My name is Emilyn Mohebbi and I am a journalist following my dreams in San Diego, California.
I am a freelance producer for KPBS Midday Edition, formerly the assistant news producer for KPBS Evening Edition. My professional experience includes work at NBC 7 San Diego as a story producer, and a newsroom shadow at BBC World News. News, writing and public speaking are three of my passions. Growing up, I always knew I wanted a career in the news industry, because I love the meaning behind storytelling. News is to inform, and I love being able to be an informative source to my community, to keep everyone up to date on what is going on around us.
Education
I graduated from San Diego State University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism, in December 2019. I chose journalism as my major to fulfill my career goal of becoming a news producer and reporter, covering local news.
Since I graduated from SDSU, I have taken an online course through Harvard University’s online program, HarvardX. The course that I completed was offered by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, called “Citizen Politics in America: Public Opinion, Elections, Interest Groups, and the Media.” I received a verified certificate of completion.
Experience
My extensive knowledge and experiences in the broadcast news industry have prepared me for entering the field of news; and everyday I am learning something new.
As a freelance producer for KPBS Midday Edition, I pitch segment ideas, write web stories, coordinate and conduct interviews with guests, and produce/edit audio segments.
As the former assistant news producer at KPBS, I pitched story ideas, edited videos for broadcast news and wrote stories, all for the weekday Evening Edition newscasts.
As a former story producer at NBC 7 San Diego, I also pitched story ideas, wrote stories for broadcast news, edited videos, stacked shows, and produced shorter newscasts called “cut-ins.” I was hired as the News and Digital intern at NBC 7 San Diego during my final semester at SDSU. After interning at NBC 7 San Diego for a month, that’s when I was hired as a part-time story producer.
As the producer of “cut-ins” at NBC 7 San Diego, I chose what local stories were newsworthy, the order I wanted them aired– giving the show a flow that makes sense to viewers, and boothed the shows by cueing the anchors, meteorologists and traffic reporters based on the live network timing. I also got to use my news judgment to choose newsworthy content for the NBC weekend morning shows. Some other opportunities that I had at NBC 7 San Diego, were having my stories published online as digital articles, and having my story ideas broadcasted during multiple newscasts.
Another experience that I had during college was shadowing the Languages department at BBC World News in London, England. I got to shadow the department that gathers news content from other countries. While in London for my BBC trip, I also took a one-day on-air training course at London’s Three Mills Studios. There I learned about script writing, directing, being an on-air talent and editing video footage.
I have also volunteered countless hours at KPBS (prior to my current position), where I had the opportunity to assist in answering donor phone calls on the set of live television and radio fundraising broadcasts.
I also have experience in the social media and digital field. I previously was a social community manager for Skylum Software; a photo-editing software company for Apple products. I would create content for their social media platforms and website, run promotions and contests online, write daily blogs and engage with clients to maximize exposure.
Favorite Quote
One of my favorite quotes is, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken,” by Oscar Wilde. I love this quote because it emphasizes the importance of being yourself. This quote represents my personality and work in the journalism industry, because I want to create a brand of my own that is different than any other journalist out there.
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
-Oscar Wilde
