William Belfiore
General Manager
Will Belfiore is a fourth-generation Santa Barbaran and wannabe reporter who grew up reading the Santa Barbara News-Press. Following a lackluster series of bylines in college while a student journalist, he began his career in renewable energy and hopscotched from Milan to Los Angeles to New York City with several start-ups.
After the News-Press’ bankruptcy filing in July 2023, Belfiore led a local effort to acquire the paper’s complex assets and stave off a competing attempt by a predatory foreign bidder. The home team won the day, and the rest is history.
Belfiore is forever thankful to the community for the opportunity to rebuild our hometown paper. It’s not every day one gets to run a 158-year-old start-up.
Joshua Molina
Editor
For more than 25 years, Joshua Molina has been one of the Central Coast’s most dedicated and prolific reporters. A South Coast native who grew up between Goleta and Santa Barbara, he’s reported on just about every local issue you can think of, and a couple you can’t.
In 1995, while a student at Santa Barbara City College, Molina took an internship with the News-Press — and a career was born. In 1999 he joined the staff full time, cutting his teeth on the Latino, health and City Hall beats. He was among the youngest participants in the 2006 Santa Barbara News-Press staff walkouts, which received international attention, and left the paper that same year.
Refusing to hang it up, Molina went on to report for a raft of state and local outlets, including the San Jose Mercury News, Pacific Coast Business Times, Hispanic Business Magazine, Santa Barbara Daily Sound and Noozhawk. He has taught journalism as an adjunct professor at California State University, Northridge and for the last 15 years at SBCC.
Along the way, he married his wife, with whom he shares two incredible kids, and found time for yet more journalism via SB Talks with Josh Molina.
After 20 years away, Molina considers it the honor of a lifetime to be able to return to the news outlet that gave him his start — the newspaper he never wanted to leave in the first place.
Email: jmolina@newspress.com
Read stories by Joshua Molina here.
Jerry Roberts
Advisory Board Member
Jerry Roberts is a political columnist, veteran journalist, biographer and former editor and publisher of the News-Press, serving the newspaper from May 2002 to July 2006. Prior, he had a 25-year career at the San Francisco Chronicle, including five years as managing editor.
Roberts led a local revitalization of the News-Press before unwillingly becoming a central figure in a high-profile community struggle with the outlet’s then-owner over the editorial independence and journalistic integrity of the newsroom. His eventual ouster from the News-Press precipitated a mass employee exodus and years-long community struggle in solidarity with the displaced journalists. The saga inspired the 2009 documentary, Citizen McCaw.
For their actions, he and fellow News-Press staffers were honored with an Ethics in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2006 and the Ancil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism from the University of Oregon in 2007.
For the past 10 years, he and his creative partner, public television veteran Hap Freund, have produced Newsmakers with Jerry Roberts, a video roundtable featuring a panel of leading local journalists discussing the week’s top news stories.
Email: newsmakerswithjr@gmail.com
Read stories by Jerry Roberts here.
Tom Schultz
Staff Reporter
Tom Schultz is a Santa Ynez Valley-based general assignment reporter thrilled to have boomeranged back to the News-Press after nearly 20 years.
Schultz was previously a general assignment and beat reporter at the News-Press for almost a decade from 1998 to 2007 — covering breaking news, government, crime, healthcare, education, science, business, lifestyle and the occasional obituary. During this tenure, he contributed to two award-winning teams recognized by the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA) for stories on agriculture and the 2003 San Simeon earthquake.
He returned to the News-Press in early 2026 as a freelance contributor, before formally rejoining the newsroom staff several months later.
Schultz began his journalism career at the Santa Barbara City College student newspaper, The Channels, followed by a News-Press internship in 1995. While earning a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park, he also interned at the Hartford Courant, the Plain Dealer and the Los Angeles Times, working in its Metro, Valley and Washington, D.C. newsrooms.
An Ohio-born Southern California transplant, Schultz has also worked as a marketing writer, editor and content manager for companies focused on learning content and technology platforms, including Lynda.com, LinkedIn and Degreed.
In 2025, Schultz earned a certification in professional editing from UC Berkeley Extension after completing a two-year continuing education program.
Email: tom.schultz@newspress.com
Read stories by Tom Schultz here.
