Digital Media Reporter Sathya Chaib plans to leave her mark at Oakland Voices

While also creating a guide for Oakland Voices to produce vertical videos, through her Dow Jones News Fund internship, Chaib will publish stories about city administration and how it impacts Oakland residents.

“I’m excited because I feel like I’m leaving a mark on the internship,” Chaib said. “That’s going to be something cool to have and say that I actually helped develop the multimedia role with Oakland Voices.”

Chaib got her start in journalism when she moved from Brazil to the U.S. while in high school. She found various ways to be involved in media, including her student newspaper and high school yearbook.

What happened

She got more involved with video media at CSU Fullerton, where she’s a senior, and her previous internship with PBS Southern California. There, Chaib edited videos for their Youtube channel. Being part of Oakland Voices has given her the opportunity to experiment with video and other ways of storytelling.

“I feel like staying on one type of medium can become boring once I spend years of my life in this career,” Chaib said. “Every story has a different way of being told, and having that option to do a video or a print story is really great.”

Chaib has not been a part of an outlet like this before. She noticed that the internship is focused on goal setting and planning stories thoroughly before publication. Since Chaib believes there are not many opportunities in journalism to slow down and closely analyze her work before publication, she sees it as a good opportunity to learn.

She is already proud of some of the work she has done. Chaib has written stories on how AC Transit fare increases may impact residents, and Oakland’s proposal to close streets to decrease commercial sex work and trafficking.

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The details

“My main focus is usually more hard news and getting people’s perspectives and understanding how [city measures] affect normal people that are not stakeholders or public officials,” Chaib said.

Now, she is completing a video series on sex trafficking in Oakland which she plans to complete by the end of her internship.

Chaib hopes to make an impact with the stories that she has been producing by not only informing the public with matters that are happening with the city, but how they affect individual residents. She ensures that community members’ voices are highlighted in her stories.

“A lot of people tend to ignore politics or only care about it once it actually affects them,” Chaib said. “But if they see the ones that are being affected early on, you can bring that will to change, and also inspire some empathy in people.”

Why it matters

Every summer, Oakland Voices invests in emerging journalists. They report on Oakland communities while learning community journalism. Support from readers and donors helps produce this work possible.