USC Annenberg alumni Ryan Faughnder recently landed a job as a staff writer at the Los Angeles Business Journal. Faughnder said he had two mentors at USC that helped him develop and fine-tune his business-reporting chops: Professor Gabriel Kahn and Alan Mittelstaedt, a faculty advisor for Neon Tommy. When asked which Neon Tommy stories still resonate with him most from his days as executive editor, Faughnder points to a pair of contrasting pieces. “The first was my contribution to our analysis of the California budget crisis,” he says. “I reported on mental health issues related to funding, shelters and philosophies about how we care for people with mental illnesses. I led this project in which we dissected the Jerry Brown budget that year.” “The other was a feature I did on poet Kamau Daaood, with the news peg being an exhibition highlighting LA’s African American art,” Faughnder continues. “It was a little offbeat compared with what I usually write about, but it intersects a lot of my interests, such as writing, art and music. That one got nominated for an LA Press Club Award.” After graduation in Spring 2012, he gained business journalism experience as an intern at the LA Times and Bloomberg News, which he thinks helped get him the job opportunity. Read the full interview at FishbowlLA.