Public relations rag is journalistic jargon for something that looks, feels and smells like a newspaper but is actually used to further a marketing agenda and promote certain issues.
I created PRrag.com in 2006 as a blog that found issues that create a buzz and trace that buzz back to its roots. The site now serves as my personal blog and portal to the world.
For the last six years, however, I didn’t work in public relations. I was a reporter for The Boston Globe from 2006 to January 2012.
I also know how to do logo design, page layout, design standards, fliers/promotional materials, news/feature/copy writing, fiction, photo and video editing and website design.
I spent my college years as Vice President for Public Relations in the Notheastern University Student Government Association, and Director of Public Relations for the Xi-Beta Chapter of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity, where I quickly became known as “the PR guy,” doing interviews and live shots on Boston’s television networks about college issues. Greek organizations and student governments have it tough, especially in student-run media, and I worked to cultivate a more proper image for my organizations.
Midway through Northeastern, I was approached by one of my professors, a great media instructor named Gladys McKie, about starting a double degree program in Journalism and graduated in 2007 with degrees in Journalism and Criminal Justice.
I enrolled at Emerson College in 2008 in its graduate journalism program and graduated in May 2010.
I began my media career in 1997, at age 14, reviewing software and video games for SharewareJunkies, an old-school type of site. I was also a Geocities community leader, back when the Internet was still something to explore and craft out a home in. Then Yahoo! came in and bought Geocities up. Geocities was formally shut down in late 2009, but it was dead long before that.
I started up my own reviews portal, The Review Center in 1999, at 16. I supervised dozens of writers and saw through to hundreds of news articles detailing the birth of Playstation 2, the death of Dreamcast and the fall of GT Interactive Software. I sold Reviewcenter.com to Reviewcentre.com in 2004.
PRrag sprang up in 2005, when I got the itch to start writing about tech and current issues again. You can blame my yet undetermined states of ADHD, impatience and/or ambition on that one.
At midnight on January 1, 2007, Blast Magazine launched. Blast is an online news source. You can read all about it and the people that contribute to it here. The people I’ll single out are Liz Raftery and Dan Peleschuk.
I was a staff metro reporter for The Boston Globe. I also wrote for the Globe’s regional, business and lifestyle sections whenever I could.
I’m 28. I love to try new things. My part-time jobs have included one-hour photo tech, video store clerk (RIP Tommy K’s in Conn.), security guard, web designer, apprentice HVAC technician, (working for my uncle — I made dean’s list the next two semesters after that summer of manual labor) waiter, bartender, caterer, cook, messenger, mutual fund customer service representative, web producer, publicist, copywriter and substitute teacher.
Site credits:
Layout and articles: John Guilfoil
Header Image Photography: Aram Boghosian
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