Will Denner

Basics

• Age: 28
• Job: Sports Reporter at The Columbian (Vancouver, Washington)
• Hometown: Portland, Oregon
• Education: Bachelor of Arts, University of Oregon 2016
• Major: Journalism

 Background

• Currently a sports reporter at The Columbian, a daily newspaper in Vancouver, Washington.
• Previously, I worked for the Chico Enterprise-Record in Chico, California as a sports reporter, while also reporting occasional news stories on wildfires, COVID-19 and public safety. I was part of a staff named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2019 for our coverage of the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.
  During my nearly three-year tenure, four of my stories were recognized by the California Newspaper Publishers Association between 2018 and 2020, including a pair of first-place awards for “Sports Feature Story” and “Sports Game Story.”
• From November 2016 to April 2018, I was the sports editor of the Madras Pioneer, a weekly newspaper in central Oregon covering Jefferson County. As a one-person department, I was responsible for all facets of the sports section. This includes writing a majority of stories, shooting photos and video, laying out weekly print sections using Adobe InDesign, managing Facebook and Twitter accounts, etc.
  I won two awards at the 2018 Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association’s “Better Newspaper Contest” in the categories of “Best Sports Story” and “Best Sports Photo.”
• Also formerly a news reporting intern at the East Oregonian via the Charles Snowden Internship Program. I covered a little bit of everything, but specialized in business and community affairs, plus an occasional sports assignment. I also wrote feature stories for the EO’s annual Round-Up Magazine and Umatilla County Fair tab.
• Wrote for the Daily Emerald, the University of Oregon’s independent campus newspaper, during my junior and senior years of college. My beats included UO football, men’s basketball, golf and tennis.

Future

• My ultimate career goal is to become a beat reporter for a collegiate or professional sports team. Through my experience covering both sports and news,  I have a passion for reporting on daily news, though I’m always looking for big-picture topics and trends. I aim to tell stories that resonate with audiences beyond people invested in sports, and in many cases, uncover stories of people and issues that were previously unknown.