written work & interactives

The Salt Lake Tribune

Utah residents love — and protect — this bird celebrity: Rosie the Rose Park turkey

This is my favorite story I’ve written among the hundreds I’ve published for The Salt Lake Tribune. When I saw that a flock of neighborhood turkeys were a common discussion in a local Facebook group I had joined, I knew I had to write about it for Thanksgiving. What followed was a 7 a.m. pursuit for the turkeys, multiple interviews with residents and talks with wildlife officials about what turkeys mean to Utahns.

As water wanes, two Utah towns stop building

This was one of my first bigger stories I wrote for the Tribune. Originally I was planning to write it as a quick piece that this town had paused development, but in talking to some sources at the town, I thought it would be better to go there and get a sense of the area - and how the moratorium was impacting people - in-person. This turned out to be the right choice, and The New York Times decided to write about these two towns just a few weeks after this story was published. Later on, another story I wrote on a community imposing similar restrictions told me they had read this story when they were discussing their own moratorium.

Inside the 24/7 fight at Utah’s 2 busiest airports to keep migrating birds out of airplane engines

A normal discussion with an airport spokesperson spurred this story. I found out the airport was upgrading how it captures birds that make their way inside the airport — diving across crowds of passengers near the baggage carousels — so I made a few calls. What started as a small story about birds inside the terminals became a larger, much more interesting tale about the specialized division the airport employs to ensure wildlife outside of its buildings are safe — and don’t endanger airplanes.

New upgrades are coming to parks in Salt Lake City, West Jordan and Herriman — if you vote for them

This story, although a short one, was a challenge. Salt Lake County approved a recreation bond to appear on the ballot in November, and bond’s aren’t the most exciting subject, but I knew residents needed the information to make an informed decision. So I put together an easy-to-understand graphic on where the bond would fund upgrades, filtered by communities within Salt Lake County. That extra effort paid off when the story garnered over 6,000 pageviews.

photography & videos