Aidian Holder

MID-SOUTH · (509) 902-9373 · aidianholder@gmail.com

Multimedia journalist. Data nerd. Once accused of being a "public records jihadist."

Experience

Nov 2020 - Oct 2021

Affiliate Web ManagerSeattle Times Affiliate Media Group

Technical lead responsible for all web properties belonging to the 'Affiliate Media Group' - primarily two daily English language newspapers and a weekley Spanish language tabloid, but also assorted niche publications, microsites and projects.

As the organization's sole developer, responsible for design and development, maintenence and new feature development, vendor management and integrations.

Recently completed projects include:

  • Integrting new circulation, subscription management and paywall system for both daily papers.
  • Overhauling analytics and reporting stack to facilitate emphasis on subscription revenue.
  • Designed and developed thevanished.org microsite detailing missing and murdered indigenous women issue.

Nov 2018 - Nov 2020

Digital Media ManagerYakima Herald-Republic

Responsible for editorial, technical, and business aspects of online and social media channels.

Duties included:

  • Producing, curating and creating news, feature, interactive and multimedia content; producing and maintaining sites, managing social channels
  • Designing and executing content strategies for maximizing impact, reach and engagment
  • Maximizing revenue from advertising inventory, managing programmatic partners and providing ad ops support for local direct sold campaigns.
  • Using analytics to provide audience insight and help inform decision making
  • Implementing best practices to enable digital transformation of print news operation

Sep 2015 - Nov 2018

Digital ProducerYakima Herald-Republic

Produced, created and curated digital content for online and social channels. Developed interactives and special sections. Produced video and provided CAR and data journalism support to newsroom.

Aug 2006-Jan 2011

ProducerKCRA-TV

Producer for NBC affiliate in Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto market (DMA 20). Produced fast-paced, live-intensive, daily newscasts with an emphasis on winning breaking news and the big stories in a competitive environment. Field produced special and investigative projects.

Aug 2005-Aug 2006

ProducerWBAY-TV

Newscast producer for ABC affiliate in Green Bay-Appleton, WI market (DMA 69). Responsible for all editorial and technical elements of assigned newscasts and supervising news crews and production staff.

Apr 2004-Aug 2005

ProducerKOMU-TV

Newscast producer for NBC affiliate in Columbia - Jefferson City, MO market (DMA 138). Produced special projects, features, and investigative stories. Produced re-purposed, original, and value-added online content

Aug 2003-May 2005

News EditorMissouri News

Newsroom manager, assignment editor, and reporter for statehouse-based radio wire service providing state government news to commercial and public radio stations.

Education

University of Missouri - Columbia

Bachelor of Journalism - Broadcast News
Minor in Political Science. Graduated cum laude. Specialized courses included computer assisted reporting, investigative reporting, audience research, and web producing.

College of the Redwoods

Associate of Social Science
General education and lower division coursework. Graduated from honors program.

Technical Skills
A summary of some of my specialized skillsets

Languages
  • Python
  • SQL
  • JavaScript
  • Bash
  • HTML
  • CSS
Etc.
  • GIS
  • Linux Admin
  • Web Analytics
  • AdOps
  • Video Production

Recent Projects
Interactive, data-driven, etc.

For a couple of more examples, including some more investigative work, check out the video stories in the next section.

interactive wildfire map

Wildfire mapping

This is unfortunately becoming more popular - and more important - every year. I aggregate fire information from a half dozen differnt sources, standardize it, and map it. Every newsroom has one of these, but I'll put my homemade solution up against any one in the west.

Wildfire Mapping
public salary interactive

Public payroll

I built this because no one else had, and this is the sort of basic transparency that every community needs. The data is just remote json files; with two thousand records per year, there's no reason to use a database, and this way the search and paging is lighting fast.

Public Payroll
speeding ticket hotspots

Ticket hotspots

A cool example of spatial data which shows where drivers are most likely to get a speeding ticket. The map is running on my home-rolled custom built vector tile stack.

Ticket Hotspots
crime rates interactive

Crime rates

I built this little interactive largely to get up to speed on the latest version of D3.js. It's usually seen embedded in a story to help provide a little context.

Crime rates
property transfers

Yakima Co. property transfers

We were paying $300 a month for property transfer details. I wrote a python scraper to download and clean them automatically from the county. They're a very popular part of our Sunday print edition. I also convert the listings to geojson and display them on top of a basemap served via my home brewed vector tile stack.

Property transfers

Video

Newscasts
I've produced a couple of thousand newscasts during my career. Here are a few samples.

Stories
A few examples of stories I've produced.