When I joined KUSI News in 2002, the station still reflected its unusual origins. McKinnon Broadcasting Company had acquired the outlet from United States International University and retooled it into a commercial news station serving all of San Diego County. In television’s early years, the market offered only a handful of stations; by the late 1990s, cable expanded the dial, multiplying channels and amplifying the reach and resources of corporate-owned outlets. By the time I arrived, independents like KUSI were few and far between, fighting uphill against well-funded media giants.
Inside the art department, the constraints were evident. The media tools inherited from USIU had run their course, and the station’s web presence was little more than a still image listing news showtimes and a contact number. Production was limited, and the graphics package lacked the polish of corporate competitors.
On the first Friday in September of 2001, KUSI hired me as a freelance artist. During the interview, the creative director, aware of my background in web design, asked me to review a pilot website the station had contracted out for a popular high school football show. I noted that the design was overly simple for the cost and offered to redesign it. He agreed.
Over the weekend, I built and delivered a fully functional prototype by the start of my first day. Based on the strength of the result, the station owner changed my role from part-time freelancer to a full-time staff artist within the Creative Services promotional department.
Once on staff, I saw several opportunities to modernize the art department. Both the Quantel Paintbox and the Grass Valley edit bay relied on costly hardware tied to outdated software, which made them difficult to use, poorly supported, and slow to update. We replaced the Paintbox with Adobe Photoshop, significantly reducing training time, and converted the edit bay to an Avid non-linear system, where edits could finally be tracked visually on screen. These changes gave the art department the speed and flexibility to meet the demands of a fast-paced newsroom.
At the same time, I introduced forward-looking strategies. I recommended using website metrics alongside Nielsen ratings to better measure audience engagement. I also advised expanding field reporters to cover community-specific events in our newscasts, setting KUSI apart from competitors that relied heavily on common wire services.
To ensure the station’s on-air look kept pace with industry trends, I also refreshed the graphics package four times during my tenure. Each redesign modernized the visual identity and reinforced KUSI’s credibility in a crowded market.
The impact was immediate. The art department became faster, more efficient, and versatile, producing high-quality work across news, graphics, and promotions. Over time, I advanced to Art Director and earned numerous awards, reflecting both the transformation of creative services and the caliber of the work we produced.
