Bob Sipchen

Last updated
Robert Sipchen
Born (1953-06-13) June 13, 1953 (age 70)
Chicago, Illinois
OccupationWriter
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
Education University of California, Santa Barbara (B.A. 1976)
Period1980–
Years active1980–
Notable works Los Angeles Times
Notable awards Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing (2002)
Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting (staff, 1993)
SpousePamela Jean Sipchen
Children3

Bob Sipchen (born June 13, 1953) [1] is an American journalist, author, educator, and communications professional. He is currently a Senior Editor at the Los Angeles Times and an adjunct professor in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He previously served as Communications Director of the Sierra Club and as Editor-in-Chief of Sierra magazine. [2] [3] He has been part of teams at the Los Angeles Times that have won three Pulitzer Prizes.

Contents

Early life and education

Sipchen was born in Chicago. [1] He paid his way through college as an interagency hotshot crew firefighter and patrolman with the U.S. Forest Service. [4] He graduated with a B.A. in 1976 from the University of California, Santa Barbara, which granted him the school's Distinguished Alumni Award in 2006. [5]

Career at the Los Angeles Times

His career at the Times has included serving as editor of the Sunday Opinion section and senior editor of the Los Angeles Times Magazine . [6] [7] He led the team of journalists that created the newspaper's popular Outdoors section in print and on the web. [8]

As a reporter, Sipchen covered the 1992 Los Angeles riots that erupted in Los Angeles following the trial of police officers involved in the beating of motorist Rodney King and shared in the newspaper's Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting in 1993 for that reportage. [1] Sipchen published the first profile of Reginald Denny, the motorist whose nationally televised attack became an icon of the inchoate rage vented during the riots. [9]

When he was Associate Editor of the Los Angeles Times editorial pages, he and colleague Alex Raksin won the annual Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing in 2002. The Pulitzer committee cited "their comprehensive and powerfully written editorials exploring the issues and dilemmas provoked by mentally ill people dwelling on the streets." [1]

Sipchen also wrote about cultural issues, politics, covered a presidential campaign, and wrote a column for the Times about the magazine industry. [10] [11] [12] In 1997, Sipchen loaded his wife and three children into a 26-foot motorhome and drove 22,000 miles through 46 states, including Alaska, writing twice-a-week columns about the state of the American family. [13] In 2003, he wrote a personal essay about watching Southern California's devastating wildfires destroy his childhood home. [14] In 2006 he created the "School Me" column and multimedia "School Me!" blog which explored education issues. [15]

He worked as an editor on the team that won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for coverage of the 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California.[ citation needed ]

Sierra Club

Sipchen left the Los Angeles Times in 2007 to edit the 110-year-old Sierra magazine. In 2009 he was promoted to Communications Director for the organization, overseeing a national staff of more than 60 multimedia professionals responsible for the club's messaging, branding, advocacy journalism, social media communications, press relations and public affairs.

Teaching

An adjunct professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles since 1997, Sipchen teaches news writing and a communications class, "Rhetorical Fault Lines," in the fall and narrative non-fiction in the spring, using a team teaching approach that has included as many as eight Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists in a calendar year.

Sipchen served on the advisory committee of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, based at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Published works

Besides his newspaper articles and columns, Sipchen has written for many national magazines. He has written one published book, Baby Insane and the Buddha (Doubleday, 1992, ISBN   978-0-385-41997-0), a nonfiction account of gang violence in southern California. [16] A New York Times book review called it "... first rate ... Sipchen's supple, muscular prose gives the book the sweep and narrative pacing of a novel." [17]

Related Research Articles

<i>The Daily Californian</i> Student-run newspaper in Berkeley, California

The Daily Californian is an independent, student-run newspaper that serves the University of California, Berkeley, campus and its surrounding community. It formerly published a print edition four days a week on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday during the academic year, and twice a week during the summer. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in California, however, The Daily Californian has been publishing a print newspaper once a week on Thursdays.

