I’m your editor

Proud and humble. It’s possible to feel both at the same time. Four days into my new job as editor of SN&R, that’s how I feel.

I’m proud to be part of the News & Review team. I’ve been an admirer since before Jeff vonKaenel and Deborah Redmond brought it to Sacramento, back when the Chico News & Review was successfully operating in the second-smallest alt-weekly market in the country, and I was running my own weekly in the smallest, in Missoula, Mont.

As Jeff explains in this week’s Greenlight on page 12, the News & Review team has from the get-go been on a mission to build an honest relationship with readers. They brought that passion for fearless community-based journalism to Sacramento about 28 years ago, and I’m honored that they have entrusted this project to me.

I’ve been handed the editorial reins of a newspaper staffed by a committed team of writers and editors, artists and designers, salespeople and nuts-and-bolts pros who love Sacramento and are psyched that they get to be part of this enterprise. So, yes. Proud.

And also humble. In the article featured on the cover of this week’s paper, we are introduced to a group of people from the Fruit Ridge Community Collaborative. These folks are doing their damnedest to protect the neighborhood they love and that most of Sacramento has abandoned.

As I worked through this story with Scott Thomas Anderson and News Editor Raheem Hosseini, I felt a sense of awe at these activists’ passion. I’m humbled by their commitment.

This is your paper, much more than it is mine. Please feel free to let me know how we’re doing.