This husband-and-wife tabloid reporting team, by their own account part of the "vermin media," chased down headline stories for the Star, National Enquirer and the Globe and would "do anything" to get a story. Here they reveal how they raced in a hot-air balloon to crash the Liz Taylor-Larry Fortensky wedding, how they rooted through garbage and empty hotel rooms for evidence of hanky-panky, and how they rushed to interview disaster victims and their families.
David LaFontaine has more than 20 years experience as a journalist, editor, and multimedia producer working on a variety of projects in film, television, print, radio, and the Internet.
He is a partner in Artesian Media, Inc., an international multimedia consulting firm, and an expert in content and business strategy on the mobile media.
Dave is the coauthor of "iPhone & iPad Web Design For Dummies," and "Mobile Web Design For Dummies." Dave manages a diverse range of consulting projects including helping companies develop mobile web strategies, training journalists and bloggers how to shoot, edit, and post online video, and helping media executives find a path to monetizing online content.
An experience journalist and researcher, Dave served as the Managing Editor of the "Audience Planbook," for the Newspaper Association of America, and has produced a series of case studies for the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), and the Online Journalism Review (OJR).
His blog posts and irreverent sense of humor can be found on Sips from the Fire Hose and The Mobile Web Design Blog.
His foray into "New Media" began in 1998, when he co-founded the Single Parent Magazine. He also worked as Managing Editor for Filmson.com, a film and video Web site that helped shape the evolution of streaming media.
From 2000 to 2002, Dave worked on a 2-year investigative project for ABC's PrimeTime. Over the past several years, he has studied and experimented with the best methods of combining audio, video, still photos, and plain old text to capture and retain modern readers.
In the early 90s, David covered politics and entertainment in Los Angeles, writing for a variety of publications, including Star Magazine, News of the World, Daily People, Oggi, Voici, Bild Zeitung, Hello, New Idea, and Women's Weekly. That experience led him to write a tell-all book called The Poison Pen, which was published by Dove Books in 1996.
Prior to that, David was the managing editor of the Caracas Daily Journal and then freelanced stories from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, El Salvador, and Guatemala. He speaks fluent Spanish and worked as an editor and reporter in Latin America for nearly three years. David won a Pulliam Fellowship that helped him start his career at the Arizona Republic in 1987.
David's interest in online communications dates back to the early days of Prodigy and 2400 baud modems.
