Desert Sun welcomes a new opinion editor, Nicky Loomis. Join the conversation
Opinions are everywhere these days. In many places — particularly cable TV – the line between opinion content and news stories has been blurred to the point of oblivion.
Hundreds of newspapers, faced with budget crunches, have cut their opinion pages. There’s also some conventional wisdom that opinion content is “alienating” or “confusing” to readers. Many newspaper bean-counters have also tried to argue that nobody reads opinion content online and therefore it should be eliminated.
I’m not buying it. At The Desert Sun, our opinion content has attracted millions of page views online this year. Our letters to the editor inbox is currently overflowing with thoughtful commentary on the upcoming election, the Salton Sea, and many other topics.
It’s my opinion that opinion content, and a civil forum for civic dialogue based on facts, is critically important. I respect the intelligence of news customers, particularly the savvy readers of The Desert Sun, to be able to distinguish between news and opinion. Over and over, I have heard from our readers how much they appreciate the thoughtful and reasoned perspectives that often appear in our opinion section.
In late 2020, due to budget reductions in our parent company, Gannett, The Desert Sun lost funding for its opinion editor when 28-year veteran Al Franco took a buyout.
Fortunately, the nonprofit Coachella Valley Journalism Foundation stepped up to raise money to underwrite the hiring of a new editor, Eric Hartley.
Since July, when Eric was promoted to a new position, we’ve been without an opinion editor. However, I’m pleased to announce that we have found Eric’s successor, Nicky Loomis.
Nicky, a Southern California native, has worked as a reporter and columnist for the Pasadena Star News and AP and has been published in the L.A. Review of Books, New York Daily News and the L.A. Times. You may have seen some of her writing in The Desert Sun this year, as we have published columns from her on rockhounding at the Salton Sea and the stargazing in Rancho Mirage.
Nicky also has taught journalism at the Crossroads School in Santa Monica, where she was the student newspaper advisor and an academic dean.
She earned her undergrad degree in English at USC, and has a master’s in journalism from Columbia University, plus a master’s in specialized journalism from USC and is an alum of the UC Riverside Low-Residency MFA program. Phew!
Nicky is excited about engaging new audiences and experimenting with new forms of opinion journalism, including multimedia and audio. If you have ideas for Nicky, please reach out!
CVJF — which has supported not just The Desert Sun but multiple news organizations in the valley by funding internships and reporting trips — has recently renewed its commitment to support this position for another year. I am grateful for that, and urge you to learn more about the 501(c)3 at cvjf.org. Now more than ever, these pages truly belong to the community.
Nicky can be reached at nicky.loomis@desertsun.com or via phone at (760) 778-4502. Please continue to submit your letters, Valley Voice columns and other communications via letters@desertsun.com, our general mailbox that Nicky will be monitoring daily.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Desert Sun welcomes a new opinion editor, Nicky Loomis
