About Sree Sreenivasan
Spring
2010 | see
résumé version
The 10-second Bio:
See résumé version |
 PHOTO: Miriam Berkley |
The
In-depth Bio:
Sree is a journalism educator at Columbia University and a technology evangelist and skeptic (feel free to ask him how it's possible to be both) who works to help journalists and consumers use technology in smarter ways (after eight years of doing tech reporting on TV, he's now doing so at DNAinfo.com). In this, his 17th year of teaching, he continues to teach in the school's digital journalism program. In July 2007, he was promoted to Professor of Professional Practice. He also teaches workshops in "Smarter Surfing: Better Use of Your Web Time", Figuring Out Blogs & Whatever's Next, along with other topics, in newsrooms and educational institutions around the US and abroad. In the Fall of 2009, along with adjunct professor Adam Glenn, Sree created a five-week course on Social-media Skills for Journalists - how reporters and editors can use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, to better connect with audiences and bring attention to their own work. See the syllabus and notes from the course at http://bit.ly/socmediaskills. In the same semester, he co-taught, with Jeremy Kagan and Doug Herman, a Master Class for second-year MBA students on "Creating, Distributing and Marketing Digital Content" at Columbia Business School. OUTSIDE WORK: In 2009, he worked with Ameritrade founder (and Chicago Cubs owner) Joe Ricketts, to launch DNAinfo.com, a new news site covering Manhattan (it showed up in New York Magazine's Approval Matrix - "Brilliant" & "Highbrow" - after one week). He currently serves as the site's contributing editor and technology reporter (see samples). TELEVISION & DIGITAL VIDEO: Sree has also been a fixture on NYC-area television for more than eight years, and now occasionally appears on various TV shows (on CNN, NBC's Today Show, CNBC and elsewhere) to talk about technology, the media and more. From 2007 to 2009, he was WNBC-TV's tech reporter, covering all kinds of technology issues, gadgets and trends, appearing twice a week on Channel 4 and blogging for WNBC.com. He had previously appeared for six years as the "Tech Guru" on WABC-TV (he made 500+ appearances there). He has hosted and helped produce two half-hour specials about technology: Dec. 2007's "Tech4NY: Holiday Gifts" for WNBC and April 2002's "Computers 101" for WABC. He has also guest hosted segments of "Asian America" on PBS, a nationally syndicated English program about Asian American affairs (samples). FREELANCE: As a freelance journalist, he has written for The New York Times, Business Week, Popular Science, Time Digital, National Journal, India Today, Newsday, Bloomberg, Forbes.com, Sesame Street Parents, Rolling Stone (samples). He has been published in several other periodicals, including the Fiji Sun (in which he got his first byline at 15), and has been a freelance producer for the "Nightly Business Report" on PBS and a reporter and editor in India for The Sunday Observer and Business Today. From 2001-2007, he wrote a twice-a-month Web Tips column at Poynter.org (read online and e-mailed to 10,000+ media subscribers) and for several years wrote a weekly "Sree's Smarter Surfing" tip for ShopTalk, the largest TV-industry newsletter. SAJA, SPJ & MORE: He is co-founder and former president of SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association, a group of 1,000+ South Asian journalists in New York and across the U.S. and Canada. A former administrator of SAJA's awards and scholarships programs, he continues to serve on its executive board and to write regularly for SAJAforum.org, its newsy blog. SAJA celebrated its 15th anniversary in July 2009. For 10 years, he served as faculty adviser to Columbia's chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and won the group's "National Faculty Adviser of the Year" award in 1998 among 200 campus chapters. From 2000 to 2002, he was the founding administrator of the Online Journalism Awards, the world's largest new media contest, run by Columbia and the Online News Association (a group he helped co-found in 1998). Sree is a frequent commentator and speaker on various issues, including trends affecting journalism; technology & convergence; the Internet; writing for the Web; and South Asia & South Asians in America. He especially enjoys speaking at schools and colleges about the charms and challenges of working in the media (see more on these talks and see OJR article, "Meet Columbia's New Media Guru"). HONORS: In April 2004, he was named one of the 20 most influential South Asians in America by Newsweek magazine. In July 2007, India Abroad named him one of the 50 most influential Indians in America. In 2009, he was named one of AdAge's 25 media people to follow on Twitter and was one of 22 professors named to the "Top 100 Twitterers in Academia" by OnlineSchools.org (his Twitter feed is @sreenet). EDUCATION: Sree has a Master of Science degree in journalism from Columbia; a Bachelor of Arts in history from St. Stephen's College, Delhi; a high school diploma from Marist Brothers High School in the Fiji Islands (he also studied part of 13th[!] grade at Suva Grammar School in Fiji); a sixth-grade diploma from P.S. 6 in Manhattan; a kindergarten (or deskisat) diploma from Mosow; and a birth certificate from a Catholic hospital in Tokyo (though he'd be hard-pressed to produce any of these in a pinch). FAMILY: He lives in Manhattan with his wife, Roopa Unnikrishnan, a strategy consultant, Rhodes Scholar and world-class sports rifle shooter (and now a food blogger); and their young twins, Durga & Krishna. |
Follow @sreenet on Twitter
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| E-mail:
sree@sree.net http://www.sree.net TWITTER: @sreenet TIPS: SreeTips.com BLOG: SAJAforum WORKSHOPS/TALKS: see list Address: Prof. Sreenath Sreenivasan Dean of Students Columbia Journalism School 2950 Broadway, Room 207D New York, NY 10027 |
Some
Profiles & Interviews
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Winter 2009 | see résumé version