Board

SPJ Northern California Board Members

The approved minutes for the meetings by the Society of Professional Journalists Northern California Chapter can be found here. For minutes prior to 2021, contact spjnorcal@gmail.com.

Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez — President

Born and raised in San Francisco, Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez is a politics reporter for the San Francisco Standard and enjoys reporting on his “dear, foggy city.” He formerly reported politics and government for KQED and wrote the Examiner’s political column, On Guard, covering City Hall slugfests and The City at large.

As an SPJ member and now chapter president, Joe is passionate about teaching the next generation of journalists, from City College of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, the Bay Area’s high schools and beyond. He was also previously co-chair of SPJ NorCal’s Freedom of Information Committee, an arm of SPJ tasked with championing the public’s access to government records and defending press freedoms.

Ida Mojadad – Vice President

Ida is an award-winning independent journalist and editor with an expertise in education. Past newsrooms include SFGATE, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Standard, the San Francisco Examiner, and SF Weekly. She previously covered education in southern Minnesota and interned at the Orange County Register and KQED’s flagship, call-in show Forum. She is a proud graduate of San Francisco State University and has served on the SPJ board since 2020.

Ida is committed to ushering in the upcoming generations of journalists, particularly journalists of color, and bringing the public into the journalistic process to establish better transparency, trust, and media literacy for all ages.

Laura Wenus – Treasurer

Laura Wenus is an independent multimedia journalist and editor. She has launched and hosted two civic engagement and solutions-focused podcasts for the San Francisco Public Press and the San Francisco Chronicle. Previously, she covered breaking news, housing development, homelessness and healthcare in the Bay Area in audio, video and writing.

Victor Patton – Secretary

Victor Patton is managing editor of the Central Valley Journalism Collaborative. His career as a daily journalist began as a reporter for the Orange County Register.  He worked for many years as an editor for newspapers including The Fresno Bee,  San Francisco Examiner, The Modesto Bee and Merced Sun-Star. His stories have also appeared in publications like the San Jose Mercury News, The Sacramento Bee, San Diego CityBeat, Sacramento News and Review and the Sacramento Observer.  

Meaghan Mitchell – Events

Meaghan Mitchell is a San Francisco native and narrative journalist whose first-person reporting is deeply rooted in the communities she covers. She was an early team member at the San Francisco Standard and previously served as an editor at Hoodline. Her work has appeared in SFGATE, San Francisco Bay View and SFist, among other outlets. She covers arts, culture and community life in underrepresented neighborhoods — centering stories on engagement, cultural identity, and social equity, while highlighting the resilience of San Francisco’s Black and Brown communities.

Ankita M. Kumar – SPJ Region 11 Coordinator

Ben Trefny

Ben Trefny handles daily operations in the KALW news department, overseeing the editorial and sound engineering teams, producing the nightly news and culture show Crosscurrents, and managing the KALW Audio Academy training program. He earned a Master’s degree in journalism from the University of Oregon in 2000 and got his start in public radio at NPR member station KLCC in Eugene. After freelancing for numerous magazines and working for various commercial and public radio programs, Ben joined KALW in 2004. He has helped the department win numerous regional and national awards for long- and short-form journalism. He has also helped train hundreds of audio producers, many of whom work with him at KALW, today. Ben lives with his wife and twin children in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset district, where Golden Gate Park meets Ocean Beach, and spends as much time as he can outside.

Michael Bott

Michael Bott is an investigative journalist at NBC Bay Area. He was born and raised in the Bay Area, and considers himself lucky to cover the same community he hails from. Michael’s work has changed laws across the state, from how police can deploy surveillance technology, to new policies protecting vulnerable Bay Area tenants from eviction. His work has been recognized with a variety of national and regional awards, including a Peabody Award, an Alfred I. dupont-Columbia Award, a National Edward R. Murrow Award, and an SPJ Sigma Delta Chi Award. Michael lives in the East Bay with his wife, daughter, and dog. He is currently working on a documentary film project, and also teaches a video journalism class through the Society of Professional Journalists at San Quentin State Prison.

