Andrew Keatts
Editor & General Manager
Andrew Keatts has been a distinguished journalist in San Diego for 15 years. He was a reporter for The Daily Transcript, an investigative reporter and later managing editor at Voice of San Diego. and most recently launched Axios San Diego. In 2018, the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists named him journalist of the year. Keatts is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University. He lives in Golden Hill with his wife and two young sons.
Chris Jennewein
Founder & Senior Editor
Chris Jennewein has 55 years of experience in media. Prior to starting Times of San Diego, he was associate editorial director for Patch.com in Southern California and president of San Diego News Network. From 2001 to 2008 Jennewein led The San Diego Union-Tribune’s SignOnSanDiego.com, one of the most popular and profitable newspaper websites. Previously he was vice president of operations for Knight Ridder Digital in San Jose. Under Jennewein’s leadership, Knight Ridder introduced the nation’s first complete online newspaper at the San Jose Mercury News in 1993. Jennewein is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the London School of Economics. He also serves as editorial director of MyNewsLA.com.
Julie Main
Operations & Community Relations Manager
Julie Main has been in the publishing industry for more than 43 years, with a early start at the Daily Idahoan in Moscow, Idaho. She and then partner David Mannis began the publishing company, San Diego Newspaper Group in 1988, and it has grown to multiple community newspapers throughout San Diego. Main is proud to be among the few independent female publishers in San Diego.
Editing staff
Brooke Binkowski
Morning News Editor
Brooke Binkowski is an award-winning journalist whose career has taken her all over the world and back to San Diego again. She has worked as a multimedia journalist covering the U.S.-Mexico border for NPR, a breaking news reporter for KPCC and KNX in Los Angeles, and since 2015 she has worked as a counter-disinformation journalist, spending the last several years running debunking sites TruthOrFiction.com and Snopes.com. She is also a third-generation San Diego journalist who grew up in the newsroom of the Lemon Grove Review, where her grandfather was the publisher.
Jennifer Vigil
Afternoon News Editor
Jennifer Vigil is an award-winning journalist whose content has been featured in print, web and broadcast venues including the San Diego Union-Tribune, Patch, the Chicago Tribune and the Huffington Post. She is experienced in traditional and advanced news gathering methods, including reporting, still photography and video, and driving traffic to web sites using SEO and social media. She has provided on-air commentary for national and local media outlets, including Fox News and PBS.
Tessa Balc
Audience Engagement Producer
Tessa Balc oversees newsletters, social media and focuses on audience growth. She has interned at Voice of San Diego, the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce and Center for Justice & Reconciliation. She also served as news editor for The Point Weekly at Point Loma Nazarene University, where she studied political science and multimedia journalism. Follow her on Instagram @bytessabalc or on X @tessabalc.
Elizabeth Ireland
Contributing Editor
Elizabeth Ireland is a journalist, content creator, and communications specialist with nearly 20 years of experience on both coasts. Her writing has appeared in outlets such as Fast Company, NBC News, Forbes, and The San Diego Union-Tribune. She loves to volunteer in her free time and take her rescue dog to the beach.
Ken Stone
Contributing Editor
Ken Stone has long experience in local news media, beginning in 1977 as editor of the weekly San Marcos Courier. Later he worked at the San Diego Daily Transcript, San Diego Business Journal and 24 years at The San Diego Union-Tribune, where he was a news and sports copy editor and part of a SignOnSanDiego.com team that won national honors for coverage of the 2003 San Diego County wildfires. He launched the AOL-owned La Mesa Patch in 2010 and eventually became associate regional editor of the hyperlocal news network in San Diego. His hobby website, masterstrack.com, won the inaugural award for online journalism excellence from Track and Field Writers of America. Ken is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas.
Thomas Melville
Contributing Editor
Thomas Melville has been the editor of La Jolla Village News, Beach & Bay Press and Peninsula Beacon newspapers since 2015. Melville, a New York native, is an award-winning journalist who has worked for national and regional magazines, daily and weekly newspapers, and websites for nearly 30 years from New York to North Carolina to Maryland, and now California. He has covered everything from professional sports teams to hurricanes to the Día de los Muertos parade in Mexico City. He helped create and became a minority owner and editor of a successful weekly newspaper in Ocean City, Maryland. In 2012, he moved to California and edited a digital magazine before reuniting with his first love, newspapers.
Debbie L. Sklar
Contributing Editor
Debbie L. Sklar is a veteran journalist who has lived and worked in Southern California for decades. A graduate of Michigan State University and the University of Michigan with degrees in journalism, she has contributed to a wide range of print and digital publications, including the Orange County Register, OC Metro, The Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, USA Today, Newsweek, Bob Vila, and Time magazine. Her reporting spans diverse beats — from law enforcement and public safety to celebrity features and lifestyle coverage. She spent several years as a field editor for AOL’s Patch.com and The Huffington Post, where many of her stories gained national attention. She is interested in historical subjects, particularly the Golden Age of Hollywood. She is currently working on a book about one of the earliest actresses to appear alongside Humphrey Bogart.
Dave Thomas
Contributing Editor
Dave Thomas is the editor of Mission Times Courier, La Mesa Courier, and Downtown//Uptown News. A Pennsylvania native, his first full-time reporter job was in 1989. When not working, he enjoys watching Alabama Crimson Tide football in the fall, going to the beach, collecting sports memorabilia, and following true crime stories.
