Professional Activities, April-June 2019
Sigrid Bathen, Communication Studies, was the guest speaker for the California Writers Club (Sacramento area chapter) on March 1, speaking on the topic, “Magazine Writing: Then and Now, Print to Digital,” describing her experiences “then and now” as a longtime journalist who has been a writer and editor for many local and state newspapers, magazines and other media, both print and online, including the Sacramento Bee, the Los Angeles Times, California Journal, Capitol Weekly, Sacramento Magazine, California Lawyer, the American Lawyer Newspapers Group, Comstock’sMagazine,California MedicineMagazine, the Sacramento Business Journal, the California Health Care Foundation, and many others . She also recently completed a major oral-history project – a 90-minute video interview with legendary former lobbyist Clay Jackson, who for many years was one of the most prominent, highest paid lobbyists in California, and later served more than five years in federal prison following a massive “ Capitol Sting” investigation of political corruption in which many legislators, staffers, and one lobbyist were convicted on federal corruption charges. The oral-history series is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the California State Library, and is posted on the Capitol Weekly website http://capitolweekly.net/oral-history-project-clay-jackson/ Jackson had declined all interviews since his release from prison in 1999, and he was last interviewed by Bathen in prison in 1995, for a lengthy article published in the California Journal, a magazine about state politics and government where she was senior editor. That article received a first-place award for “enterprise reporting” from the Society of Professional Journalists, Central California chapter, and is linked in the oral history. https://sigridbathen.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Clay-Jackson-1.pdf And Bathen recently wrote an in-depth article for the California Health Care Foundation, which publishes a variety of online health-care media, about the accomplishments of the late Herrmann Spetzler, who for decades directed (and vastly expanded) the “Open Door” health-care clinics in rural Humboldt and Del Norte Counties, which have become a national model for effective rural health care https://www.chcf.org/blog/herrmann-spetzler-visionary-rural-clinics/ The article was recently cited by the foundation as one of its “top ten” 2018 blogs. Bathen has been an adjunct professor of Journalism and Communications at Sacramento State since 1988, and was also communications director for three state agencies.
