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FOUNDER
Steve Moss (1948-2005)
PUBLISHERS
Bob Rucker - bob@newtimesslo.com
Alex Zuniga - azuniga@newtimesslo.com
EDITOR
Camillia Lanham - clanham@newtimesslo.com
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Camillia Lanham has been the editor of the
Sun and
New Times since 2015. She started her journalism career in Montana after earning a bachelor's degree from the University of Montana School of Journalism. She reported for the
Hungry Horse News in Columbia Falls, Montana, and the
Big Fork Eagle in Big Fork, Montana, before moving to the Central Coast to work as a staff writer for the
Sun in 2013. Camillia earned a master's degree in public policy from Cal Poly in 2020 and has won awards from both state and national organizations for government, enterprise, environmental, and agricultural reporting. She teaches journalism ethics at Cal Poly and is a true believer in local journalism’s ability to empower communities to participate in democracy and advocate for themselves. Her free time is spent outdoors, where she loves to camp, hike, and backpack or in the kitchen, where she loves to cook.
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Andrea Rooks - arooks@newtimesslo.com
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Andrea Rooks is passionate about advocating for both reader and writer, upholding the rules of grammar and punctuation while listening to the voice of the writer as they tell important stories to the local community. She got her love for journalism as an editor of her high school paper in Santa Rosa and later graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Shortly after graduation, Andrea started her career at the
Santa Maria Sun,
New Times’ newborn sister paper, and over the next six years she worked as a staff writer, news editor, and the editor. She left the newsroom to raise her two daughters but continued freelance writing and editing, and in 2014 she returned to
New Times and the
Sun as the proofreader. In 2019, she became associate editor. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University in 2018. When not writing and editing, Andrea enjoys walking and hiking around the Central Coast, wine tasting with her husband, taking her teenage daughters to coffee, reading, crafting, and volunteering with her church.
CALENDAR EDITOR
Caleb Wiseblood - cwiseblood@newtimesslo.com
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Caleb Wiseblood edits the calendar section for
New Times and writes the Arts and Eats columns in the
New Times’ sister paper, the
Sun. His contributions to the
Sun began in 2016 while he worked as an intern and freelance writer. Before becoming a staffer at
New Times in 2017, Caleb was a frequent contributor at
Coyote + Oak, a Central Coast-based arts and lifestyle magazine. He graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 2015. Outside of covering the local art scene and new restaurants in the area, Caleb enjoys hanging out with his chihuahua and watching movies. The latter hobby occasionally bleeds into work hours when he gets to write film reviews.
ARTS EDITOR
Glen Starkey - gstarkey@newtimesslo.com
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Award-winning journalist and Senior Staff Writer Glen Starkey has worked part-time at
New Times since 1991, when he began freelancing a weekly column about the local live music scene. It was the beginning of a long and deeply unlucrative career, but a good side hustle to complement his job as a lecturer in Cal Poly’s English Department where he’s taught writing classes since 1998. Over his journalism career, he’s turned his personal interests into more articles for
New Times covering art, theater, and film reviews, as well as feature stories. During his tenure, Starkey’s tackled heroin use, prostitution, violence in the surf culture, the surveillance state, and what it’s like to do every job at the California Mid-State Fair from hog ear-tagger to Jessica Simpson’s roadie to hotdog on a stick maker and mirror joint carnie. Now more than three decades into his writing career, he feels like he’s starting to get the hang of this journalism thing. A little more practice and he might even become proficient. Fingers crossed.
STAFF WRITERS
Bulbul Rajagopal - brajagopal@newtimesslo.com
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Bulbul Rajagopal has worked for
New Times since 2021 and covers courts, cops, homelessness, inequality, and everything SLO County Board of Supervisors, while moonlighting as a food and drink writer and dabbling in the occasional film review. She graduated from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism with a master’s in journalism. Bulbul is passionate about data science, digging through documents, and old-school shoe-leather reporting. In 2023, two of her stories won second place through the California News Publishers Association for in-depth reporting and local election coverage. She previously worked
Crosstown in LA where her team received a LION Award nomination for a live COVID-19 infection map. She belonged to the Associated Press data team that tabulated live results for the 2020 presidential election. Bulbul grew up on the east and south coasts of India, which instilled in her a love for soccer, politics, and food. She worked in the Kolkata bureau as a breaking news intern for the Indian national daily, the
Hindu. She loves to hike, cook, do yoga, and hyper fixate on Nicolas Cage movies in her spare time.
Libby Hanson -
lhanson@newtimesslo.com
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Libbey Hanson became a
New Times staff writer in June 2024. She covers Morro Bay, Atascadero, Paso Robles, Cayucos, Cambria, and San Simeon. She moved from Salt Lake City, Utah, and graduated with a master’s in public administration from the University of Utah. While there, she wrote for the student paper,
The Daily Utah Chronicle, where she covered student life and Utah politics, winning Student Media Contributor of the Year and The Society of Professional Journalists’ Mark of Excellence Award for feature writing. Having grown up in Utah, Libbey loves to be in the mountains hiking and skiing but is excited to explore the Central Coast and wants to try surfing. Otherwise, you will find her at a coffee shop reading, watching reality TV with friends, or on the hunt for a good meal.
STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Jayson Mellom - jmellom@newtimesslo.com
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Jayson Mellom began his photojournalism career at the
Marion Chronicle-Tribune in Indiana. He then moved on to the
Athens Daily News and then
The Atlanta Journal/Constitution before eventually settling in San Luis Obispo. He worked for the
SLO Tribune for 16 years and has been
New Times’ photographer since 2016. Along the way, he’s won state, regional, and national awards for his photojournalism; has been published in
National Geographic,
Sports Illustrated,
In Touch, and
Der Spiegel magazines; and has had photos in the
Los Angeles Times, the
Chicago Tribune, and
The New York Times.
EDITORIAL DESIGNERS
Leni Litonjua, Taylor Saugstad - editdesign@newtimesslo.com
ASSISTANT PRODUCTION MANAGER
Mary Grace Flaus - addesign@newtimesslo.com
GRAPHIC DESIGNERS
Ellen Fukumoto, Danielle Ponce - addesign@newtimesslo.com
MARKETING AND PROMOTIONS COORDINATOR
Michael Gould - mgould@newtimesslo.com
SALES MANAGER
Katy Gray - kgray@newtimesslo.com
ADVERTISING
Kimberly Rosa - krosa@newtimesslo.com
Stasja Knopf - sknopf@newtimesslo.com
Gracie Jones - gjones@newtimesslo.com
MAGAZINE DIVISION EXECUTIVE
Lee Ann Vermeulen - lavermeulen@newtimesslo.com
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Cindy Rucker - crucker@newtimesslo.com
ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE
Michael Eddy - meddy@newtimesslo.com
LEGAL ADS
Patricia Horton - phorton@newtimesslo.com
OFFICE MANAGER
Stephanie West - swest@newtimesslo.com
CIRCULATION
Jim Chaney - jchaney@newtimesslo.com
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