Julianna Lozada
Staff Reporter
Julianna Lozada is a reporter based in Santa Barbara by way of Los Angeles County. She was previously a correspondent for the Southern California News Group where she reported on local politics, federal immigration raids in Southern California and wildfire recovery in Altadena and Pacific Palisades following the devastating 2025 fire season. Lozada wrote an array of fire-recovery stories for the newspaper group, which was later named a Pulitzer-prize finalist for its breaking news coverage of the fires.
Lozada has written for all 11 of the Southern California News Group’s Los Angeles-area titles, including the Los Angeles Daily News, Orange County Register, and Press-Enterprise (Riverside). She has also been a contributing writer for the Beverly Hills Courier.
Lozada left for France at age 18 to pursue a dual Bachelor of Arts program from Sciences Po Paris and Columbia University, where she studied political science, human rights and sustainable development. She graduated in 2024 and returned home to sunny Southern California to continue work as a local news reporter.
Her foray into local news began in her hometown of Santa Clarita, CA where she worked as a staff writer for the Santa Clarita Valley Proclaimer.
While not on deadline, she’s hosting a biweekly radio show, cooking, doing hot yoga, relaxing at the beach or going out with friends.
Email: julianna.lozada@newspress.com
Read stories by Julianna Lozada here.
Melinda Burns
Contributing Senior Writer
Melinda Burns is an investigative reporter with over 40 years of experience covering topics of immigration, water, science and environment, including a prior 21 year career with the News-Press.
Burns previously taught as a bilingual teacher in Los Angeles in the early 1980s before starting with the Los Angeles Times, first as an intern and then as a reporter-trainee. She joined the Santa Barbara News-Press in 1985, the same day that the New York Times Co. took ownership of the paper.
In 2000, the Times fatefully sold the News-Press to local billionaire Wendy McCaw, and six years later five top editors–including Jerry Roberts–resigned in protest of newsroom interference by the owner. In the wake of a subsequent newsroom vote to join the Teamsters, McCaw unfairly fired Burns and eight other reporters, all union activists.
Burns and her colleagues led a community-wide boycott of the News-Press in support of workers’ rights and journalistic integrity, and readers responded, cancelling subscriptions en masse.
Since this time, Burns has continued to cover local news in-depth as a freelancer. In 2017, as a community service, she started working without pay, sending her stories simultaneously to multiple publications. Today, she’s delighted to be back as a paid writer for her old paper and is pleased that, as a nonprofit, the News-Press’ stories are freely republishable by all outlets.
Read stories by Melinda Burns here.
Joy Martin
Contributing Writer
Joy Martin is an award-winning journalist and writer based in Santa Barbara. A Georgia native, she earned a bachelor’s degree in creative writing with a journalism emphasis from Pepperdine University, where she was named a Randall Scholar and served as captain of the Women’s Swimming and Diving Team.
She was previously associate editor of Malibu Times Magazine, overseeing long-form features, and has written for The Malibu Times and Top 100 Magazine, among other outlets. She later completed graduate work in Pepperdine’s Writing for Screen & Television program and has advised global consumer and lifestyle brands on sales and marketing strategy for over 15 years.
Read stories by Joy Martin here.
Patricia Stark
Senior Writer
Patricia Stark is Professor Emerita of Journalism at Santa Barbara City College, where she trained generations of journalists, including Josh Molina and Tom Schultz, now News-Press colleagues.
An alumna of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, Patricia worked as a daily newspaper reporter in the East San Francisco Bay Area. She covered education and county government for the Contra Costa Times, winning awards for in-depth profiles and investigations.
Her first stab at journalism was as an editor and entertainment reporter for SBCC’s student newspaper, The Channels. A summer internship at the Santa Barbara News-Press followed.
After her years in the Bay Area, she returned to SBCC to teach journalism, chair the department, and advise the student newspaper where she got her start. Under her tenure, Patricia’s students and their publication won prestigious awards from state, regional and national press associations in all areas of journalism—news, feature and opinion writing, photography and videography.
She’s thrilled to be back reporting for the News-Press and helping to launch this exciting new journalistic venture.
Patricia enjoys a long and happy marriage to her husband, Bill. Her two sons, Will and Luke, attended Santa Barbara public schools. A longtime Mesa resident, she loves swimming at Los Baños pool and assorted beaches and travels every chance she gets.
Read stories by Patricia Stark here.
