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Robert J. Lopez has been an investigative reporter and on the cops and street action beat for the Los Angeles Times for a long time. After 22 years at the Times, he's making the jump to director of communications for Cal State University, Los Angeles. There he joins Elena Stern, who was named Associate Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs this past February.
Lopez writes on his Facebook page, posted to Twitter: "I leave the news organization with nothing but good memories and have been fortunate throughout my time there."
Here's his whole post from Friday:
Big personal news to share: I am leaving the Los Angeles Times, where I have experienced a fulfilling, exciting and fascinating 22 years of journalism. I've accepted a wonderful job as the director of communications for California State University Los Angeles. It's a school where more than 80 percent of the students are Latino, African American and Asian American and Pacific Islanders. So I'll be continuing the public service that marked much of my work at The Times. I leave the news organization with nothing but good memories and have been fortunate throughout my time there. I was always supported and given the opportunity to do amazing journalism that made a difference in people's lives. I wish my L.A. Times colleagues the best of luck as I begin an exciting new chapter in my life.
Within the Times newsroom, Robert was one of the veteran staffers who embraced the web and digital reporting tools long before most of his colleagues and his bosses. When I was the editor trying to promote basic computer analysis skills in the newsroom, Robert was in the first wave of sign-ups. He has since taken on a lot of multimedia projects and by Times newsroom standards has been a prolific user of social media, building his own following for breaking news tweets as LAJourno. Lopez was part of the reporting team that won the Pulitzer public service medal for uncovering the extent of corruption in the city of Bell, and shared in the staff Pulitzer for coverage of the Northridge earthquake in 1994.
Robert's own website.
