Joel Hersch is a multimedia producer, journalist, and entrepreneur with a passion for innovative, impactful storytelling.

His skillsets blend a background in print news, entertainment, feature writing, film production, and brand marketing, all defined by his love for connecting authentically and boldly with diverse audiences.

Documentary Host

In 2019, I investigated, produced, and hosted the film Cruise Ships in the Monterey Bay, which explored a controversy around cruise ships polluting the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The project was developed by Swan Dive Media in partnership with Santa Cruz Waves magazine. I also reported on the same subject for SC Waves magazine in the Spring of 2018—the article is called Floating Cities.

I’m a digital media producer with a strong writing, film production, and project management background. I am Spanish-English bilingual, and experienced in supporting social equity, diversity, and environmental projects.

As a lifelong sailor and 100-ton boat captain, I also train people in the fundamentals of sailing. I intend to bring the same qualities of team efficacy and cohesion that are required on the ocean into film production and corporate storytelling.

  • Scripting, storyboarding, interviews, coaching, editing, text overlays, budget management

  • Ideation, research, requirements gathering, project planning

  • Staging, lighting, contrast, perspective, composition, prop sourcing, strategic approach (angles, narratives, subject’s ego), brand goals, & formatting for social media.

  • Adobe Premiere Pro

    Adobe Lightroom

    Google Workspace

    Canva design platform

  • Advanced Spanish:

    Reading

    Writing

    Speaking

    (English: native)

EXPERIENCE SNAPSHOT:
Storytelling | 12-yrs
Journalism | 9-yrs
Photography | 10-yrs
Videography | 6-yrs

Cover art by Josh Becker

Whales off the California coast are becoming increasingly tangled in fishing gear. What’s being done about it?

All along the West Coast, the number of whales becoming entangled in commercial fishing gear is spiking. These entanglements can mean months of agony for the whale, in which time fishing gear can twist around their jaw, under and around their fins, or cinch tightly around their fluke. Without human intervention, these scenarios often lead to deep cuts, slow, excruciating amputations, and eventual death. The most common species of whale to fall victim to fishing gear entanglement, as well as the most complicated to liberate, is the highly migratory humpback, which weighs in at 50,000 to 80,000 pounds and grows up to 60 feet long.

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Writing Samples

  • Police Shooting Investigation

    Santa Cruz County and city officials gave an update Thursday morning, May 23, on the investigation of Jeremy Goulet, the man who murdered two Santa Cruz police officers on Tuesday, Feb. 26. The agencies maintained that the officers had followed protocol to a tee and that they could not have been prepared for what happened.

  • The Battle for Benefits

    Josh Shanks, a 62-year-old Vietnam War veteran from Soquel, filed his disability compensation claim with the Veterans Affairs office five years ago. After two years without word on his claim’s status, Shanks was informed that his paperwork had been lost.

  • Animal Welfare Questioned

    There is a cruel irony in the fact that the local medical production lab, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc. develops antibodies and animal healthcare products—products such as vaccines, antibiotics, and pain relievers for ranch animals, like goats—but has also repeatedly violated the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) by allowing many of the goats that they use for producing those antibodies to suffer horribly and, in some cases, die.

  • Reaching 100,000

    Earlier this month, there was a wager going around the Santa Cruz Police Department on when they would hit 100,000 calls for service—an all-time record number of calls in a year. Whoever guessed the day the record would be broken stood to win a cup of coffee, compliments of Deputy Chief Steve Clark.

  • Last of the Big-Gun Warships

    In a 35-man raft, Richard Person and 85 other Navy men, clung to each other, belly-to-belly, most of them holding onto the outside of the tube. The men with the worst injuries were put in the center to keep their blood from working the sharks into a frenzy. But the sharks, fins thrashing, still attacked, pulling some of the men away.

  • The Napolitano Complex

    In September, Janet Napolitano will leave her post as the United States’ Secretary of Homeland Security in Washington D.C. and head west to Oakland, Calif., where she will assume duties as the 20th president of the University of California system.

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