Jamie Adele Gold
Jamie Adele Gold
Principal, Future Tense Consulting
Principal, Future Tense Consulting
In short
I’m an entrepreneurial editor. I work as well with words as I do with ideas, helping bring order and structure to essays and organizations. I've had experience (and fun!) collaborating with others to help great causes succeed.
Current doings
Principal, Future Tense Consulting LLC
Provide editing, writing and communications services as needed for organizations that can use common sense and the uncommon ability to say--and write--just the right thing. My years in newsrooms and in communications offices have taught me to always think of the audience, tailoring messages in smart, understandable ways.
Recent doings
Places I've worked, people I've known, things I've done.
- Researched and fact-checked articles for AARP’s Staying Sharp initiative, which gives people ways to put into action the findings of AARP’s Global Council on Brain Health.
- Spent a rewarding few years as a consulting editor and writer for The News Literacy Project, which teaches people how to think critically about what is presented as news, and shows how a free press is fundamental to our system of checks and balances. Let's hear it for greater news literacy, fewer conspiracy theories.
- Wrote and edited on a consulting basis for AARP Public Policy Institute’s Center to Champion Nursing in America. Everyone sees a nurse but few realize how important the profession is to America’s health.
- Helped spread word of the great work of the Fund for Investigative Journalism by summarizing the findings of the dedicated reporters who earned FIJ grants for the end of the year report.
- Helped build Reingold's editorial department: This fast-growing communications firm went from 40 to 240 employees in just a few years. As the second editor hired in its early years, I helped build the systems to manage the growth, and helped lead an editorial staff of 12. Was senior writer and editor on projects improving the lives of veterans, raising U.S. standards of education, and promoting other valuable causes. In a town of abbreviations, we spelled things out. Remember the federal plain language guidelines (https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/) ? We did.
- AARP Public Policy Institute: senior writer and editor, surrounded by PhDs with good intentions and great results.
- Los Angeles Times: readers' representative, liaison between the public and newsroom on matters of accuracy and fairness.
- San Diego Union-Tribune: editor, Getting Involved page; copy editor, features and news.
- San Diego Cares, a volunteer corps: founding executive director, then board member after we hired my successor.
- KOGO News Radio: news writer, morning show producer.
- Washington Post: dropped out of college to continue what had started as part-time work in a newsroom filled with driven, brilliant journalists and Ben Bradlee’s creative tension (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ben-bradlee-transformed-the-post-through-his-commitment-to-truth/2014/10/21/7e604cd8-435f-11e4-b437-1a7368204804_story.html) .
- Arizona State University: graduated with an English lit degree while working in my third newsroom, the San Diego U-T.
- The University of Virginia: left after one semester because it was too Greek to me.
Laurels (not that I'm resting)
- After making the leap from newsroom to communications as an editor at the fast-growing communications firm Reingold, I created a system by which our small but mighty editorial team could maintain high standards while meeting deadlines. I quashed jargon. I also guided a project on news coverage of mental illness, efforts that ended up reflected in the Associated Press Stylebook.
- As readers’ representative at the L.A. Times, I learned the truth of the hostile media phenomenon, practiced reflective listening, and built a structure for the new readers’ rep office that made communications among hundreds of journalists and millions of readers easier and more public. Being at the intersection of the Fourth and Fifth estates was tough but gratifying.
- After editing countless stories about struggles and disparities, I took a hiatus from journalism to get hands-on involved in nonpartisan matters. As founding executive director of San Diego Cares, I filled a need by making it easier for busy professionals to volunteer, connecting some 1,400 people with dozens of social service agencies.
Plaudits
From the communications world
In working with Jamie for more than three years, I relied on her intellectual integrity, outstanding editing skills, journalism experience, and management capabilities to bring consistency and excellence to all writing produced at our rapidly growing communications firm. She left a lasting legacy in systems and staff capabilities that continues to improve our work.
Barbara Wells, executive vice president of editorial, Reingold
From the nonprofit associations world
As a former AP newswoman, I will get right to the point: Jamie Gold is an awesome writer and editor. Solid in all ways that are relevant here. I’ve worked with Jamie in both a staff capacity at AARP, with Jamie as my senior writer and editor, and then with Jamie freelancing for that same healthcare-related project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Jamie was masterful in both roles. She independently figures out the large and small (but highly important) details; she is a strong, clear writer with excellent research and fact-checking abilities (no detail escapes her attention). She is fast and never misses deadlines. She is reliable, and I would enthusiastically endorse her among the top writers and editors I’ve worked with over three decades.
Mary Boyle, director of communications, the Center to Champion Nursing in America; director of digital strategy, AARP Public Policy Institute
From the journalism world
Jamie was the liaison between the newsroom and readers on questions of accuracy, fairness and bias, a job that requires an enormous amount of diplomatic and analytical skill. She is highly organized and has a keen ability to set priorities in a fast-paced environment. She is thoughtful and passionate when it comes to issues of fairness and transparency, and she excelled at helping us be accountable to our professional standards.
Russ Stanton, editor and executive vice president, L.A. Times 2008-2011; now senior executive, G.F. Bunting + Co.
Find me
Copyright 2017