Inside Lookout: Richard Martin joins Lookout as executive editor

Lookout Santa Cruz is no longer a startup. After five years, thousands of stories published, hundreds of community events involved in and positive community impacts captured, Lookout is now poised to further all our growth and impacts.

To write the roadmap for the years ahead with our growing newsroom and with you, our readers, we’re pleased to announce that Richard Martin is joining us this week as our executive editor, leading the newsroom to new heights (and breadth and depth) and becoming a key representative for us in the community and with community groups.

He knows a little about our community, and he got to share in our Facebook Live cast of Thursday’s Santa Cruz City Council and mayor election forum. He saw and heard the full house, and all those participating online, in what was our most well-attended forum since we initiated them in 2022. That followed on the heels of our Watsonville District 4 county supervisor forum, our first election forum there, which also packed the room. And he was able to fly for our first anniversary party in Eugene, Oregon, two weeks ago  – where about 350 members celebrated with us.

We joke that Pulitzers and parties are our strategy. It’s a good clue to what we’re up to as he joins us. More penetrating journalism. More community connections throughout the year. 

Over a three-plus-decade career, Richard has always focused on local news. As we do, he knows that area of journalism can make a difference, especially in nationally fractious times.

Much of that work has been at larger metro papers, but he is also someone who groks Santa Cruz County as this wonderful area of the world – with a few issues to sort out.

This marks a return to the Central Coast for Richard. Earlier in his career, he spent five years as sports editor, then city editor of The Californian in Salinas. 

Richard joins Lookout Santa Cruz with a wealth of leadership and editing experience at top newsrooms across the country. He spent the past four years helping build and lead another successful digital local news startup, The Baltimore Banner, which earned numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, during his tenure.

Previously, he worked as an editor at the Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Tampa Bay Times and the Seattle Times. Coverage that he led was twice recognized as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News, first for the 2015 death of Freddie Gray and resulting citywide unrest in Baltimore, then in 2019 for coverage of the boat fire off the Santa Barbara coast that killed 34, including six from Santa Cruz County.

An avid distance runner, hiker and tennis player, he looks forward to long runs up and down the Monterey Bay (the Big Sur Marathon was his first marathon) and hikes with his wife in the Santa Cruz Mountains and elsewhere.

“I’m thrilled to be coming to Santa Cruz to continue my mission to rebuild local news with new, innovative models like Lookout and community-centered and informed approaches to coverage,” Richard says. “My goal is to help Lookout build on its incredible, award-winning work of the past five years and become an even more vibrant and indispensable trusted source for local news and information.”

We’ll be arranging various kinds of meet-and-greet sessions – you can make contact with Richard directly at richard@lookoutlocal.com or contact Jamie Garfield, our community and student engagement manager. As he gets going, he says, “I welcome any and all suggestions.”