CalMatters adds six new board members

CalMatters is proud to announce the addition of six outstanding leaders to its Board of Directors who will share their skills, experience, and expertise with California’s statewide nonprofit newsroom. 

“It’s gratifying that these wonderful Californians care so deeply about quality journalism, said John Boland, who chairs the CalMatters board. “I’m pleased to be able to serve with them.”

Here’s who’s joining the board:

• Dean Baquet leads the Local Investigations Fellowship at The New York Times, where was formerly the executive editor. He also served as editor of the Los Angeles Times and was a reporter at the Chicago Tribune and his hometown paper, the Times-Picayune in New Orleans. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1988 along with two colleagues for coverage of city council corruption in Chicago.

• Christy Chin, a former partner at the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, previously worked at the Skoll Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Bedrock Capital Partners and Norwest Venture Capital. She’s a member of the boards of Food Forward and the Save the Waves Coalition.

• Efraín Escobedo is the president and CEO of the Center for Nonprofit Management in Los Angeles. He previously led public policy and civic engagement at the California Community Foundation. He chairs the board of Hispanics in Philanthropy and is on the board of the Mi Familia Vota Education Fund and the policy advisory committee for Southern California Grantmakers.

• Robert Hernandez is a journalism professor at USC’s Annenberg school who explores the intersection of technology and journalism. He and his students create innovative, award-winning journalism with technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality and wearables. He was previously a news producer and director of development at The Seattle Times.

• Brian Jaffe is the founder and CEO of the California Cottage Company, an affordable housing venture. He was previously the CEO of VOCA, a civic-engagement technology platform, and is a former board member of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Flora Family Foundation.

• Jack Mosbacher is a partner at Watchfire Ventures who also toured with Train as a professional musician, published in Foreign Affairs and The Washington Quarterly as a journalist and played baseball at Stanford University. He serves on the advisory council at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the NextGen Board at the Hoover Institution.

CalMatters board members volunteer for three-year terms and are appointed by the board of directors. They’re responsible for oversight of the organization and are valuable mentors and coaches to the staff.