Michael joined the University of Missouri System as Web coordinator in 2008.
At the university, Michael is responsible for the design and maintenance of the system's Web presence, a site that spans over 10,000 pages and is used by thousands of users a month.
Michael works directly with various administrators and departments to design, create and manage their information in an effective and efficent way.
Michael co-founded Fifteenhundred, an innovative set design company providing set design and TV set design for news, sports, weather and entertainment.
Backed by fresh ideas, energy and creativity, Fifteenhundred develops flexible, cost-effective and attention-grabbing set design solutions.
Michael contributes his expertise in set design by co-designing sets in a variety of styles.
Michael founded NewscastStudio in April 2003, when the site was still known as SetStudio. The site quickly became the ultimate gathering place for television news set design enthusiasts and professionals.
In 2008, SetStudio became NewscastStudio, expanding its coverage to include news graphics packages, Web sites and other creative aspects of television news production.
As founder and editor, Michael is responsible for updating the site on a regular basis, contributing to the site's active blog and authoring a weekly column that provides practical ideas for TV news production as part of the site's e-mail newsletter.
NewscastStudio has grown to become one of the television news industry's leading sites, with its content read by TV news executives and junkies alike.
Michael joined FX Group in 2006 as a marketing assistant/Web specialist. FX Group is a broadcast set design, fabrication, installation and lighting design firm based near Orlando, Fla.
At FX, Michael planned, designed and executed the company's marketing strategies and materials, which included developing and designing advertising and marketing campaigns, writing press releases and copywriting.
Michael also served as the company's Web manager, responsible for redesigning and maintaining the company's Web presence. This included a complete overhaul of the company's front-end and client-only Web sites as well as e-mail and Web server administration.
In addition, Michael also contributed to the company's print graphics department, designing graphical backgrounds for placement on sets.
After graduating from the University of Scranton in December 2005, Michael joined the staff of The Ithaca Journal, the Gannett-owned daily newspaper in Ithaca, N.Y., as a page designer/graphic designer.
As a member of the newsroom's copy desk, Michael was responsible for editing local and wire copy and page design. He also worked on weekend centerpiece package design and news graphics.
Michael was selected as an intern with the 2004 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, one of the nation's most prestigious newspaper journalism internships.
Initially, Michael spent 10 days at the Pennsylvania State University for an intensive copy editing residency. While there, Michael attended numerous journalism seminars on topics such as Associated Press style, word usage, clarity and ethics.
After this residency, Michael spent the rest of the summer in the Pocono Record newsroom in Stroudsburg, Pa. A member of the Ottaway Community Newspaper group, the Pocono Record is an established leader in journalism in the Pocono Mountain region.
While at the Record, Michael edited local and wire copy, wrote headlines and laid out pages for the daily newspaper using the newspaper's DewarView editorial management system and QuarkXPress, all while working against tight deadlines. He also helped coordinate pagination of the daily newspaper.
Michael also worked with both reporters and other interns editing stories. Michael also helped cover Sen. John Kerry's campaign kickoff rally in Scranton, Pa.
In addition, Michael was also trained on the newspaper's pagination system and charged with coordinating sending pages of the newspaper electronically to the newspaper's printing facility.
During the summer of 2005, Michael returned to the Pocono Record to work on the copy desk. At the time, the Pocono Record was transitioning to a new newsroom content management system, JazBox, made by Harris Baseview. In addition, the newspaper was upgrading to Adobe's InDesign page layout program and InCopy, a text editing application. Michael was trained on this new system and used it extensively to edit copy and design pages.
Michael also designed several front pages and front page packages. He was also responsible for coordinating the newspaper's local business briefs.
While a junior at the University of Scranton, Michael worked as a camera operator for WNEP-TV, the top-rated ABC affiliate for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton market.
As a camera operator, Michael was responsible for running the station's robotic and manual studio cameras during live broadcasts. Michael was also responsible for preparing the studio and outdoor weather studio for live news broadcasts as well as maintaining white balances and video quality.
In 2004, Michael co-founded an independent online newspaper serving the students, staff and faculty of the University of Scranton.
Michael's initial responsibilities included developing the online newspaper's design and selecting and deploying a content management system, allowing multiple reporters and staff members to submit, edit and publish stories and photographs online.
Michael continued to maintain the site on a day-to-day basis and was also responsible for developing new features as well as provided training and technical support for both staff members and end-users.
In addition, Michael also reported and edited copy for the newspaper.
In 2003, Michael co-founded Clearhill, a communications and design company that is now known as Michael P. Hill Creative.
