Steven Fernandez
Being an objective, embedded journalist is hard. But Steven Fernandez made it look like a cinch.
Fernandez has worked at the Daily Lobo for five years, two of those as sports editor. He graduates this spring with his bachelor's degree in print journalism. But Fernandez has already perfected the craft more than any piece of paper could say.
If readers wanted to know anything about Lobo sports, all they had to do was pick up Steve's section. And Fernandez did something that journalists often miserably fail at: he offered truthful, fact-based reporting and was also highly regarded by his sources.
Andre van der Merwe, one of Fernandez's best friends, once recounted a time when he and Fernandez were eating at a sushi place in the UNM area.
Don Flanagan, the Lobo women's head basketball coach, went up and tapped on the glass, pointing at Fernandez. Van der Merwe said he thought that Flanagan was going to eat at the restaurant, but Flanagan was only interested in saying "hi" to Fernandez, and then passed by.
"Steve's truth," van der Merwe said. "(Coaches) respect a guy like Steve, who puts out a good story that people would read, but he's not being a jerk about it. It has to do with the community he was raised in - a 'show respect to one and get respect back' place."
Fernandez started at the Daily Lobo in 2004. He ascended the ladder, first becoming assistant sports editor before taking over the sports-editor position in May 2007 and finishing his last year at UNM as managing editor.
Fernandez said he enjoyed being sports editor most.
"It came with the most responsibility. That responsibility is why I liked it so much," he said. "I had control over the sports section. It's a position not many people get to have. And if I go on to be a journalist, it's something I'm not going to have for a while."
Any sports journalist will tell you that getting quotes out of athletes is difficult. Fernandez, though, knew how to converse with athletes - and that came out in a story about former women's basketball point guard Katie Montgomery.
"I was most proud of that because she was one of the hardest players to talk to as far as getting her to open up," Fernandez said.
And it's why Fernandez will succeed with whomever he works for, whether it's a newspaper or Bleacher Report, an online media outlet Fernandez applied to.
"Basically, I'd be following the Philadelphia Eagles without being in Philadelphia," Fernandez said. "That'd be my ideal job - working from home on my own computer. If you're writing for a fan site, you need that distance. You can't be 100-percent fan if you have to be in the locker room every day."
But the Daily Lobo won't be 100 percent without Fernandez. Still, he's looking forward to the change.
"The only part I'm not going to miss (about the Daily Lobo) is working on Sundays when I'm supposed to be watching football," Fernandez said. "It's not watching football if you don't have wings and beer and the volume's muted."
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