Viviana Ruiz
Sara Miller McCune News-Press Summer Fellow
Viviana Ruiz is an award-winning journalist with experience in sports and news reporting as well as copyediting. She is a Santa Barbara native and found her love for journalism at Santa Barbara High School, where she was a part of The Forge student newspaper. She then attended Santa Barbara City College and joined the student-run newspaper, The Channels. There, she started as a staff writer and became the Editor-In-Chief in her second semester.
After earning her associate’s degrees in journalism and communications, Ruiz will be transferring to San Diego State University to pursue a bachelor’s degree in journalism as a first-generation college student.
Outside of the newsroom, she loves spending time with her friends, family, and dog Mila. Growing up, Ruiz always had a sports broadcast on and hopes to one day be a reporter or social media manager for an NFL or MLB team.
Email: viviana.ruiz@newspress.com
Read stories by Viviana Ruiz here.
Aston Smith
Sara Miller McCune News-Press Summer Fellow
Aston Smith is an award-winning video journalist, videographer, and photographer with a background in documentary production, sports videography, and visual storytelling. Born in Australia and raised in Santa Barbara, he began his journey into videography and journalism in 2021 through Dos Pueblos High School’s nationally recognized broadcast news program, DPNews.
Smith is currently studying journalism and communications at Santa Barbara City College. When not working on videos, he can be found sailing or surfing. He is a former US Optimist National Team member, is active in competitive college sailing, and coaches at the Santa Barbara Youth Sailing Foundation.
Email: aston.smith@newspress.com
Read stories by Aston Smith here.
Kaitlin Sweeney
Sara Miller McCune News-Press Summer Fellow
Kaitlin Sweeney is a recent UC Berkeley graduate with a degree in English and minor in Journalism. Her reporting experience includes coverage of education, local government and community issues through Oakland North, a news outlet of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
She is excited to join the newsroom and continue producing meaningful stories for the Santa Barbara community.
Email: kaitlin.sweeney@newspress.com
Read stories by Kaitlin Sweeney here.
Roman Trovato
Sara Miller McCune News-Press Summer Fellow
Roman Trovato is a Santa Barbara native and current student at UC Berkeley where he is majoring in media studies with a minor in journalism and writes for the student paper, The Daily Californian. He has also studied journalism at the School of the New York Times pre-professional summer academy.
Roman has been involved in reporting since his junior year at San Marcos High School, and has also written for the Santa Barbara Independent.
Email: roman.trovato@newspress.com
Read stories by Roman Trovato here.
Amanda Velasco
Sara Miller McCune News-Press Summer Fellow
Amanda Velasco is a journalist based out of Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, where she has covered immigration, breaking news, features, politics and education. Velasco is the current News editor and was previously the Features and Student Life editor for the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s award-winning student newspaper. She is a rising junior at UCLA majoring in Public Affairs.
Velasco found her love for human-centered storytelling after moving from her hometown of San Ramon, CA to the Philippines and learning about diverse cultures and communities. Outside of the newsroom, she can be found exploring coffee shops, going on hikes, making music and binge watching sci-fi shows.
Email: amanda.velasco@newspress.com
Read stories by Amanda Velasco here.
Sofia Wallace
Sara Miller McCune News-Press Summer Fellow
Sofia Wallace is a Santa Barbara local and recent honors graduate of UC Berkeley, where she majored in media studies with a minor in journalism. She has 4 years of experience in local and community journalism, reporting and editing for the news department at UC Berkeley’s student newspaper, The Daily Californian.
Sofia is especially interested in the politics of representation in media, and aims to expand gender equality in the field of journalism. In her undergraduate thesis, Sofia researched and wrote on representations of women and reproductive rights in the U.S. mainstream media.
Sofia is a graduate of San Marcos High School and likes tide-pooling and collecting seashells on the beach. She loves a cup of Handlebar coffee on her desk while she writes, and enjoys Arigato sushi for dinner as often as possible.
Email: sofia.wallace@newspress.com
Read stories by Sofia Wallace here.
Lillian Perlmutter
Staff Reporter
Lillian Perlmutter is a Santa Barbara native and California-wide bilingual investigative reporter focusing on Immigration. She has investigated basement ICE holding facilities in San Diego, uncovered unreported ICE jail arrests in Santa Barbara County and followed migrant farmworkers struggling to find work in Stockton.
She previously covered Latin America as an independent journalist in Mexico City, where she wrote for over 25 news outlets and magazines, including the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, The Guardian and The New Republic. Her reporting has been recognized by the One World Media awards and the American Society for Journalists and Authors awards and has received support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and the Women’s Media Center.