In this position, he is charged with developing and executing all client design work and advertising campaigns, as well as working with printers and other production companies to ensure projects are completed in a quality and timely manner.
Michael uses Photoshop, Illustrator and QuarkXPress extensively.
For the Web properties division, Michael serves as Web administrator and maintains a multi-account Linux Web server, including PHP and MySQL administration.
Michael P. Hill joined Press Enterprise Inc. as an editorial assistant in 2000 after spending the summer as an intern in the daily newspaper division. Michael's responsibilities involved assisting reporters and other newsroom personnel with both clerical and editorial tasks, including rewriting press releases and coordinating coverage with editors, layout and photography staff.
In addition, Michael was also responsible for helping maintain the newspaper's electronic archive system, which involved transfer files from the editorial computer system to databases and categorizing and cataloging articles.
Michael also managed the newspaper's 30-member teen writing program, which included planning meetings for the staff and processing incoming articles and payments. He also developed a Web-based article submission system for the writers.
Later, Michael was also responsible for procuring photographs from local photographers, wire services and organizations to accompany the writers' articles as well as writing headlines and designing the weekly pages. Using his graphic design skills, Michael redesigned both the teen writing page and the newspaper's weekend total market coverage entertainment section.
Shortly after joining Press Enterprise, reporting was added to Michael's responsibilities.
With no formal journalism training, Michael was writing college-graduate level articles almost from the start. He independently interviewed for, wrote and edited news articles on deadlines.
Michael covered a wide-variety of local events and stories as well as in-depth packages on homework in local school districts and a popular report on the centennial anniversary of 4-H.
One of his stories was selected by the Associated Press to be included on the agency's state wire.
While at Press Enterprise, Michael also gained extensive experience in customer service. He served walk-in and telephone customers, routed incoming telephone calls and independently managed newsroom and processed calls for all departments on weekends.
The company honored Michael's customer service and editorial skills by naming him the only high school student as "Team Member of the Month."
While at Press Enterprise, Michael was trained extensively with the QuarkXPress layout program and Baseview's NewsEditPro IQue editorial management system.
While working as editorial assistant for Press Enterprise, the position of special editions editor was temporarily vacated and Michael was asked to take on the responsibilities of this position.
Working hand-in-hand with the newspaper's advertising department, Michael was responsible for content development and design for several special advertising editions.
First, Michael assisted with the production side of a home improvement edition, helping solve several technical and printing problems.
Michael also compiled and laid out a fall car care supplement to the daily newspaper, using content from various wire services.
While serving as special editions editor, Michael's largest project was helping create the newspaper's 56-page centennial edition. This keepsake publication involved extensive copy editing and design work, including the design of the newspaper's anniversary front page logo and masthead, which were used during 2001 and, in a modified version, to the present.
Michael also played a key role in creating a local history book published by the newspaper covering the past 200 years in the area. The book, titled "Paging Through the Past: 200 Years Along the Susquehanna," was published in paperback and is in the Library of Congress.
Michael helped compile several chapters through exhaustive research with local microfilm collections and also researched the national and world news sidebars that appeared throughout the book.
In addition, Michael also developed the design for the book and laid out and copy edited an large portion of it.
While still a high school student, Michael was hired as the webmaster for Central Columbia School District.
His initial duty was a complete redesign of the district's Web site, which included developing an intuitive and easy-to-use navigation scheme. During the school's summer break, Michael developed hundreds of pages of content and deployed a uniform graphical look on all the pages.
Individual applications including a school lunch menu system and integrated help desk were also developed, with a focus on user-friendliness.
The Web site was recognized with several awards and praises, including "The official homepage of the Central Columbia School District ... is a mine of information, relating to all aspects of school life and activities. If only all school pages were laid out as well as this" and "your site should be considered one of the top 5% Web sites on the Internet today."
In addition to the Web site, Michael also designed a viewbook for the district, which included taking many photographs around the district and gathering and editing all the text for the booklet.
In 2000, while a sophomore in high school, Michael was selected to intern in the Press Enterprise daily newspaper newsroom.
As intern, Michael assisted the newspaper in conducting extensive, proprietary marketing research about teenage newspaper readers. This task included creating a survey and conducting in-person and telephone interviews with hundreds of teenagers in the area. In order to find enough teens for an accurate sampling, Michael visited countless popular teen hangouts, including local swimming pools and community centers.
Once the survey was complete, Michael compiled the data from the interviews into a comprehensive marketing report which included summaries of the data, graphs as well as recommendations for the newspaper's marketing strategies.
After completing the internship, Michael was hired as an editorial assistant and reporter.