A Word from the Publisher: Jake’s Take Turns 5!

By: Jacob Elyachar, jakes-take.com

Five years ago, I graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with Bachelor’s of Science in broadcast journalism.

While it was one of the highlights of my life, I graduated at the height of the Great Recession. Finding a job in the media field was like searching for a minuscule needle in a giant western Kansas cornfield.  As I began my final internship with KUSA-TV NBC 9 News’ division of the now defunct Metromix Denver, I spent my time learning from Matt Farley and Heidi McGuire; I made sure to learn everything from them between content creation and photography within a two-month term.

Before I left the news station, I spent a day with 9 Wants to Know, KUSA-TV’s award-winning investigation unit.  Under the watch of veteran 9 News producer Nicole Vap and current KRPC-TV investigative reporter Jace Larson, they quickly showed me how to harness my investigational skills that I needed to use when I was in the field.

Thanks to them and the other amazing mentors I met at my time of CU Independent, WDAF-TV FOX 4 News, and KMGH-TV ABC 7 News, I was able to begin the first chapter of my professional career.

My first venture into blogging was called jacobelyacharjournalist.com. While using my name and the term “journalist” was not exactly the ideal title of my first blog, jacobelyacharjouranlist.com helped me get my foot in the door in the bloggers’ network. From my first interview with Australian songwriter and producer Simmy to recapping the latest episodes of American Idol, America’s Got Talent, The Voice USA, and The X Factor USA, I began to find my voice as a blogger.

Following my first year of blogging, I earned 84,937 total views. It was a modest number, but, I felt that my brand was flat, and I was not heading in the right direction.  So, I decided to make a change as a blogger. I changed jacobelyacharjournalist.com to jakes-take.com. I should have gone by this name from the beginning, but I could not have predicted the perfect amount of opportunities that came my way.

My adventures on the sets of some of my all-time favorite television shows (America’s Got Talent, American Idol, The Late Late Show with James Corden, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The View, and The Voice) and saw some of the best up-and-coming talents perform their hearts out up close and personal. I never imagine that my blog would take me to the Kansas City Fashion Week runways, the massive pop culture celebrations that are known as Planet Comicon, New York Comic Con, and WonderCon, or be returning to one of my favorite countries on the planet: Israel.

If you told me on May 19, 2007, just as I was about to graduate from Blue Valley Northwest High School, that I would not only have the opportunity to interview music legends such as Cyndi Lauper, Dolly Parton, Gordon Lightfoot, and Kenny Rogers; but also some of my generation’s outstanding entertainers such as Alexander Jean’s Mark Ballas and BC Jean, Chris Mann, Clark Beckham, Collabro, Dalton Rapattoni, The Forte Tenors, Emily West, Gerphil-Geraldine Flores, Jeff Dye, Jessica Sanchez, La’Porsha Renae, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Oz Pearlman, Pentatonix, and the founders of Shaping Sound Dance Company (Travis Wall, Nick Lazzarini, Teddy Forance, and Kyle Robinson), I would genially glared and stated: “Are you crazy?” Fast forward nine years later, I am very blessed to have the opportunity to talk to these impeccable individuals and grateful to have numerous opportunities to work with them.

I want to thank every mentor that I had the chance to meet on my journey. Without the support, lessons and encouragement that Kathy Duggan, Rick Stasi, Sherry Unruh, Amy Herdy, Paul Daugherty, Shawn Edwards, Rob Low, Tess Koppelman, Amanda Kost, Anne Trujillo, Christine Chang, Don Champion, Marc Stewart, Jace Larson, Nicole Vap, Will Ripley, Josh Skinner, Kent Speakman, and Zachary Jaydon provided me over the years, I would not be where I am today.

Also, I want to thank my family (Gloria, Matthew, and Aaron) for their words of encouragement and advice. I love you to the moon and back!

Finally, to you, my loyal readers! I am very grateful that you take time out of your day to check out my blog posts. I am very blessed to have you as readers. I promise you that over Jake’s Take’s Fifth Anniversary Celebration year, to give you quality content such as my recaps of America’s Got Talent, Once Upon A Time, and The Voice and my music reviews to my in-depth interviews such as A Conversation and The Five Question Challenge.

Thank you for your support! Here’s to five more incredible years!

Sincerely,
Jacob Elyachar

Chief Content Producer-Writer

Jakes-take.com

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