Profile of a SAJAer: Saleem Syed-Ali News editor, The Herald Journal, Logan, Utah Saleem Syed-Ali born and raised in Hyderabad, India, has been the Herald Journal's News Ed since October 1997. The paper is based in Logan, Utah, home to Utah State University with its 21,000 students, and serves Northern Utah and Southern Idaho. His work revolves around news and graphics selection and display, so his work also makes him the wire and A1 editor. The HJ won Best Page One design awards from Society of Professional Journalists and the Utah Press Association in 2002. It previously won the Society of News Design's runner-up award in Utah in 1998. Syed-Ali attended school, college and university in Hyderabad and has lived and worked in four countries. He graduated from Osmania University in 1983 with honors - which meant the Indian Herald Gold Medal for topping the communication and journalism course - and started working for local news agencies while still at OU. "Talk about exploitation ... in the early 1980s they would barely pay a student gas-and-lunch money!" he says. He joined as a "sub" editor (copy editor) and made his way up to "chief sub" of an afternoon daily before joining the Khaleej Times of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in 1986. Syed-Ali spent the next nine years working for KT at different times as copy, children's magazine, editorial page, features and A1 editor. He moved to Mississauga, Ontario, Canada in the summer of 1995 and worked for a year in computer sales while continuing to write a column for KT and for Desi News, an Ontario-based desi publication. He found time to attend graphic and Web courses and with his wife started a graphic design firm. When opportunity arose to move back into the newsroom, he grabbed it and joined the HJ in Logan, Utah. Besides, he says, a move to the US was almost a necessity as he has so much family here. His siblings - a brother and two sisters - ‹ are spread out across the US, his mother lives in Michigan and a cousin's wedding he attended in Chicago in 1997 saw over 200 members of his extended family. "There are more here now than in India," he says. His work days revolve around monitoring the news wires, the local news copy, planning and executing the paper's design. "In a newsroom, you're always juggling news value and presentation, with the latter task involving the use of a variety of computer programs like Quark, NewsEdit, Freehand, PhotoShop. But there is just so much computers and these programs can do; judgment born of experience is the most valuable asset one can have in the newsroom," he says. Syed-Ali and his wife Nausheen, a Bombay-raised graphic designer and illustrator, have two children: Zaid, 11, and Fariya, 9. -30- Last updated Jan. 15, 2003