There’s a new era at Noozhawk and his name is Diego Sandoval.
The local kid and Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo journalism graduate is the new sports editor at Noozhawk and he said one of his goals is to focus on storytelling through social media.
“Sports journalism is moving to a much more social media-dominated world,” Sandoval said. “You have live tweeting. That’s how people watch games.”
Since being promoted to sports editor in October, Sandoval has been live-tweeting local high school games, which are the bread-and-butter of his journalistic focus.
Sandoval, 22, shares his vision for the Noozhawk sports section and breaks down his priorities in coverage in the latest episode of Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina.
He also discusses his personal story and how he found his love for journalism.
“The main priority is high schools, because without Noozhawk they aren’t covered anywhere else, basically,” Sandoval said.
He said some other publications will cover high school football or high school basketball or the big marquee sports, but that Noozhawk offers regular coverage of all sports, including tennis, golf, volleyball, swimming, water polo, wrestling, and baseball, basketball and football.
“Noozhawk, we cover every single sport for every single high school,” Sandoval said.
He said he wants to cover each school because every student athlete’s story matters.
He also relies on coaches to send in box scores or other game summaries.
“If you send something to Noozhawk, I will write it up and get it onto the website as long as it is something we are looking for,” Sandoval said.
Sandoval played youth baseball and high school baseball, as a middle infielder. In his senior year, he decided to join the student newspaper at San Marcos High School, The King’s Page, under the tutelage of adviser Luke Ohrn, who was also his AP U.S. history teacher.
He quickly became sports editor, and the convergence of his love for sports and journalism was born.
“I enjoyed writing throughout high school,” Sandoval said. “My love for journalism and idea behind it started out as a love for sports. That allowed me to stay in sports longer in my life and eventually my career. My love for sports is still there and my love for journalism has grown.”
Sandoval graduated from Cal Poly in June and returned to the community that raised him.
“Journalism is now a valuable way for me to give back to the community that has given me so much,” he said.
Subscribe to Josh Molina’s YouTube channel here. Make a contribution to support this podcast series by visiting www.santabarbaratalks.com. Molina writes for Noozhawk.com and teaches journalism part-time at Santa Barbara City College and Cal State University, Northridge.