Reporting and visuals staff
Lillian Perlmutter
Investigative Reporter
Lillian Perlmutter is NEWSWELL’s first organization-wide investigative reporter, focusing on immigration and based at the San Diego border. She previously covered Latin America as an independent journalist in Mexico City, where she wrote for over 25 news outlets and magazines, including Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times and The New Republic. Her award-winning reporting has received support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and the Women’s Media Center. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in politics and foreign languages from Scripps College in 2021. She is based in San Diego.
JW August
Contributing Reporter
JW August began his decades-long journalism career working as a stringer for the AP and UPI wire services, which led to a San Diego news service reporting job covering courts and local government. His stories were published in community papers like the Vista Press and Escondido Times Advocate. He later landed a job at 10news as a weekend assignment editor and 25-plus years later became the newsroom’s managing editor, focusing on investigative reporting. After retiring, he re-entered the job market at NBC7 San Diego where he was an investigative producer for five years. August then became a freelancer, enjoying the freedom and flexibility the Times of San Diego and other news organizations offer him in covering a range of stories.
Megan Bianco
Contributing Film Critic
Megan Bianco is a Southern California-based columnist and freelance writer with up to a dozen years of professional writing experience. She has a degree from CalState University Northridge, where she majored in screenwriting and film criticism. Other publications and websites she has written for include The San Clemente Times, The Durango Herald, DGO Magazine, Smoke Signals News and She’s a Full on Monet. You can also find Megan on Instagram as @moviemuses and on Substack with The Meggie Sue.
Hoa Quach
Contributing Columnist and Reporter
Hoa Quach is an award-winning journalist with more than a dozen years of experience in online, radio and TV journalism. She has worked at San Diego News Network, Patch, 10News and KPBS. In her spare time, she teaches yoga and volunteers with Words Alive. A native of San Diego, she graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in journalism.
Rick Griffin
Marketing Columnist
Rick Griffin has more than 30 years of experience in journalism, marketing communications, advertising, public relations, media relations, government affairs, investor relations and nonprofit marketing. He has worked as a newspaper reporter, radio broadcaster, TV news writer and magazine editor. Griffin is the recipient of lifetime achievement awards from the San Diego Press Club and the American Advertising Federation. For several decades, he has operated his own San Diego-based advertising and PR consultancy.
Luis Monteagudo Jr.
Contributing Reporter
Luis Monteagudo Jr. is an award-winning journalist and communicator with more than 30 years of experience. He has worked for The San Diego Union-Tribune and USA Today and appeared on television, including KUSI and KPBS. Luis is bilingual and has also been featured in local Spanish-language media. In addition to his work in journalism, he has served as deputy chief of staff and director of communications for former County Supervisor Greg Cox and as vice president of community relations for 211 San Diego. Monteagudo writes about pop culture, entertainment and sports for the Times of San Diego.
Dave Schwab
Contributing Reporter
Dave Schwab is a Michigan State University journalism grad who started his career writing editorials for the daily newspaper, The State News. He moved to San Diego in 1982 and has worked as a general assignment reporter for several publications over the years, including the San Diego Business Journal, the La Jolla Light, The Daily Californian and San Diego Community Newspaper Group. His outside interests include sports, reading, hiking and spending time with friends.
Drew Sitton
Contributing Reporter
Drew Sitton started with San Diego Community Newspaper Group in 2019 during the acquisition of San Diego Community Newspaper Network. The lifelong San Diego resident was hired as editor of Uptown News. Now, they are a full-time reporter, covering the city’s core to East County. Sitton majored in mass communications and has work experience in national news organizations in addition to extensive local coverage.
Chris Stone
Contributing Photographer
Chris Stone has been a photojournalist off and on for close to 30 years, most recently with Patch. Her work has been exhibited at the San Diego County Fair for decades, including first place for Sports and black and white photos. She has won dozens of first-places awards in recent San Diego Press Club competitions, and top honors in the San Diego chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Chris also worked as an editor or reporter for the Tucson Citizen, The Vista Press, Chula Vista Star-News and Oceanside Blade-Tribune before becoming an ESL teacher in the San Diego Community College District. Her images have appeared in The Washington Post, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Fast Forward of USA Track & Field, National Masters News and a National Geographic book. A graduate of the University of Arizona, where she won top student reporter honors, she majored in journalism and minored in political science.
Chris Woodyard
Contributing Reporter
Chris Woodyard is an award-winning veteran journalist and blogger. He was Los Angeles bureau chief for USA Today and previously worked as a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Las Vegas Sun and other major news outlets. He also write for Stocktonia.org, another NEWSWELL publicaiton.
Fall Interns
Calista Stocker
Reporter
Calista Stocker, a native of New Hampshire, is a fourth-year student pursuing a journalism major and sociology minor at San Diego State University. She currently serves as co-editor-in-chief of The Daily Aztec and president of the college’s Society of Professional Journalists chapter.
Sophia Sleap
Reporter
Sophia Sleap, a native of the England now living in California, is pursuing a new career in journalism after 16 years working for nonprofit social-service organizations. She has a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from UCLA and is earning a certificate in journalism at that university.
Esmeralda Hernandez
Reporter
Esmeralda Hernandez is a New Jersey native who made the move to Arizona to launch a career in writing. She is a senior at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication whose previous work includes stints at Blaze Radio and The State Press at Arizona State University.
Tainá Queiroz Fonseca
Reporter
Tainá Queiroz Fonseca is a native of Brazil who hopes to pursue investigative journalism after graduation. A junior at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, she has interned at Blaze Radio, the Downtown Devil and Cronkite News.
Charlotte Simon
Social Media
Charlotte Simon is a master’s student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, studying strategic communication. She has previous experience with content strategy, email campaigns and marketing efforts. Working remotely from Phoenix, she handles promotion and social media projects for Times of San Diego.
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