Ricardo Ibarra named community editor for Latino issues at Sonoma Media Investments

Ricardo Ibarra has joined Sonoma Media Investments as community editor for Latino issues.

Ibarra, 36, will direct the development and launch of a digital Spanish-language news report for Latino readers on the North Coast. He will begin by editing a weekly Spanish-language email newsletter and creating a Facebook community, then a website for LaPrensa Sonoma.

“We have worked to expand and deepen coverage of this growing part of our community in the past year,” said Catherine Barnett, executive editor of The Press Democrat. “Ricardo’s hire is an extension of that effort. He has the language skills and community presence to direct digital products that reflect a changing Sonoma County.”

Ibarra was educated in Mexico, where he graduated from Universidad del Valle de Atemajac in Guadalajara. In the Bay Area, he has worked as a reporter and editor at El Mensajero and produced an award-winning weekly podcast for Radio Indígena, a multimedia news platform. In Mexico, he worked as a reporter and editor at various publications, including El Informador, EFE, Manos Libres, La Gaceta and O2.

Ibarra won a community journalism award from the Society of Professional Journalists as well as awards from the National Association of Hispanic Publications.

Sonoma Media Investments owns The Press Democrat, Petaluma Argus-Courier, Sonoma Index-Tribune, North Bay Business Journal and Sonoma magazine.