Changes at the Pilot are coming ‘round again

TONY DODERO

OK dear readers sit down, grab a sip of coffee and relax. I have lots

to fill you in on.

The staff at the Daily Pilot is going through changes once again.

First let’s start with the reporting desk.

Many Newport Beach readers will be sad to hear that June

Casagrande, our city hall reporter for nearly three years, has

resigned her post.

Casagrande, who can no longer endure the commute from Santa Monica

to Costa Mesa, has done an excellent job covering Newport Beach city

government and I know many are going to miss her skills.

In fact, Newport Beach City Atty. Bob Burnham has told me on a

number of occasions that Casagrande was the best reporter he had

dealt with in his 25-plus years of working in city government.

Hmmm. Since I was a reporter during that 25-year span, I always

find that just a tad offensive, but if I’m losing out to “Juney,” as

we call her around here, then I don’t feel so bad.

“The Pilot’s an incredible place to work and Newport-Mesa may well

be a sort of last bastion of community news,” Casagrande told me in

an e-mail. “In local economies dominated by chain stores, community

newspapers are disappearing. But Newport-Mesa’s base of strong,

independent, local businesses creates a community that can actually

support its own local news outlet and, in the process, create

increasingly rare opportunities for journalists.

“There’s an intimacy with readers here that is very hard to find

anywhere else. And I think that this awareness of and sense of duty

to the reader is the very essence of Journalism 101. I’ll never

forget my experience here.”

Fans of Casagrande’s Business of Language column, however, need

not worry.

We’ve made a deal with her to keep the column going and we are

going to move it off the business page and onto the front page

beginning this Monday. David Silva’s Inside/Out column will move to

Wednesday.

Next change is Lolita Harper. She has ended her nearly two-year

reign as a columnist and will now move to a newly created position of

enterprise and special projects reporter.

This is a great piece of news for us as Harper’s skills as a

reporter are top-notch and this job will give her plenty of time to

dig deep into local issues and add a depth to our newspaper that we

currently don’t have.

In addition to her enterprise and investigative work, she’ll be

working on a new feature that we are going to launch soon that will

look back at an old issue or story and update the readers on its

status.

Harper’s other duty around here was editing the Forum pages. But

that’s also going to fall to a new face in the newsroom, one Ryan

Carter.

Carter is the new assistant city editor of the Daily Pilot. He

will handle all the feature stories and columns and edit the Forum

page copy.

Carter is a veteran journalist who comes to us by way of our

sister paper the News-Press in Glendale, where he covered business

and politics. We are happy to have him aboard and look for more on

Carter in a future From the Newsroom column.

Also, leaving the paper is Daniel Hunt. Hunt has been a member of

the copy and design desk for a little more than a year and has taken

a job with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat in Northern California.

Hunt has contributed much to our copy and design desk and was one

of the instrumental designers in last fall’s Coastal Football Preview

special edition. I wish him well down the road.

“I had a blast here at the Pilot. Sometimes working on the copy

desk was difficult and long, but it was always rewarding,” he told

me. “There’s been some great stories told in the paper and I’ve had

some good times helping to design and edit it. I’ll always remember

and be grateful for my time here at the Pilot.”

Coming aboard on the copy and design desk this week will be a

veteran journalist Thomas Griggs.

Griggs formerly was an editor with the Daily Press in Victorville

and the Redlands Daily Facts.

Before that, though, he spent a career in the U.S. Marine Corps,

where he worked as a journalist also.

He’s going to be another great addition, I believe, and I look

forward to his arrival.

We’ll be looking for suitable replacements for Casagrande and Hunt

in the near future and I’ll keep you posted on that progress.