Sonny Garibay has been named the new City Times Editor-in-Chief for the fall 2019 semester. The change in leadership comes after the announcement of current Editor-in-Chief Jonny Rico’s transfer to Sacramento State following his San Diego City College graduation.

As the current Sports Editor, Garibay’s leadership skills made an impression right away. Though he’s only been with City Times for one semester, it didn’t take long for staff to realize Garibay’s passion for news and journalism. 

“Sonny has done a fantastic job as sports editor, his first semester at City Times,” said Rico. “He is objective, he has a good sense for news and I have no doubt he’ll continue to build on the legacy of this program. It’s been a pleasure working with him this semester.”

The official announcement of his move to editor in chief was made to staff on Tuesday, April 30.

Originally from Quartz Hill, California, Garibay, 28, served seven and a half years in the navy working as an aviation electrician. After leaving the military in June 2017, he spent a year looking for work in the civilian sector. Not being able to find a job, he eventually came to City College in fall 2018. Garibay will be a sophomore next semester, majoring in journalism. 

His goal for the newspaper is to continuing growing and adding to news production. He has been working on a podcast this past semester, making stories published on the City Times website available on SoundCloud, as well as a new “sports week in review” section on the website.

The student-run newspaper has other new projects and recruitment plans for next semester. Garibay expressed his optimism in growing the publication.

“I am looking forward to the challenges of being EIC and I believe we can continue making City Times better.”

The publication went through some major changes in the past year. Without a full-time adviser for some time, current adviser Nicole Vargas was hired for the position just before the Fall 2018 semester. With mostly new staff including Rico, they worked together to build on what was there. 

“I am really looking forward to the opportunity to work with Sonny to continue building the City Times,” Vargas said. “Jonny took on a huge challenge by serving as the EIC at a time when the program was going through a significant transition, and he successfully built a solid foundation for our future. I am so grateful for that. Sonny is a natural leader and more than capable of building on what was accomplished over the last year.”

Garibay can be found on Twitter.

See full press release: New EIC.