Thank you for visiting my portfolio Web site. I am a journalist with a graduate degree from the University of South Florida St Petersburg and I am happy to have this chance to tell you a little about myself.

First of all, this Web site has very little to do with dogs. Bulldog Journalist is a nick name one of my professors has given me after I wrote a series of stories for the USF St Petersburg newspaper "righting the wrongs" of the Student Government's actions. That professor is Dr. Mike Killenberg and the nick name has been the best praise I have ever received.

That nick name inspired me to choose the path in the field. I am an aggressive detail-oriented multi-lingual hard-news reporter who is trained to work on all four platforms of the media. I indeed have been "ink-stained" working for the University's newspaper "The Crow's Nest" and one of the area's biggest newspapers the Tampa Tribune. I have been "lens-blinded"working with the news team for the local NBC affiliate NewsChannel-8, doing the investigative reporting with Mark Douglas and going on daily stories with the news crews. So I am very familiar with digital non-linear editing (GrassValley).

I broke a couple of stories for www.tbo.com which puts me into "the world of 1s and 0s." I also designed this Web site myself using Joomla! and the principles of XHTML and CSS editing.

Actually all that heroic journalism was a part of my long (almost eight months) internship with the Channel-8. I am thrilled to mention that I have never been sent to Starbucks but my former news producers trusted my news judgment enough to let me cover stories on my own (like the Roache's decapitation case) and break stories too (like in case with the new city ordinance story, I was at the council meeting for educational purposes and simply called the editor asking if he wanted the story. Needless to say, he did!). 

The "flash-struck" part includes my attempts of modeling and shooting but I have hardly been serious about the modeling part despite all the offers.

Before you ask, I am Russian. Born and raised in Lipetsk, Russia, I am now a Florida resident, married to a Quincy, Mass. native (go, Red Sox!) My husband is an IT consultant for Dell, Inc. I am very grateful to him for all his support and encouragement during the years of studying, reporting and investigating. 

All these and other professional achievements of mine are located under various pages of this Web project as shown at the main menu on the top of the page.

Thank you for your attention!

Galina Tishchenko