and accounting jargon all day, her speech was like a message from the heavens. To my chemist mom’s dismay, a dream was born and I’m now forging my path to poverty. Err, journalism.
2. How do you see journalism changing? I see journalism changing all the time: Every morning’s front page is different!
3. What do you like most about your job? The least? Most: I do different things every day. I don’t sit at my desk and stare at a computer monitor for eight hours. I get to do out and do things and meet people. Least: I do different things every day. Sometimes I sit at my desk and stare at a computer monitor for four hours. I don’t get to wear pretty clothes, and forget about ever having a manicure last more than two minutes.
4. It’s 9:30 a.m. on a day off. What are you doing? Sleeping, like a normal person.
5. What’s been your favorite project or story recently? Why? I hate this question. People often ask me this, and I honestly don’t like quantifying or “choosing favorites.” There are some stories/topics I’m not particularly fond of covering, but that doesn’t mean I have to pick and choose favorites. What’s important is that I get to spend an hour or five days with people on these stories, and I am humbled and honored that they let me into their lives in such a way.
6. The drink that’s on your desk right now is: An opened but unrefrigerated bottle of Lifewater that I should’ve thrown out four months ago.
7. Your favorite journalism-related blog you read or Twitter feed you follow: The New York Times’ Lens blog is pretty rockin’.
8. What’s the last movie you saw in theaters? The last book you read? “The Muppets.” Börk börk börk! Book: Last COMPLETED book? “Gone With the Wind.” In late 2010. Been working my way through “Les Miserables” — unabridged — since 2003. We photographers can only read so much.
9. What’s your favorite place in York County? My bed. Brown’s Orchards & Farm Market. The drive from Dallastown to Loganville (where Brown’s is!) on 214.
10. What’s one piece of newsroom jargon that had to be explained to you? I still don’t get “copy rim,” or whatever that is. I don’t think we have that here, though. Also, what does “CQ” stand for? (Excuse my ending with a preposition.)   (Editor’s note for the confused or curious: The copy rim is defined as “the outer edge of a usually U -shaped copy desk, occupied by the copyreaders,” as compared to the slot, “the interior opening in a copy desk, occupied by the chief copy editor.” The YDR newsroom is not set up this way. CQ, as Joan pointed out a few weeks ago, is “correct as quoted.”)

Check out our past Q&As:
— Niche publications editor Kara Eberle
— Online / community-news editor Joan Concilio
— Assistant managing editor of features and niche publications and social media coordinator Buffy Andrews
— Managing editor Randy Parker