Mission Local names Joe Rivano Barros as executive editor

I’m thrilled to announce that Joe Rivano Barros, a 33-year-old graduate of Stanford University and award-winning journalist, will become Mission Local’s new executive editor, effective immediately. 

His promotion will allow me to step aside into an editor’s role. It will also give Joe Eskenazi, our managing editor, the time to continue writing his brilliant columns and mentoring our growing group of young reporters. 

It’s been wonderful to watch Rivano Barros grow as a reporter and editor and to feel that, with the two Joes at the helm, Mission Local is in excellent hands. Our only issue is that we have still not quite figured out how to deal with the mirrored names … Joe E. and Joe R. appears to be it.

“Joe is so goddamn competent, he has almost made me rethink my position on Stanford University. Almost,” said Eskenazi, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. “In Joe, you’ve got a man with the talent of three men able to do the work of six men. I’m thrilled to see him succeed, and we’re all succeeding because of him.” 

“When I had to decide where to do my internship the summer after graduating, I first thought it’d be easier to stay close to home in San Leandro and work for the hometown daily; it was that or an online outlet I’d never heard of called Mission Local,” said Rivano Barros. “My mom, thank God, said only one was doing interesting work, and that it was no choice at all.”

“Mission Local was an interesting place then, when it was three of us reporters running around to every car crash and late-night siren in the neighborhood, and it is a far more interesting place today, as we’re poised to expand across San Francisco and tell deeper, more critical stories of power in this city,” he said.

“It’s a privilege to be part of the best little newsroom in the country, and I’m ready to keep helping this excellent team of editors and reporters.”

Rivano Barros began at Mission Local as an intern in the summer of 2014, shortly after Mission Local became independent. After taking some time away to work for a nonprofit in Bhutan, he returned to work as a reporter, covering housing and homelessness. 

Restless to try other callings, Rivano Barros again left in 2016, but never really gave up on reporting. That was a good thing for us. Eskenazi hired Joe R. three years ago to take the position of senior editor. Yes, I did the first round of interviews but, knowing that I would eventually step down, I left the final decision to Eskenazi. 

Rivano Barros grew up mostly in San Leandro but was born in Sweden, where his Chilean side of the family settled as asylum-seekers from Augusto Pinochet’s regime in the 1970s.

He lived in Lund, Sweden, until he was 2, when his family relocated to Concepción, Chile; he finally moved to the United States when he was 8. He graduated from Stanford University in 2014, and has lived in San Francisco for most of the past 12 years.

Rivano Barros has been instrumental in managing our substantial growth in budget and staff. Mission Local went from a six-person, $720,000 newsroom when he came on in 2023 to an 18-person, $3.2 million one today.

No one creates a better spreadsheet but, most important, he’s been a model as a reporter for our young staff, jumping on fast-breaking news stories such as the Dolores Park hill bomb series and pursuing in-depth reporting for such series as BigMoneySF on money in politics. Both won multiple awards.

Most recently, he followed — while purportedly on vacation — the breaking news story of Supervisor Jackie Fielder’s decision to take a mental-health break. He’s the kind of reporter that Joe E. and I admire: Curious, thorough and fast. 

All of that is to the good of the newsroom. Mission Local has long trained young journalists, reporters who find their first professional job here. Because of that, it’s important that the editors write and report at a high level. Joe R. does both exceedingly well. 

Moreover, he has excellent managerial and business skills — rare among journalists.

Rivano Barros will run the newsroom with the help and guidance of Eskenazi and the senior editors: Meg Shutzer, Heather Smith and myself. To plan the newsroom’s strategic growth, he will also work side by side with the new publisher, whom we are in the process of hiring, and the board chair, the indispensable Frances Dinkelspiel. 

Lots of changes are underway. We’re now officially on the ground in five neighborhoods and will soon add more, along with some important citywide beats that you’ll hear about from Joe R. 

Thanks to a grant from the American Journalism Project, as well as your support, we expect Mission Local to nearly double in staff over the next three years. 

For myself, I will continue to edit, occasionally write and work on special projects. But increasingly over the last year, I’ve relished watching the other editors grow into their positions. Mission Local has been a labor of love, and there is nothing better in the world than feeling confident of its leadership.