Meet the Herald Part 2:
Oct. 12—Back in September, we began introducing the members of our team to our readers, starting with the administrative team. Today, we continue with the editorial department. Lots of people read the news every day. But who are the people who write it? Here's a look at the names and faces behind the stories.
Cheryl Schweizer
cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com
Cheryl Schweizer was born and raised in Burns, Oregon, an area she describes as sagebrush and not much else.
When it came time for her to decide on a career, Schweizer said she was interested in pursuing a photojournalism career but realized she may do well as a full fledged journalist so that's what she did.
Schweizer got her education at Treasure Valley Community College before earning her Bachelor's in Journalism at Oregon State University.
Her experience includes work for the Omak-Okanogan County Chronicle, the Quad City Herald in Brewster and the Burns Times Herald in her hometown. She started with the Columbia Basin Herald in 2012, making this year her 10-year anniversary.
Schweizer said she has two things she likes most about journalism, the first being that every day is different. She likes that from one day to the next she could be interviewing one person about their business and the next day talking to another person about traffic engineering. She said the second thing she likes is that everyone has a story to tell.
Something interesting about Schweizer is that she has an interest in fashion. She said she enjoys sewing and making her own clothes and the challenges that come with it.
She said she strives to be as accurate and fair as possible in her reporting. She recounted a story that has stuck with her. The story tells of a son, who was a novel writer, telling his father, who was a journalist, that you know you've done your job right if you are getting yelled at by both sides. The father corrected the son saying that you know you've done your job right when people come to you and say "While I may not agree with what someone else said, I got a fair hearing."
Schweizer covers Quincy, Mattawa, Othello and the Moses Lake School District.
Charles H. Featherstone
cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com
Charles Featherstone's journalistic career has taken him all over the place, and working for all different kinds of publications.
"I started out my career working for a tiny little African-American community newspaper in San Francisco," Featherstone said. "It was a fascinating job."
He left that job for other opportunities that committed him to life as a reporter for some time.
"My first real job in journalism was with the Khaleej Times newspaper in the United Arab Emirates," Featherstone said.
After his time in the UAE, Featherstone moved halfway across the world to the Herald Journal in Logan, Utah. He then graduated from the masters program in Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
"I worked in D.C. as a reporter for a while, and covered Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That was for an outfit that is long since defunct. Which is a pity — it was a good job."
BridgeNews was a wire service, providing its customers with information about commodities and agriculture policy.
"And I worked for an oil industry publication as an editor. The Oil Daily," he said. "And then I took a detour to seminary for the better part of a decade."
Featherstone got back into journalism when he joined the staff of the Columbia Basin Herald in 2016.
His journalistic philosophy has changed over time, he said. As a young reporter, he thought journalism was only about telling the truth, but learned it also involves being fair while being informative. And coming to Moses Lake, he wasn't sure how long he and his wife Jennifer planned to stay.
"Jennifer and I have decided to settle here," he said. "I am becoming more comfortable as someone who actually lives and resides here, as opposed to 'I'm passing through.' But I still think it is important to try to be as accurate and fair as possible."
Featherstone covers Moses Lake, Warden, Wilson Creek and business, as well as hosting the Herald's weekly podcast, "Studio Basin."
Joel Martin
jmartin@columbiabasinherald.com
There isn't much Joel Martin hasn't done in his 25 years at the Columbia Basin Herald.
"I came on in 1997. As a part-time proofreader," said Martin, 54. "I went from there to scheduling advertising traffic, and then paste-up, which I did for seven years."
When that job was computerized, Martin became the special sections editor, ran the Columbia Basin Herald's website and designed pages for the newspaper, all the while continuing to work unofficially as a proofreader and now as reporter in between laying out and proofing pages.
"That's the ninth official position I've held," Martin said. "Along with a fair number of unofficial hats."
Because of that vast experience, Martin said he has come to see the Columbia Basin Herald as a vital and essential hub of the community.
"This is where the community comes together. We are an information source and we are central to Moses Lake and the Basin. I love this town and I love this area, and I like being part of its information center," he said.
Martin, a married father of eight, said he also appreciates working for the Columbia Basin Herald because it has been very supportive of employees and their families.
"I was a single dad when I came to work here, so it was not uncommon for me to have to dash off when school would call with a child emergency, or there'd be a concert or a play," he said. "The Herald was very accommodating about that."
Despite all he's done, Martin said he's still getting used to his latest job, since he doesn't have the formal credentials that most reporters have when they are hired.
"Of all the things I've done here, reporting is just not one of them. I've been a writer and I've been an editor but I've never actually been a reporter," he said. "My job was always bullying reporters in the past."
Martin covers Royal City and George, as well as editing obituaries and designing magazines and special sections.
Rebecca Pettingill
rpettingill@columbiabasinherald.com
Rebecca Pettingill developed her passion for journalism early. A native of Zillah, in the Yakima Valley, Pettingill was working at a McDonald's the summer before her senior year of high school when a co-worker told her about a program the Yakima Herald-Republic offered. One student from each high school was invited to intern at the Herald-Republic and learn the basics of reporting, writing and photojournalism from local working professionals. She loved it so much that when she went off to Eastern Washington University in Cheney, she immediately made a beeline for the journalism department.
Pettingill graduated in 2020 and was immediately snapped up by the Quincy Valley Post-Register, where she honed her skills until September 2021, when she joined the news team at the Columbia Basin Herald.
"I feel like a lot of people will look at me and think, 'Oh, she's just a kid' or 'Oh, she's just a millennial,'" Pettingill said. "But I feel like people are kind of underestimating journalists my age. We're really driven. We want to make a difference in our communities."
Pettingill covers Coulee City, Soap Lake and Ephrata.
Ian Bivona
ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com
As sports reporter at the CBH, Ian Bivona said he likes to tell stories about athletes and the sports they play, because there's also something more — something a little bit more interesting — going on behind the scenes.
"You can look at sports and see, oh, it's just a game," said Bivona. "You can look at the final score, but there's always another story there."
Whether it's an athlete coming to a new school, making a state record or striving to earn a scholarship so they can make a better life, Bivona said there are stories behind the ball snaps, passes, pitches, tip-offs or track heats that makes athletics compelling.
"There's always a story underneath the story of the final score of a game," he said.
Bivona comes to the CBH with a journalism degree from Auburn University in Alabama and chose to come work in Eastern Washington because it isn't the densely populated Northern Virginia he grew up in.
Bivona said being a big, southern university with a huge athletics department gave him plenty of opportunities to hone skills on all sorts of sports, though he's partial to football — Auburn holds two national championship titles — and basketball.
"I'm a big football fan," he said. "I grew up watching football pretty much anytime it was on with my dad. We'd do that every Sunday, we'd go and watch the Jets."
Bivona covers sports for 12 high schools in the Basin, as well as Big Bend Community College. He also co-hosts the Herald's podcast "Studio Basin."