She earned her BA in Politics and Foreign Languages from Scripps College in 2021 and is currently based out of San Diego.
Read stories by Lillian Perlmutter here.
Chris Woodyard
Staff Reporter
Chris Woodyard is an award-winning veteran journalist and blogger. Before joining the Santa Barbara News-Press, he was the Los Angeles bureau chief for USA Today and has worked as a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Associated Press, Las Vegas Sun and other major news outlets.
His diverse career has included a stint as a Washington correspondent and several foreign reporting trips. Most of his career has been as a general assignment reporter with extensive coverage of Southern California news, including wildfires in Santa Barbara County. Most recently, he was a reporter for Stocktonia.org, a nonprofit news site covering Stockton, California.
Read stories by Chris Woodyard here.
Arturo Garcia
Weekend Editor
Arturo Garcia has written and reported for a variety of national outlets, including The Raw Story, Rolling Stone, Snopes.com and TruthOrFiction.com. He was also the managing editor for Racialicious.com, a pioneer in covering the intersection of race and pop culture.
Anika Brodnansky
Contributing Reporter
Anika Brodnansky is an award-winning journalist with experience in investigative, sports, and political reporting. Born in Stockton, California, she began her journalism career in 2023 at Santa Barbara City College as a reporter for the student-run newspaper, The Channels. There she earned multiple statewide awards recognizing her writing and reporting.
After completing one associate’s degree in journalism and two more in communication, Brodnansky is now pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Communication and Professional Writing at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Outside of reporting, she enjoys spending time at the beach with her Golden Retriever, Bailey, and being outdoors. She is a former competitive swimmer and now spends her time kickboxing, going to the gym, and running with Bailey.
Read stories by Anika Brodnansky here.
Ray Ford
Columnist and Contributing Reporter
Ray Ford is a Santa Barbara–based writer covering wildfires, public lands, and outdoor recreation in Santa Barbara County and Southern California. He is the author of numerous books and maps on regional hiking, backpacking, and mountain biking, including Santa Barbara Day Hikes, Trails of the San Rafael Wilderness, Santa Barbara Mountain Biking, and Santa Barbara Wildfires. His writing documents both the history of wildfires in the region and the ways fire, landscape, and community intersect over time.
Ford has reported on every major wildfire of the last 30 years in Santa Barbara County, focusing on fire behavior, response, and recovery. He also brings decades of experience documenting trails and backcountry access. In addition to his writing, Ford spent more than 30 years teaching social studies in the Santa Barbara Unified School District, where he developed and led an outdoor education program for high school students.
Read stories by Ray Ford here.
Lynn Montgomery
Columnist
Lynn Montgomery was born in a honky-tonk on Route 66, where her dad played lead guitar to the fawning Hells Angels. With bona fides like this, it’s no wonder she’s drawn to stories with grit and humor and characters who can make you laugh and cry.
Montgomery is an award-winning writer who won an LA Emmy for her documentary on the failings of the Child Protective Custody System and a Writers Guild Award for her Showtime series starring Shelly Duvall. She wrote for the LA Weekly as well as The Big Bear Grizzly, where she penned the column, “Storytellers and Oldtimers.” One of her favorite jobs was writing and producing a nationally syndicated public affairs radio show, which aired on more than 100 stations. More recently she directed the documentary, “Amazing Grace,” about Santa Barbara’s celebrated musician, Grace Fisher, who composes symphonies and paintings with only the use of a mouth-stick.
Montgomery has lived in Santa Barbara County for over 30 years. You can find her on Substack and she currently writes a News-Press column inspired by William Blake’s famous poem:
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour …
Read stories by Lynn Montgomery here.
Robert Sulnick
Columnist
Robert H. Sulnick is a life-long environmentalist. He co-founded American Oceans Campaign with Ted Danson, serving as CEO for 10 years, and was a member of the Green Group coalition of leading national environment organizations. As an environmental lawyer and law professor, he represented victims of the Bhopal, India, gas disaster and the community of Casmalia in Santa Barbara County.
As an advocate, he served as environmental director of the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos in New Mexico, head of a consortium working to restore the Rio Grande and CEO of a California coalition working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and respond to drought. He was a partner at the Santa Barbara environmental consulting firm, Environmental Problem Solving Enterprises, which worked with industry to develop and implement climate change-mitigating technologies.
He has been a columnist for more than a decade.
Read stories by Robert Sulnick here.