Dan Oshinsky

I'm Dan Oshinsky, a reporter, entrepreneur, lover of start-ups, frequent troublemaker and creator of really awesome stuff.

Hi. I’m Dan, and I’m a reporter, entrepreneur, lover of start-ups, frequent troublemaker and creator of awesome stuff. Not to bury the lede or anything, but I also really like stories. My current focus is Stry.us [pronounced STOHR-ee], a nimble news startup I founded in 2010. Right now, I’m leading a team of six on a summer-long reporting project in the Ozarks. In 2011-12, I grew Stry.us through my work as a Reynolds Fellow out at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. I’m also the creator of BooksAround, a social literacy experiment; JStart, a wiki of resources for entrepreneurial journalists; and Very Quotatious, a site for inspiration, thought and other wisdom suitable for quotation. This is the part of the about me section where I tell you that, yes, I am tall, but no, I do not play basketball. I, Dan Oshinsky, also do not know what the weather is like up here.

Digital media producer at KENS-TV

June 2009 - June 2010

I worked at the CBS affiliate in San Antonio, where my bosses asked me to create great content and then promote the hell out of it. So I wrote a weekly column about the San Antonio Spurs and landed on ESPN Radio in New York to talk about Tony Parker. I spent weekends photographing my misadventures in deep fried bacon at the local rodeo. I created the daily deals character @alanmoe, which was a semi-public flop. I wrote the station's first stylebook, learned the difference between a two-alarm and a three-alarm fire and found out that people get really, really upset when their soaps get rescheduled. I was also part of a team that increased traffic on our site by 380 percent during my tenure.

Multimedia freelance journalist at Rocky Mountain News

July 2008 - August 2008

My first venture into the world of no-safety-net journalism. I spent two months in Beijing covering the 2008 Summer Olympics, and I anchored the Rocky's online coverage. I wrote close to 50,000 words about everything ranging from giant statues of Yao Ming to impromptu recitals of the Gettysburg Address to my near deportation to complications involving the word dong. My writing was hailed by a Denver alt-weekly as "charmingly wide-eyed" and "a welcome bit of mirth." (http://bit.ly/rvdBSF)

Intern at Many, many places

August 2002 - August 2007

I interned at States News Service (2003), the Nantucket Independent (2004), the Business Gazette of Montgomery County, Md. (2005), the Washington Examiner (2006) and CBS News Radio (2007). I got my start in reporting as a stringer for The Sports Network (2002-2007), first covering the Washington Redskins, and later, the Washington Nationals.

Founder at Stry.us

July 2010

Stry.us (pronounced STOHR-ee) is a hyper-topical news bureau that produces long-form, original stories. I'm the guy behind it. It started out as a crazy three-month-long reporting assignment in Biloxi, Miss., covering the five-year anniversary of Katrina. Then it just kept going as I tried/struggled/flailed in the business-building process. I continued to grow Stry.us out at the University of Missouri's School of Journalism, working as an Reynolds Fellow for the 2011-12 year. In May 2012, Stry.us launched its second bureau in Springfield, Mo., this time with a reporting team of six and a small group of news partners -- for both publishing and live events.

University of Missouri-Columbia

2005 – 2009

Bachelor