Born in Salinas, 28 year-old Christopher Cerney blends his love of hosting and communication to provide for the community that raised him through news-style Instagram reels covering local issues.
“I started working at Lighthouse Cinema in Pacific Grove, and we started a live show…that me and my buddy David Diaz started, and I was one of the hosts on it…I left Lighthouse Cinema and I started thinking about journalism. I realized, ‘Wait, these topics I’m interested in…I could bring those together,’” said Cerney.
With a handheld microphone and a navy blue suit, Cerney has become a recognizable social media presence in only a matter of months.
Cerney began recording and posting news-style reels to his Instagram in February with his first video covering a heavy rain storm in Monterey County. A dozen reports and over 4,000 followers later, Cerney’s journey into the journalism field is only beginning.
“A real interest in [journalism] came probably like four or five months ago, I became really invested and started thinking about it as a possible career.”
Being an independent local journalist, Cerney is also a one-man-band. To complement his attire, he attains professional-looking footage using a facetracking feature on his Osmopocket 3 camera.
“It is definitely one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life, for sure. It’s very difficult to be independent,” said Cerney, “I go out sometimes and there’s not much gas in the tank, literally in my car, but if a story’s important to me, I go. I’ll deal with the gas issue later, if I break down somewhere so be it, now I have another story to tell.”
Cerney is his own videographer and editor, but also his own teacher. Working to hone his research and reporting skills, Cerney shared the process of reporting pesticide exposure in Salinas.
“I researched the “Chamacos” studies extensively. My process involved reading the research papers to gain a deeper understanding of that topic and how the pesticides could be affecting the people of the Salinas Valley. It was a wealth of knowledge and even though my piece was only allowed to be 3 minutes long on Instagram, I tried to fit as much info as I could into my report.”
Cerney’s personal reporting philosophy is based in care and empathy. “You’re dealing with people’s lives, you’re dealing with people’s families, their loved ones, and so, you know that care is just paramount in those types of situations,” said Cerney on his report of DJ Neo Gallardo, a17-year old boy who recently passed away in Big Sur.
Now based in Monterey, Cerney continues to cover 831’s sprawling areas, even taking on paid partnerships with local businesses to sponsor his independent reporting.
“That’s something I try to instill in everyone, is just to remember wherever you are in life, you can do anything you want if you just put your mind to it and believe it’s possible,” said Cerney.
Photo By Elliot Rowe