<i>Los Angeles Times</i> American daily newspaper in California

The Los Angeles Times is a regional American daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles, California in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles area city of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States, as well as the largest newspaper in the western United States. Owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong and published by California Times, the paper has won more than 40 Pulitzer Prizes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Scheer</span> American journalist (born 1936)

Robert Scheer is an American left-wing journalist who has written for Ramparts, the Los Angeles Times, Playboy, Hustler Magazine, Truthdig, Scheerpost and other publications as well as having written many books. His column for Truthdig was nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate in publications such as The Huffington Post and The Nation. He is a clinical professor of communications at the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California. Scheer is the former editor in-chief for the Webby Award-winning online magazine Truthdig. For many years, he co-hosted the nationally syndicated political analysis radio program Left, Right & Center on National Public Radio (NPR), produced at public radio station KCRW in Santa Monica. The Society of Professional Journalists awarded Scheer the 2011 Sigma Delta Chi Award for his column.

Dan Neil is an American journalist who is an automotive columnist for The Wall Street Journal and a former staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, AutoWeek and Car and Driver. He was a panelist on 2011's The Car Show with Adam Carolla on Speed Channel.

A listing of the Pulitzer Prize award winners for 2002:

Edwin O. Guthman was an American journalist and university professor. While at the Seattle Times, he won the paper's first Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1950. Guthman was third on Richard Nixon's "Enemies List."

<i>The Orange County Register</i> Daily newspaper in Orange County, California

The Orange County Register is a paid daily newspaper published in California. The Register, published in Orange County, California, is owned by the private equity firm Alden Global Capital via its Digital First Media News subsidiaries.

The Daily Nexus is a campus newspaper at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

The Daily Bruin is the student newspaper at the University of California, Los Angeles. It began publishing in 1919, the year UCLA was founded.

<i>The Daily Northwestern</i> Student newspaper at the Northwestern University

The Daily Northwestern is the student newspaper at Northwestern University which is published in print on Mondays and Thursdays and online daily during the academic year. Founded in 1881, and printed in Evanston, Illinois, it is staffed primarily by undergraduates, many of whom are students at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism.

James Patrick Murray was an American sportswriter. He worked at the Los Angeles Times from 1961 until his death in 1998, and his column was nationally syndicated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bret Stephens</span> American journalist (born 1973)

Bret Louis Stephens is an American conservative journalist, editor, and columnist. He has been an opinion columnist for The New York Times and a senior contributor to NBC News since 2017. Since 2021, he has been the inaugural editor-in-chief of SAPIR: A Journal of Jewish Conversations.

Sonia Nazario is an American journalist mostly known for her work at Los Angeles Times. She has spent her career writing about social and social justice issues, focusing especially on immigration and immigrant children who come to the United States from Central America. In 2003, while working at the Los Angeles Times, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her six-part series titled "Enrique's Journey," which followed the harrowing story of a young Honduran boy's journey to the US when he was only five years old. "Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother" was published as a book in 2006 and became a national bestseller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Morgenstern</span> American film critic

Joe Morgenstern is an American writer and retired film critic. He wrote for Newsweek from 1965 to 1983, and then for The Wall Street Journal from 1995 to 2022. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2005. Morgenstern has also written for television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">T. Christian Miller</span>

T. Christian Miller is an investigative reporter, editor, author, and war correspondent for ProPublica. He has focused on how multinational corporations operate in foreign countries, documenting human rights and environmental abuses. Miller has covered four wars — Kosovo, Colombia, Israel and the West Bank, and Iraq. He also covered the 2000 presidential campaign. He is also known for his work in the field of computer-assisted reporting and was awarded a Knight Fellowship at Stanford University in 2012 to study innovation in journalism. In 2016, Miller was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism with Ken Armstrong of The Marshall Project. In 2019, he served as a producer of the Netflix limited series Unbelievable, which was based on the prize-winning article. In 2020, Miller shared the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting with other reporters from ProPublica and The Seattle Times. With Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi, Miller co-won the 2020 award for his reporting on United States Seventh Fleet accidents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Gold</span> American journalist (1960-2018)

Jonathan Gold was an American food critic and music critic. He was for many years the chief food critic for the Los Angeles Times and also wrote for LA Weekly and Gourmet, in addition to serving as a regular contributor on KCRW's Good Food radio program. Gold often chose small, traditional immigrant restaurants for his reviews, although he covered all types of cuisine. In 2007, while writing for the LA Weekly, he became the first food critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

William R. Stall was a reporter and staff member of the Los Angeles Times who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2004.

