Hi, I'm Taryn. I'm a journalist in Minnesota. I care about explaining what's going on behind issues and trends, especially those that impact a person's quality of life. I work as a data reporter at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal and teach at the University of Minnesota journalism school. I spent the better part of the last five years as an independent journalist reporting in-depth news features for local and national outlets.
I'm working to develop as a digital journalist with skills in writing, reporting and data analysis. I want to work with others to tell big, beautiful, interactive stories that meet readers where they are. Within the last year, I've attended two workshops on investigative reporting, digital storytelling and collaboration. In each job I've held, I've gone out of my way to work closely and personally with editors, web developers, designers and visual journalists who bring ideas and expertise that make our stories better.
I started my career at the Minnesota Daily. It's an award-winning student-run publication at the University of Minnesota, where I earned a degree in journalism and sociology in 2011. I served as the Daily's editor-in-chief for 2011-12, overseeing a 70-member editorial department in charge of publishing four print editions per week and daily online news. Later, I was a quasi-projects reporter at the Bowling Green Daily News in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where I worked closely with staff photographers to tell visually focused stories that took a deeper look at issues of the day: housing, public health, economic development and higher education, among others. While on staff, I reported on conditions at two dysfunctional county-funded animal shelters. Those stories preceded systemic changes at the facilities.
While living in Washington State, and later in Minnesota, I worked as an independent reporter, contributing news stories and features on food and agriculture to Crosscut, Civil Eats and The Inlander, among others. The highlight was a feature I published with The Atlantic. In the last year, my focus pivoted to reporting for MinnPost on disparities in Minnesotans' quality of life. I also covered education policy at the Minnesota Legislature during the 2019 session.
In addition to teaching an introduction to reporting and writing at the University of Minnesota, I return each year to Kentucky to volunteer as a writing coach at Mountain Workshops, a weeklong bootcamp for visual journalists put on by Western Kentucky University's journalism program. I teach participants techniques for developing stories, interviewing for narrative and writing visually.
I was born in North Dakota, raised on or near Air Force bases on the east coast and claim Minnesota as home because it's where I met and married Ben, found my life's calling and fell in love with the outdoors. Ben and I like to travel the country to mountain bike, rock climb and backpack. Over the years, we've explored the mountains by bike, boot, crampon and snowshoe and climbed tens of thousands of feet of rock (I did the math). We recently added a trail dog to our squad.
I'm working to develop as a digital journalist with skills in writing, reporting and data analysis. I want to work with others to tell big, beautiful, interactive stories that meet readers where they are. Within the last year, I've attended two workshops on investigative reporting, digital storytelling and collaboration. In each job I've held, I've gone out of my way to work closely and personally with editors, web developers, designers and visual journalists who bring ideas and expertise that make our stories better.
I started my career at the Minnesota Daily. It's an award-winning student-run publication at the University of Minnesota, where I earned a degree in journalism and sociology in 2011. I served as the Daily's editor-in-chief for 2011-12, overseeing a 70-member editorial department in charge of publishing four print editions per week and daily online news. Later, I was a quasi-projects reporter at the Bowling Green Daily News in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where I worked closely with staff photographers to tell visually focused stories that took a deeper look at issues of the day: housing, public health, economic development and higher education, among others. While on staff, I reported on conditions at two dysfunctional county-funded animal shelters. Those stories preceded systemic changes at the facilities.
While living in Washington State, and later in Minnesota, I worked as an independent reporter, contributing news stories and features on food and agriculture to Crosscut, Civil Eats and The Inlander, among others. The highlight was a feature I published with The Atlantic. In the last year, my focus pivoted to reporting for MinnPost on disparities in Minnesotans' quality of life. I also covered education policy at the Minnesota Legislature during the 2019 session.
In addition to teaching an introduction to reporting and writing at the University of Minnesota, I return each year to Kentucky to volunteer as a writing coach at Mountain Workshops, a weeklong bootcamp for visual journalists put on by Western Kentucky University's journalism program. I teach participants techniques for developing stories, interviewing for narrative and writing visually.
I was born in North Dakota, raised on or near Air Force bases on the east coast and claim Minnesota as home because it's where I met and married Ben, found my life's calling and fell in love with the outdoors. Ben and I like to travel the country to mountain bike, rock climb and backpack. Over the years, we've explored the mountains by bike, boot, crampon and snowshoe and climbed tens of thousands of feet of rock (I did the math). We recently added a trail dog to our squad.
