Sandy Hooper, 35

Deputy Managing Editor, Visuals, USA TODAY

Education: Bachelor of Fine Arts, Photography, Savannah College of Art and Design; Master of Arts, Broadcast Journalism, Boston University

What advice do you have for other young professionals in the news industry?

Stay curious! Be involved in your community and have a hobby outside of work. Not only will you give yourself a positive work-life balance, but you’ll be surprised by how many interesting ideas will germinate from your everyday encounters. Take those ideas and look at how they could fit into larger narrative themes across the country. I guarantee you’ll become a fountain of great story ideas, and you’ll have a healthy life outside of work.

Are you overloaded or burned out? Don’t be afraid to speak up to your manager or someone you trust in your newsroom. Now more than ever, newsrooms are taking stock of their employee’s mental health due to stressors such as covering traumatic events and newsroom reductions.

Take your PTO.

How can we, as an industry, better use video to cover our local communities?

First, you have to know your community and how they consume news. Los Angeles will be wildly different from Evansville, so become close with the data and audience teams to find out what kind of video engages with your audience and where. More than likely your video audience is consuming news in a scrolling manner, and (to the visual teams’ benefit) those apps are rich visual platforms.

Also, don’t take your audience’s intelligence for granted. You should think about having a healthy mix of longer-form video journalism and shortform cuts, but think about what platform is appropriate for publishing (think Youtube vs. Youtube Shorts).

For the visual journalists in the newsroom, talk to your newsroom peers. What stories are they working on?

Don’t wait for an assignment to come to you. What stories do you have that you could pitch to an editor or a reporter? Collaborate and help shape a newsroom that values visual journalism because quality storytelling will build authentic relationships with the community whose story you’re telling.