Roxanne Fleischer
News Co-editor
It all started with that soft bean bag chair, the one she says she was partial to in her elementary school library in Austin, Texas. Her love of reading started there, and ever since her childhood, she knew she wanted to be a writer.
And that is what she is.
Gina Davis is the McDaniel College Associate Director of Media Relations. While part of her job is to be the media contact for local, regional, and national reporters to interest them in news about McDaniel, the other part is to write about the college in News @ McDaniel and The Hill publications.
But writing and reporting are no new tasks for Davis. Before coming to McDaniel she worked 15 years at The Baltimore Sun and a year each at the Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., and at Newsday in New York prior to coming to Baltimore.
“Everything I did at The Sun all comes together,” Davis said. “All of my experiences prepared me for this job.”
And the transition from the newsroom to her office in Harrison House has been aided by the similarities in the two jobs: meeting people and learning their stories.
“What I absolutely loved most about my job as a reporter was the privilege it gave me to make those ‘people connections.’ It’s amazing the stories that people have to tell. And it was absolutely a privilege to be able to record those stories as a reporter.”
Davis has one regret about her years as a reporter: that she hadn’t started earlier. She had spent her first two years at The Sun as a copy editor and the next nine working on design before she became a reporter, which she believes has helped her at her position here.
“Having been a reporter, I better understand the best way to approach reporters,” she said. Davis still has her contacts and knows what sort of stories they are looking for.
Peggy Fosdick, McDaniel’s Director of Communications, has said that Davis made the transition from newsroom to McDaniel with ease. “It can be a difficult transition, but Gina understands the McDaniel mission as well as our marketing mission–and she integrates the two seamlessly.”
At The Baltimore Sun, Davis was an education reporter so she was already familiar with McDaniel. She now has the position at McDaniel that was once held by a contact for her stories when she was at The Sun.
And this is the media relations part of her job. But she insists that it’s not in her personality to be a salesperson. “I am not just pushing a product. What’s going on here at McDaniel is something I can be proud of,” she said. “It makes my job meaningful.”
But it’s not only her job that brings her meaning, however. Outside of work, she enjoys reading and volunteers as secretary at her church. She and her husband also are taking care of their 4 year old niece, Melaina, while Melaina’s mother, Davis’ sister, finishes up a nursing program in Virginia. This leaves Davis with little free time outside of work.
Davis, who has only been at McDaniel since August, has already used her contacts to get McDaniel in several national and regional stories, including a piece on the Debate Fallacy Bingo in the Baltimore Sun.
“She’s an exceptional writer,” said Joyce Muller, the Associate Vice President of Communications and Marketing. “We are a stronger team for having her as a key player in marketing the college.”
Fosdick agrees that Davis is a good addition. “Gina is great to work with. She’s a pitch-perfect writer who knows how to pull readers into her stories and make them feel as though they experienced it themselves,” she said.
“Gina is a focused and versatile journalist who laughs easily and works hard. She’s a tremendous asset to the Communications and Marketing team.”
Her 17 years experience with news reporting brings a lot to the department as Davis has a way of connecting with the people she interviews. When working for The Sun, she was able to talk to the mother and family of a marine killed in Iraq when the family had refused to talk to any media altogether.
Davis said she was able to convince the family that she only wanted to be able to write a story about the man and what he had meant to his family and the community. Although the mother called The Sun, “that liberal rag,” it was only hours later that the family had invited Davis to eat dinner with them after the interview.
When a national group was protesting at the marine’s funeral, the family called Davis to be sure she had a quote from them. Even after the articles were written, Davis stayed in contact with the family for quite some time, she said.
But now, as a media relations director, Davis has the duty to keep the relationship between McDaniel and the community sound.
Because she was only recently part of the media, Davis knows the media’s perspective of McDaniel: the college “is well respected, considered responsive and responsible, and the school has a lot to be proud about.”
And she wants to keep this viewpoint intact: “I want to represent the best about McDaniel to the public with sincerity.”