Entertainment Weekly Senior Writer Geoff Boucher took the microphone Journalism Day on Tuesday to share with students his eccentric reporting experiences, from interviews with Brad Pitt and Dick Cheney to his first day on the job as a 21-year-old Los Angeles Times intern.
The theme of this year’s Journalism Day, held in the University Student Union ballrooms and organized by the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications, was “The Best of Times: Don’t Believe Everything You Read About Writing Careers.”
Boucher, a graduate from the University of Florida, was eager to talk to the Cal State Long Beach students and faculty about how he discovered his passion for entertainment.
“Pop culture was something that I always loved,” Boucher said. “I loved comic books. I saw every movie and every television show. I saw Star Wars 13 times.”
However, his writing career took him elsewhere. Boucher spent more than two decades covering crime and politics for the LA Times, during which he spent time aboard Air Force Two with former United States Vice President Dick Cheney.
Despite spending such a large part of his career covering hard news stories, in 2008 he took a risk and started a blog, Hero Complex, about comic books.
“The first year, it [Hero Complex] got two million hits, second it got nine million, and by the fourth it had over 60 million,” Boucher said. The “secret sauce,” as Boucher described it, which led to his blog’s success was a combination of his training as a professional writer with die-hard fan knowledge.
Junior journalism major Wendy Menjivar said she laughed and enjoyed the keynote speaker’s stories, but it was the lessons that he talked about that stuck with her the most.
“He wasn’t afraid to take risks,” Menjivar said, “and that really made me motivated to do more.”
The audience thanked Boucher with a loud round of applause as he exited the ballrooms and welcomed three panelists for a discussion on “How I Got That Job.”
UC Berkeley alumna and writer for the Daily Pilot Jill Cowan, 2008 CSULB alumnus and multimedia journalist Robert Meeks and 2001 CSULB alumna and entrepreneur Jennifer Newton all spoke about and answered questions on their paths from college to professional jobs in journalism and mass communications.
“You’re at a great advantage at [CSULB] because it [journalism] is such a practical program,” Newton said. “They don’t teach you theoretical stuff; they teach you the skills you need. That’s why I was able to start at an entry-level job, write press releases with strong AP style and was able to understand how to be professional about situations.”
Journalism Day ended with an awards ceremony honoring high achieving students in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications as well as recipients of scholarships.