Staff Q&As: Meet police reporter Ted Czech
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 day cops reporter Ted Czech. You might have seen his MMA blog, MMA Explosion, or seen his MMA demonstrations at the NewsVroom during the York Fair.
Name: Ted Czech
Lives in: York
Hometown: Portsmouth, R.I.
Position at the YDR: Day cops reporter/MMA blogger
Years with the YDR: 8 (before that, 4 years with the Dispatch)
Graduated from: St. Anselm College (1988); University of Rhode Island (1998)
With a degree in: BA in Criminal Justice; BA in Journalism.
Twitter: @TedCzech
Facebook: Search for Ted Czech
Email: tczech@ydr.com
Google+: Search for Ted Czech
Whatever you’d like to tell us about yourself: Ummm, well, if you read the rest of this stuff, it’ll give you a pretty good idea. Look me up online too.
1. What made you want to become a journalist? Well, I wasn’t good at math … and while that is true, I always enjoyed writing and my mom was a reporter.
2. How do you see journalism changing? Even more than it has in the past 5-10 years? Actually, I see it staying the same. There will always be a need for reporting, until we’re all replaced by robots.
3. What do you like most about your job? The variety and consistency of the mayhem — fires, crashes, shootings, etc.
4. It’s 9:30 a.m. on a day off. What are you doing? Probably at the gym or blogging.
5. What’s been your favorite project or story recently? Why? I did a Storify on some local MMA fighters that I posted on my blog. I was just happy I completed it, because I found Storify daunting the first time I tried it out. Plus I enjoy helping local fighters gain notoriety.
6. The drink that’s on your desk right now is: Coffee.
7. Your favorite Twitter feed you follow: @StealthMountain
8. What’s your favorite movie? Book? Favorite movie is “They Live.” Book would be “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley.
9. What’s your favorite place in York County? Any of the farmlands in southern York County.
10. What’s one piece of newsroom jargon that had to be explained to you? What the heck a “wiki” was — I thought it referred to Wikipedia. [Editor’s note: A “wiki” is a website that allows any user to add or edit content — like Wikipedia. We use ours for the daily news budget and other items that need to be accessed by everyone in the office.]
Last week, we ran a Q&A with sports copy editor Travis Pickens. To read all of the staff Q&A interviews we’ve done so far, click on the “Staff Q&As” under “About us” at the top of the homepage.