"It's never been a better time to be a good journalist, says Bria Overs, a CSUDH alumna, award-winning reporter, and former editor of the campus newspaper The Bulletin. It's also never been harder to build a successful career in a shrinking industry plagued by hyper-partisanship, layoffs, and increasing competition.

At 27, Overs has already seen first-hand the devastation caused by mass layoffs. She worked through the turbulent years of the global COVID-19 pandemic. She's also seen how each wave of new reporters competes for fewer and fewer available jobs.

"Every graduation season, I get a bit antsy," she says. "It's like the next generation is already coming for my job. That's not a bad thing. It's exciting that they are still interested and that they still want to do this job."

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1996 and raised in Los Angeles, Overs now lives in Washington, DC, with her partner Alex, also a CSUDH alum. Earlier this year, she became a business reporter for The Baltimore Banner, a digital platform for local news that aims to be "an indispensable resource that strengthens, unites and inspires our Baltimore community," according to the publication's website.

Overs grew up in a home where local news was always on the TV, and channeled that into her role as news anchor in her middle school and high school's broadcast news classes. But it was exposure to The Union, El Camino College's award-winning student newspaper, and her observations about the 2016 presidential election, that made her pivot toward a career in print and online journalism.

"That was such an interesting time for journalism," she says. "I felt like everyone was reading and watching. We all had our eyes on good journalism, features, and news clips. We experienced a digital media boom."

Overs transferred to CSUDH in 2017 and headed to the offices of The Bulletin, which she was convinced she could transform. "It didn't have an official website," she says. "I felt the print version could be focused a bit more on hard news rather than on events happening on campus."

Nancy Cheever, a professor and journalism coordinator in CSUDH's communications department, served as the department chair during Overs' time on campus. She worked closely with Overs during her tenure as editor in chief of The Bulletin to give the newspaper its own web domain.

"Bria did really well in that role," Cheever says. "She was one of those students who was intuitive and precise, and very inquisitive. She also had such an easy way about her. People just opened up and talked to her."

Her journalism professors created an environment where Overs could thrive. "They were very invested in me, and I was clearly invested in the department," says Overs, who singles out Catherine Risling, an adjunct professor.

"She's just an amazing professor. Her signature thing is that she marks up your papers in a sea of red, and it's overwhelming to see at first," Overs says. "I loved talking to her about journalism. She made me a really good writer and editor for The Bulletin."

Overs graduated in 2018 and worked as a freelance writer at the Los Angeles Wave, a community newspaper founded in 1912, before relocating to the East Coast. She spent three years with Business Insider as special projects editor and nearly a year as a financial reporter with Word In Black, an innovative non-profit group comprising 10 of the nation's leading local Black-owned news organizations.

Since April 2024, Overs has brought her considerable talents and passion for community-based reporting to the business desk of The Baltimore Banner. "I care about my neighbors. I care about people globally," she says. "I want people to have access to information so they can make informed decisions, whatever those decisions might be."

She started just a week after the catastrophic collapse of the Key Bridge in the Port of Baltimore in March. "It was definitely chaotic," Overs says of her first few days. "But you just jump right in, and everyone was really helpful."

Being a business reporter was not something Overs initially planned on pursuing. She fell into the role and has since come to appreciate the variety of stories she can tell. "I think if you can understand how money touches everything, you'll better understand society at large. I think it will make you more empathetic towards people and a little bit more skeptical about companies, which is not a bad thing."

Overs is a member of the Advisory Board for the CSUDH journalism program and continues to keep an occasional eye on the publication she helmed so skillfully as an undergraduate. In the years since she graduated, The Bulletin has earned numerous statewide journalism awards and has become the kind of publication Overs dreamed it could be when she first arrived on campus.

In an industry fraught with uncertainty, Overs remains optimistic. Newspapers might well be a dying medium, she says, but the demand for local news remains constant. "That will never die. People need local news. That gives me some hope for the future of journalism."

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.