About
Matt Ross Sokoloff is an Interactive Product Manager at the Orlando Sentinel. Matt’s responsabilites include video, mobile and local search. Currently Matt is working to launch EverythingOrlando.com and hyper-local/social internet yellow pages. Matt started at the Sentinel as an Interactive Video Producer where he produced and anchored a daily webcast. He also led a team to produce one of the first live video remotes for a newspaper website using inexpensive consumer equipment as opposed to expensive TV live trucks.
Matt graduated with a degree in Convergence Journalism. from the Missouri School of Journalism. Matt says he got involved in the convergence program because he wanted to figure out the best way to tell story. “It doesn’t matter what medium you use to tell the story, it is about making sure that the information gets out in the most effective way possible,” Matt said.
Matt got his start in radio when he was 16. He worked as an intern in high school at AM 580 WDBO in Orlando. Matt’s talents were quickly realized and he was hired as a producer and then a reporter. Later Matt began anchoring the weekend news.
While working at WDBO Matt reported on various topics including cops and courts, arts and politics. Matt interviewed various politicians including US Senators Bob Graham and Mel Martinez, Governor Jeb Bush, former Florida Secretary of State Catharine Harris, then Mayor of Orlando and now Secretary of State Glenda Hood, and former US Attorney General Janet Reno.
Matt investigated various topics from car dealerships that were stealing cars to fire hydrants that had gone untested for years. Matt’s work on the hydrant investigation prompted the state legislature to look into the creation of new laws and earned him a second place Society of Journalists’ Mark of Excellence award.
When Matt moved to Columbia, Mo he became the host of the Weekly Wrap Up Radio Show on Saturdays on KSSZ-FM. Matt also worked as a graphic designer at The Maneater the student newspaper the University of Missouri.
Matt went on to be a multimedia reporter for the local NBC affiliate KOMU-TV, the daily newspaper the Columbia Missourian, and the local NPR affiliate KBIA-FM. He also worked to bring back the University of Missouri yearbook, the Savitar, in an online only form.
Matt was selected in 2005 for the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association Student Project.
Matt says his favorite thing is to take a seemingly ordinary story and make it exciting. “There are so many times that reporter pass up stories because they don’t think they are exciting, but all it takes is a different angle or idea to make it a very compelling story,” said Matt.
Matt worked as an intern with ABC News in New York City as part of the Missouri School of Journalism’s New York Program.
Matt’s college work earned him the Scripps Howard Top Ten Journalist Award.