Thomas Gordon Plate was an American journalist, university professor and op-ed columnist. Since 1996 his continuing column on Asia - and now specifically on the U.S. China relationship - has appeared in leading newspapers across the globe, including, of late, the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, where he is now a regular overseas opinion-section contributor, from Los Angeles; and before that in The Straits Times in Singapore, The Khaleej Times out of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, The Japan Times in Tokyo, The Korea Times in South Korea, The Jakarta Post, the International Herald Tribune, and many others. He was Editor of the Editorial Pages of the Los Angeles Times from 1989 to 1995, and a L.A. Times op-ed columnist until 1999. He is now at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles as its Distinguished Scholar of Asian and Pacific Studies and in the Asian and Asian American Studies Department, in the university's Bellarmine College of Arts and Sciences. He is founder and editor-in-chief of Asia Media International (asiamedia.lmu.edu), America's only website run by college students devoted entirely to Asia and the U.S. He is a Charter Member of LMU's Phi Beta Kappa chapter. Since 2017 he has served as a board member and Vice President of the Pacific Century Institute, a track-two 'building bridges' nonprofit based in Los Angeles, with branch offices in East Asia. Currently, he is in the pre-production phase of launching an Asia Media International subsidiary: Asia Media/Pacific Century Institute Press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Merida</span> American journalist

Kevin Merida is an American journalist, author and newspaper editor. He currently serves as executive editor at the Los Angeles Times, where he oversees and coordinates all news gathering operations, including city and national desks, Sports and Features departments, Times Community News and Los Angeles Times en Español.

<i>Latinos</i> (newspaper series)

Latinos is a 27-part newspaper series on southern California's Latino community and culture of the early 1980s. The Los Angeles Times won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the series. The winning team of two editors and 11 reporters and photographers who were all of Mexican American descent were the first Hispanics or Latinos to win the award. The Pulitzer Prize jury called the series "one of the largest reporting efforts in the newspaper's history" and noted that the news team had conducted over 1,000 interviews. The story of the newspaper series is the subject of the 2007 documentary Below the Fold.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "The 2002 Pulitzer Prize Winners: Editorial Writing". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2013-11-18. With list of biographical facts and reprints of ten works (LA Times articles April 23 to November 22, 2001).
  2. ↑ "BOB SIPCHEN". sierraclub.org. Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  3. ↑ "ABOUT SIERRA MAGAZINE". sierraclub.org. Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  4. ↑ "Bob Sipchen Lights Out for the Territory–As Sierra EIC". adweek.com. May 29, 2007. Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  5. ↑ "Distinguished Alumni Award". ucsbalum.com. Archived from the original on 2015-03-19. Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  6. ↑ Sipchen, Bob (December 25, 2005). "Can we get dazzling done?". Los Angeles Times . Los Angeles, California . Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  7. ↑ Sipchen, Bob (December 19, 1999). "Can L.A. Become Leadership Land?". Los Angeles Times . Los Angeles, California . Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  8. ↑ Sipchen, Bob (September 9, 2003). "Editor's Welcome". Los Angeles Times . Los Angeles, California . Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  9. ↑ Sipchen, Bob (December 24, 1992). "Denny--Beaten but Unbowed : The trucker assaulted at Florence and Normandie has mended quickly. He talks about his experience with self-deprecating humor. But he remains awed by the good and evil he has seen". Los Angeles Times . Los Angeles, California . Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  10. ↑ Sipchen, Bob (November 17, 2006). "Rounds of sadness and joy". Los Angeles Times . Los Angeles, California . Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  11. ↑ Sipchen, Bob (November 1, 1994). "Tracking the Mystical Traveler : The church founded by John-Roger has sparked controversy over some of its teachings, now-defunct gala awards and a peace retreat near Santa Barbara. Now it is in the news because of Arianna Huffington". Los Angeles Times . Los Angeles, California . Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  12. ↑ Sipchen, Bob (January 21, 1996). "Dole Takes a Bus Ride With MTV". Los Angeles Times . Los Angeles, California . Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  13. ↑ Sipchen, Bob (September 2, 1997). "Seems Early to Wrangle With This Transition". Los Angeles Times . Los Angeles, California . Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  14. ↑ Sipchen, Bob (November 6, 2003). "The snapshots that survived". Los Angeles Times . Los Angeles, California . Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  15. ↑ Roderick, Kevin (November 13, 2014). "LA Times also adds a familiar editor". laobserved.com. Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  16. ↑ "Baby insane and the buddha" [ permanent dead link ]. Library of Congress Catalog Record. Retrieved 2013-11-18.
  17. ↑ Ross, Michael E. (May 2, 1993). "IN SHORT: NONFICTION". The New York Times . New York City, New York . Retrieved March 2, 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.