Paloma Esquivel (left) and Thad Greenson have joined FAC as press education specialists.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: [email protected]
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. – The First Amendment Coalition today welcomes Paloma Esquivel and Thadeus Greenson as press education specialists to expand FAC’s journalist education programming.
Esquivel and Greenson are veteran reporters who are deeply committed to supporting the professional development of fellow journalists. They will accelerate FAC’s ability to provide more educational resources to journalists across the state, including organizing custom trainings and designing other educational resources tailored to the needs of reporters, photographers and editors across beats and experience levels, with a focus on access to government information.
Esquivel joins FAC after nearly 18 years at the Los Angeles Times, where she shared in two Pulitzer Prizes, and most recently served as an assistant editor of De Los, a section dedicated to telling Latino stories. She has covered a range of beats, including housing, immigration and education, with a focus on deeply reported stories and series. Esquivel has established herself as a dedicated advocate for fellow journalists. She co-founded the L.A. Times Guild Latino Caucus and has helped create training opportunities, including virtual open houses, to ensure early-career journalists had greater access to high-quality programming. Prior to joining the Times, she produced Spanish-language local news for radio and freelanced for local news organizations.
Greenson joins FAC after two decades of local journalism in Humboldt County, including the last 11 years as news editor of the North Coast Journal, overseeing all aspects of news coverage and reporting on a range of local government issues. His contributions to advancing government transparency through journalism are widely recognized: He is a two-time recipient of the James Madison Award given by the Society of Professional Journalists of Northern California, the winner of a California News Publishers Association Freedom of Information Award and Access Humboldt’s Ray of Sunshine Legacy Award honoree. Greenson is also a lecturer at Cal Poly Humboldt, where he co-designed an investigative journalism course.
“Journalists’ ability to do their jobs is essential to the health of our democracy,” said First Amendment Coalition Executive Director David Snyder. “We’re thrilled Paloma and Thad have chosen to bring their wealth of experience and expertise to FAC to supercharge our work supporting journalists and media workers, particularly in their work holding government to account.”
These additions continue a staff expansion for FAC, made possible by a three-year, $1.65 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. In addition to the new press educational specialists, FAC has hired a senior staff attorney to develop a newly expanded legal portfolio, with a focus on strategic litigation to help journalists obtain public records and hold public agencies accountable under other open-government and free speech laws.