By Clarissa Rios
Growing up in South Pasadena, a suburb of Los Angeles, Ashley Rusch frequently tuned in to her local radio station LAist 89.3, formerly known as KPCC-FM. Through listening to this station, Rusch became familiar with longtime radio host Larry Mantle. Several years later, after graduating from UC Santa Barbara in 2022, Rusch would wind up working for the same host she grew up listening to.
Rusch is now an on-call assistant producer for the longest-running daily talk show in Southern California, AirTalk. She joined the LAist team in December 2022.
AirTalk is LAist’s daily live public affairs program that airs from 9 -11 a.m. As a producer, she helps put together content to fill the two hour segment and books guests for the host to interview.
“I like doing the producer stuff behind the scenes. It’s really fun, fast-paced and rewarding,” Rusch said.
UCSB Professional Writing Minor alumna Ashley Rusch, right, at the campus KCSB studio in 2022, with fellow news director Daniel Huecias.
Rusch majored in communication and completed the journalism track of the Professional Writing Minor. She spent her undergraduate years building the necessary skills she would need to thrive in the journalism field.
The hard work Rusch put into her journalism endeavors did not go unnoticed. Before the end of her senior year, she received UCSB’s University Award of Distinction, awarded to students who provide a service to the student body during their undergraduate years. Rusch’s service involved putting together a COVID-19 newsletter with KCSB-FM, UCSB’s campus and community radio station, where she was news director.
“I thought that project was so rewarding for me,” said Rusch. “During COVID you felt this huge lack of control, and this lack of knowledge of what was going on. It gave me a daily task to track the numbers, see what’s going on, and send it [the newsletter] out.”
Aside from the COVID newsletter, Rusch served at KCSB as the internal news director for two consecutive years. Although she got her start in journalism in print at the Daily Nexus, radio journalism both at KCSB and LAist, proved to be where she felt more engaged with the field.
Rusch is now an alumna of the UCSB Writing Program’s professional writing minor, which along with her KCSB experience have set her up for success in her current job with Pasadena’s NPR affiliate. As a news director for KCSB, Rusch was in charge of finding individuals to interview for the newscast that occurs twice a week. Similarly, as a producer at LAist, she is responsible for booking guests for the different show segments.
She says the skills she learned through her “challenging” writing program classes helped strengthen her professional skills and prepared her for the real world scenarios she could face in her career — such as having to book guests for interviews on a short notice.
Rusch stresses that journalists need to make the news appealing to the general public in a manner that is both engaging and informative.
“There’s a push to make everything more conversational, and then by doing that, making it more accessible,” said Rusch. “People are burnt out from jargon and confusing stories. They just want to be told the news in a way they can relate to, and connect with. That’s really what journalists should be working on.”
Clarissa Rios is a third-year communication major at UC Santa Barbara. She wrote this article for her Writing Program class, Digital Journalism.