Sam-Omar Hall Email & Phone Number

Greater Los Angeles Area

The Open California Oral History Project seeks to record the stories of significant figures in California politics. As a researcher, I've delved into the histories of our subjects, highlighting key moments in their lives. I have worked primarily on three oral histories: former Federal Judge Thelton Henderson, former Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, and an oral history on the Oroville Dam Crisis of February 2017.

Berkeley, Ca

At Berkeley Journalism, I studied under top journalists, improving my storytelling skills. At Berkeley I had the chance to cover stories in print and photo, but also in video and audio. I contributed to the North Gate Radio program on KALX, as well as to the Oakland North hyper-local website. A key aspect of our time at Berkeley is collaboration, and I have many instances of successfully working with classmates, whether investigating a quirky mystery in San Francisco, or covering the Democratic primary election in Elko, Nevada. My thesis project was "End of the Road" — a long-form article exploring freeway removal in Oakland.

San Francisco Bay Area

In 2015 the non-profit group Freelancers Union launched a nation-wide series of meet-ups aimed at educating and connecting freelancers. I got involved with the San Francisco chapter and quickly became a co-organizer. My main duties with the SF Freelancers Union chapter was facilitating the monthly meet-ups, which focused on themes such as personal branding, taxes, and work-life balance.Building on my teaching experience, I created specialized materials and interesting activities to appeal to an audience of freelancers. I strove to create "magic moments," where attendees were learning, having fun, and connecting with each other at the same time.

Sacramento, California Area

My main duties at Capital Public Radio involved working with the Politifact California reporter on fact-checking stories. I identified possible fact-checks, and wrote memos on those that looked promising. At CPR I also covered breaking news, shadowed reporters in the field, and learned internal systems.

San Francisco Bay Area

MUrgency is a startup that aims to bring prompt ambulance service to the developing world, through an app. I worked directly with CEO Shaffi Mather during the early stages of this project, advising him on branding and messaging, while also producing content online and on social media.Content, social media, brand, messaging.

Newsela is a startup that allows students to read news articles customized to their reading levels. As a contributing editor, I edited news articles from a variety of publications into five different versions — from high school to elementary levels.

Taoyuan City, Taiwan

As an English teacher in Taiwan, I worked hard to keep my students engaged. I also studied conversational Chinese.

In my first teaching job, I quickly realized I had an aptitude and a passion for teaching. I constantly strove to develop materials and activities to engage my students, who ranged from age 13 to adult. Depending on their age and interests, I would craft customized lessons to connect with my students.I took many things away from my years in classrooms in Morocco: lessons on leadership, on the English language. Most of all I discovered what I call "magical moments," those times when people are having fun, learning, and connecting with each other — all at the same time. At the American Language Center, Fes, I was also the co-founder and editor of Student Voice, a newspaper featuring writing and other creative output from students.

The Legislative Reference Bureau is the non-partisan library of the Wisconsin Legislature. It holds the legislature's archives, including draft histories of bills, legislative reports, and historical laws. I had two main duties. The first was to serve as a reference librarian, helping people conduct research into legislative history. The second duty was as an analyst, writing memos on significant bills under consideration, and helping to compile the Blue Book — the bible of Wisconsin politics.

I worked with the city desk, writing briefs and stories and helping senior reporters with research tasks.

As editor-in-chief it was my responsibility to ensure the continued high-quality production of a newspaper which dates back to 1892. This involved being in the office six days a week, supervising a staff of a dozen editors and more than 200 staff including reporters, photographers and graphic artists.Perhaps the most crucial duty of the editor-in-chief (along with the managing editor) was putting "last eyes" on the paper each night. We would read every word of the paper, double-checking every date and page number. After making any corrections, we would send the PDFs to our printer. As editor-in-chief I spearheaded a special three-day section entitled "Are you Safe?" in response to a crime wave on campus. This front-page series made waves on campus, reminding students that everyone must remain vigilant. Finally, I am proud to say that my tenure as editor-in-chief was drama-free, thanks in part to my leadership style, which focused 100% on the mission at hand — "making a paper" — and working hard to get along with all of my editors and staff.

In the fall of 2007 when I arrived in Madison, Wisconsin I didn't know a soul. But within a month I had wandered into the basement offices of The Daily Cardinal newspaper and found my people.As soon as I stepped in the door, I was given a red pen and put to work on the copy desk. Soon I was writing campus and city stories. The Cardinal is a learning institution and I worked with the campus editor to refine my skills in news writing and AP style.Soon, I took over the newly created state desk. As the first full-term editor of the state desk I built it into a strong section of the paper, recruiting and training five writers, and regularly contributing state stories to the news hole. I took pride in sitting down with my writers, and editing with them, helping them to tell their stories more clearly, with a minimum of waste. Finally, in my senior year, in a contested election, I was voted into the editor-in-chief job by the staff.

Master'S Degree, Journalism

B.A., Journalism

Activities and Societies: The Daily Cardinal student newspaperI made a paper at The Daily Cardinal newspaper.