Breeze publisher Sheldon will be one of the presenters at “Meet the Press”.
The public can “Meet the Press” for questions, comments, and learn about how the local media puts it all together, thanks to the Ventura Council for Seniors (VCS). Afterward, you are invited to eat with the press.
“It’s an opportunity to ask questions about the state of the press in Ventura County and voice wishes and expectations to those providing our news services,” said Suz Montgomery, chair of the VCS, which is sponsoring the panel. The event host is the Ventura Adult and Continuing Education (VACE) arm of the Ventura Unified School District. The barbecue lunch is free, complements of the Downtown Ventura Rotary.
It begins at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, April 27 at VACE headquarters, 5200 Valentine Rd. Please RSVP at 648-3035 to ensure enough food.
The panel discussion will be moderated by Tim Gallagher, former editor of the Ventura County Star and features four journalists, representing four print news outlets with a nod to radio and TV affiliations. They are:
Ventura County’s daily newspaper, Ventura County Star, featuring its new news director, Darrin Peschka, recently promoted due to the retirement of John Moore.
Peschka knows Ventura intimately, serving as a Star editor for 14 years, overseeing community news, business, and city and county government. She has a journalism degree from the University of Kansas and is now working on a master’s degree in public policy at California Lutheran University.
Ventura County Reporter, a weekly edited since 2008 by Michael Sullivan, who began her journalism career in 2006 at the Business Journal in Fresno, covering four counties in the Central Valley. She graduated from CSU-Northridge with a BA in journalism after earning an AA in journalism from Oxnard College.
Her style is “to keep it interesting, honest and informative.”
The bi-monthly Ventura Breeze was created by Sheldon Brown and his daughter, Staci, in 2007 with the simple task “to inform Venturans regarding events, happenings and news,” he said, “despite having absolutely no knowledge of the newspaper business we launched the paper.”
An architect by profession who has taught extension classes at Ventura College, Brown now knows a bit more of the news business during his golden years, venturing further into his own radio show on the new CAPS live-stream KPPQ-FM at 104.1.
John Hankins is a career journalist who owned a news bureau and clipping service covering the tri-counties from 1970 until 2000, when he opted to jump over deadlines into semi-retirement. He learned the art of reporting on the job during the turbulent 60s, working for the Oakland Tribune, L.A. Times and Time Magazine. He has a BA degree in English from UC-Santa Barbara.
He continues to edit, write and design the Sierra Club’s Condor Call, which covers environmental news and outdoor activity for Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
