Berkeleyside says goodbye to Editor-in-Chief Pamela Turntine

by Tracey Taylor

Jan. 9, 2025, 10:56 a.m.Jan. 9, 2025, 10:59 a.m.

Berkeleyside has said goodbye to Editor-in-Chief Pamela Turntine who, when she joined the newsroom in April 2021, took the reins from the then co-editors Frances Dinkelspiel and Tracey Taylor. Turntine’s last day at Berkeleyside was Dec. 31.

As editor-in-chief, Turntine was responsible for all Berkeleyside’s editorial content and managing the Berkeleyside team. In 2021 she hired Nico Savidge, now assistant editor, and education reporter Ally Markovich, who left in 2024 to pursue a master’s program at Columbia. She recruited senior reporter Alex Gecan in 2023 to cover public safety.

Memorable reporting published while Turntine was at the helm include a three-part series on the Golden Gate Fields racetrack, before it closed in June 2024; award-winning breaking news coverage of the closure of People’s Park by UC Berkeley in January 2024 with the construction of a 17-foot wall of shipping containers; as well as many stories on the city’s housing crisis, the challenges facing Berkeley Unified and features profiling some of the community’s most interesting residents.

“Pamela led an important transition for Berkeleyside, taking the helm from the founders,” said Lance Knobel, CEO of Cityside, Berkeleyside’s nonprofit parent organization, and a Berkeleyside co-founder. “She played an important role in the continuing evolution and development of Berkeleyside.” 

Throughout her tenure at Berkeleyside, Turntine demonstrated a commitment to providing the highest quality local journalism for the Berkeley community, and her collaborative and supportive management style was appreciated by the Berkeleyside newsroom.

“I am deeply grateful for the opportunity that I had to work at Berkeleyside,” Turntine said. “My time there was incredibly rewarding, as I had the privilege of working alongside truly dedicated journalists and learning invaluable insights into the vital role nonprofit newsrooms play in strengthening local communities. Berkeley is fortunate to have such a committed and high-quality news organization in Berkeleyside. As I move on to new opportunities, I am confident that Berkeleyside will continue to thrive.”

Zac Farber, Berkeleyside’s managing editor, assumed the position of interim editor-in-chief on Jan. 1. In line with its commitment to transparency and equity, Cityside will conduct an open recruitment call for the editor-in-chief position in the coming weeks.

New reporting fellow, plus audience hire

Vanessa Arredondo. Credit: Andrew Fortin-Caldera Credit: Vanessa Arredondo

In other staffing news, Berkeleyside welcomed reporting fellow Vanessa Arredondo to the newsroom in December. Arredondo, who is covering education and writing general-assignment stories for Berkeleyside, is a 2024-26 California Local News Fellow. The program, a state-funded initiative to strengthen local journalism across California, was founded in 2022 and is administered by UC Berkeley. Before joining Berkeleyside, Arredondo worked at Cal Matters, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. A native Spanish speaker, Arredondo also knows Berkeley from her time as a student at Cal, where she worked on the Daily Californian. Arredondo has already reported stories on how Longfellow middle schoolers are adapting to their temporary campus and on the construction of affordable housing for BUSD staff.

Myron Caringal. Credit: Kelly Sullivan

Another recent addition to the Cityside team is Audience Engagement Producer Myron Caringal who joined in November. Working across Cityside’s three newsrooms — Berkeleyside, The Oaklandside and Richmondside — Caringal is tasked with ensuring its journalism reaches as many people as possible, particularly those who need it most. Among his responsibilities, Caringal produces content for newsletters and social media and supports direct community engagement, including at live events. Before joining Cityside, Caringal worked at Business Insider as a social video and Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists Fellow, while also freelancing as an Engagement Producer for KQED, where he had previously been an intern. The Audience Engagement Producer position is supported by funding from the Knight Foundation.