Meet Jakyla Brandenburg
Jakyla Brandenburg is an accounting clerk in the finance department. She grew up in Dayton, Ohio. She spent 3 years at the University of Findlay receiving a bachelor’s degree in business administration. During Jakyla’s free time, she often enjoys reading, crafting, and running.
Meet Christina Alfaro
Christina Alfaro
My name is Christina Alfaro, and I am the newest member of The Blade’s Classifieds team. As a Toledo native, I am excited to be part of a company that is so involved in the local community. My free time can usually be spent with my husband at our children’s sporting events, or trying out a new tasty treat.
Christina Alfaro is a classified clerk in the advertising department.
Meet Sonia Waraich
Sonia Waraich
Hello, my name is Sonia Waraich, and I’m a new copy editor with The Blade.
I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, but have worked at newspapers across California, as well as a couple in New Mexico and North Carolina.
I’ve primarily worked as a reporter, covering everything from arts and entertainment to cops and crime. Most recently I was running a local newspaper in my hometown.
I’m excited to be starting at The Blade and looking forward to meeting everyone.
Meet Felicia Mason
Greetings to all!
I’m Felicia Mason and the new night city editor at The Blade. Happy to be here.
Felicia Mason
I grew up in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, where my family lived after moving from Cleveland. My undergraduate degree is in mass media arts from Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in Virginia, and my graduate degree from Ohio State is in black studies with an emphasis on community development.
If you don’t count having a paper route, working part-time as an ad inserter at a community paper, and being on the high school newspaper staff, my first journalism job was as a reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I started there as an intern and later covered municipal government, schools, and police. The bulk of my time was with the Daily Press in Newport News, Va. Most recently, I was at the Houston Chronicle as an assistant metro editor and utility editor.
I’ve been a lot of things throughout my career: copy editor, editorial writer, night metro editor, police and courts editor, features editor, columnist, intern coordinator, reader editor (typically called ombudsman), and staff development editor (aka recruiter/trainer). I even wrote a serial novel for a newspaper. This leads me to the other life: I’m a novelist with about two dozen titles published by St. Martin’s Press, Kensington Publishing, and Harlequin. One book was adapted and made into a TV film. These days, I’m working on crime fiction. I like to write, scrapbook, and travel in my free time.
Learning new things is a passion of mine, so I’m looking forward to getting to know Toledo and everyone at The Blade.
Meet Kelly Doyle
Kelly is from Toledo and is a journalism student at Bowling Green State University.
Kelly Doyle
During her academic career at BGSU, she has worked as a news content intern and reporter for the student-led media news outlet BG Falcon Media.
She is particularly interested in history, politics, and pop culture.
Kelly grew up receiving The Blade on her front doorstep every morning, and she hopes to continue the legacy of that tradition by honoring this incredible opportunity in her writing.
Meet Rebecca Particka
Rebecca, who has joined The Blade as a photography intern, is from Ubly, located in the Thumb of Michigan.
Rebecca Particka
She graduated from Central Michigan University in December 2023 with a degree in photojournalism and minors in information technology, multimedia design, and visual merchandising.
During her time as a student, Rebecca participated in Grand Central Magazine, CMU’s student life style magazine. She served as editor-in-chief for two semesters. She was also the art director for CMU’s student-run record label, Moore Media Records. Rebecca helped design album art and photograph the organization’s concerts.
Rebecca recently interned for MLive/The Grand Rapids Press and is looking forward in continuing her journey in visual storytelling with The Blade.
Top 10 biggest style mistakes
News Editor Alicia Gruver will be providing regular Style Snapshots for us so we can better adhere to our style. To get things started, we are pointing out what we’re calling the Top 10 biggest style mistakes.
1) We use the Oxford comma. (Ex. red, white, and blue.)
2) We say news conference, not press conference.
3) When we refer to days within the week, we use the day, not the date.
4) Protesters and advisers are spelled with an “e” and not an “o” at the end.
5) There is a comma between months and years (Ex. January, 2022).
6) Use periods when abbreviating legislative bills. (Ex. H.B. 51.)
7) Jr. and Sr. get commas around them. (Ex. Martin Luther King, Jr.,…)
8) We use single quotes in cutlines.
9) Numbers are used with percentages, and we spell out the word “percent.” (Ex. 1 percent.)
10) Health care is two words and is hyphenated if used as a modifier to another word (Ex. health-care workers.)