L.A. Chung

Lila LaHood

Lila LaHood is executive director and co-founder of the San Francisco Public Press, a nonprofit news organization producing local public-interest journalism at sfpublicpress.org and on KSFP 102.5 FM in San Francisco. Lila has served as a member of San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force since 2018. She has been a member of the board of the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for many years and previously held various leadership positions. Lila is also a member of the Alumni Board of Columbia Journalism School.

Rahsaan “New York” Thomas

While incarcerated, Rahsaan Thomas discovered that his voice was still free. He published over 50 stories with several platforms including Boston Globe, Business Insider, Slate, and Apogee Journal, through Empowerment Avenue, an organization he co-founded.  He was also chairman of the first SPJ chapter inside a prison. After appearing in United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell, Q-Ball, and 26.2 to Life, he developed a love for filmmaking, which led to directing Friendly Signs, the 2024 Superfest Advocacy Award winner. He produced and appeared in What These Walls Won’t Hold, winner of the Best Mid-Length Feature Award from San Francisco International Film Festival. Rahsaan paroled after serving 22 years in prison thanks to a commutation. Now he is the executive director of Empowerment Avenue, which continues to help incarcerated writers, and artists start their careers and earn living wages–pre-entry. Rahsaan co-founded the San Quentin Film Festival, the first inside a state prison. He is best known as “New York” on the Pulitzer Prize finalist and Dupont Award winning podcast, Ear Hustle. Additionally, Rahsaan was a 2024 Emerson Collective Community of Champions fellow, 2024 Right of Return USA fellow and 2024 Soros Equality Fellow. He’s also a 2025 Curios 100 honoree and a 2025 Impact Warrior. 

Laura Moorhead

Laura Moorhead is an associate professor at San Francisco State University’s Journalism Department and a researcher with the ScholCommLab at Simon Fraser University. A former contributing editor at PBS/Frontline World and senior editor at Wired, she explores tensions between journalistic practices and ideals. She considers what narratives are elevated by journalists and how they report societal issues such as homelessness and access to health information and scientific research. She helps lead a Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) grant and working as a co-PI on the Narratives and Medical Education (NAME) project, an NIH-funded initiative aimed at supporting marginalized communities in gaining equitable health care. Laura also researches access to knowledge and is a council member of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Curtis Sparrer – San Francisco Press Club Liason

Curtis Sparrer is a principal and co-founder of Bospar PR, the “Politely Pushy” PR + Marketing Agency. Business Insider named him to its 50 Best PR People in Tech PR industry – twice.

His achievements include transforming Google’s Doodle into Tetris blocks for the game’s 25th anniversary, launching PayPal Galactic, working with George Takei, and representing San Francisco Pride.

You can read his writing in outlets such as Adweek, Entrepreneur, Inc., and Forbes.  Previously, Curtis was an Emmy-winning executive producer at KRON-TV. He serves as president of the San Francisco Press Club, sits on PRSA Silicon Valley’s board, and is a lifetime member in NLGJA, the association of LGBTQ+ journalists.

Curtis lives in San Francisco with his husband, interior designer Brice Stanek.

Laura De la Garza Garcia

Laura De la Garza Garcia is an Emmy Award-winning bilingual journalist based in Sacramento. She currently works at KCRA 3 as a morning news producer, where she has produced shows across multiple time slots, from the early 4 a.m. broadcasts to KCRA 3’s midday newscast. Before joining KCRA 3, De la Garza Garcia began her career at Univision 19 Sacramento, producing both the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts.

A proud immigrant from Mexico, De la Garza Garcia is fluent in Spanish and passionate about giving back to the community that supported her journey. She graduated from California State University, Sacramento, and actively mentors young journalists, connecting them with the tools, internships, and organizations that help launch their careers. In 2025, she took that commitment further by joining the SPJ Board to bridge the gap between students and the organization.

Outside of work, you can find her running scenic routes, spending time with her family and her two doodles, Niko and Remy, or exploring Northern California with her partner, Jose.