Q&A with Sabrina Ortiz of ZDNET

Sabrina Ortiz is an associate editor at ZDNET, where she covers the intersection of technology and daily life. She is a 2022 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, studying journalism and political science. In this interview, conducted by email, Ortiz discusses her work at ZDNET and offers career advice for journalism students.

Q. Describe your job at ZDNET. What is your typical day like?

A. Like a lot of workplaces post-pandemic, at ZDNET we have a hybrid work schedule. I work in the New York City office Tuesday-Thursday and spend my Mondays and Fridays at home.

Therefore, my workdays look very different depending where I am working. If I am working from home, I roll out of bed and hop on my computer and start my 9-5. On days I work at the office, I wake up hours earlier to get ready for the day, commute about an hour into work and get to the office about 30 minutes early to start answering emails and get the day going.

In terms of what to expect, I work on the news team, and every day is something new. When I log on, the first thing I do is check my inbox, which is usually flooded with PR emails and pitches.

Then I answer the ones that are of interest and move on to see if I have been pinged by my editors to cover a specific story. If not, I proceed by checking Twitter for news on my beats, which have become NASA or Tesla.

I usually have at least one news hit to write as soon as I get into the office and go through all of those avenues, but sometimes I am working on a longer form, feature story that I dedicate my attention to instead. 

Q. What do you find most interesting about the tech beat?

A. In all honesty, I was quite scared when I first learned about my assignment. Although I have always thought tech was “cool,” for lack of a better word, I always felt that the space was reserved for STEM people who understood the inner workings and technical details of the subject.

When I started working, I realized that couldn’t be the furthest from the truth! In the day and age we live in, technology surrounds us at all times. You yourself are a tech expert of sorts by simply using these innovations every day. 

Do I sometimes run into things I have absolutely no idea about? Absolutely, but that’s the best part of my job! Because I lack the technical knowledge on some subjects, when I research and learn a new concept, I am able to put that information into words that everyone can understand. I like the idea that through my job I can make technology less scary to all and learn at the same time.  

Q. How do editing and headline writing work at ZDNET?

A. The news team at ZDNET has its own editing protocols, which involve different rounds of editing. Typically, I write my article and send it to my direct manager. After making the necessary edits, she publishes the article and notifies the copy desk. The copy editors focus on adding the bells and whistles such as editing for SEO, adding links and fixing any glaring errors we may have missed.

The headline writing is really left to the writer. When I write an article, I try to think of a headline that is short and clever. Of course, that is easier said than done.

Whenever I am feeling stuck, I ping my manager or one of the other editors for help. Usually, I just stick to my headline and send it with the rest of my article to my manager for review, and she’ll either keep it or modify it. I can’t tell if I have gotten good at headlines, or if my manager is just the best, which she is, but my headlines usually make the end product that goes live on the website. 

Q. What advice do you have for journalism students as they pursue internships and jobs?

A. As cliche as both things I am going to say are going to sound, network, network, network and take Andy Bechtel’s editing class. 

I would have never been in the position I am now at ZDNET if it weren’t for networking. I need to clarify that networking doesn’t just mean reaching out to professionals on LinkedIn, but also just talking to your friends. 

One day, before class, I was talking to my friend about her post-graduation plans when she told me about the wonderful company she had interned for, loved and was going to work for full-time. It was through that conversation that I learned about Red Ventures, ZDNET’s parent company. I then reached out to my friend’s recruiter on LinkedIn, applied and got the job! Network, network, network! 

The second piece of advice is to take an editing class, preferably Andy Bechtel’s MEJO 557 News Editing course. In the name of transparency, I took the course because I had heard good feedback from my classmates about the course and the professor, not because I had ANY interest in editing.

As a matter of fact, I hated editing. My mindset was that if I took enough writing and reporting classes, my writing skills would be clean, without the need of me learning how to edit. I was wrong. 

By learning the ins and outs of editing, you automatically become wired to look at any written work differently. I will warn you, you may pick at everything you read for the rest of your life, but the good thing is that you will pick at your own writing as well, and you will perfect it.

Read examples of Sabrina Ortiz’s work at ZDNET and follow her on Twitter.