Editorial Board

Chris Reed

Chris Reed is the deputy editor of the newspaper’s Opinion section, the main editorial writer and an opinion columnist. He joined the U-T in 2005 after seven years working at The Orange County Register, where he was a government-politics reporter and opinion columnist. Reed is a graduate of the University of Hawaii at Hilo, where he was editor of the student newspaper his senior year and was honored by a bitterly divided student government for his achievements.

Laura Castañeda

Laura Castañeda has more than 30 years of storytelling experience in English and Spanish. Her vast knowledge of the community has allowed her to find unique voices for The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Opinion section. Castañeda has decades of experience covering border issues and law enforcement along the U.S. Mexico border in Tucson and San Diego as well as covering urban issues in her native Chicago, where she started her journalism career at the ABC affiliate. She has produced independent projects for PBS affiliates in the U.S. and has extensive experience as a college professor at local colleges and universities. Castañeda, who continues to teach part-time, believes in mentoring young journalists and teaching them how to become better storytellers and live performers. Also in the works are a screenplay for her first feature-length film and two books (one is fiction, one is not).

Tania Navarro

Tania Navarro is the community opinion editor and a member of The San Diego Union-Tribune’s editorial board since March 2022. She first joined The San Diego Union-Tribune en Español as an assistant editor in 2017. Raised in Tijuana, Mexico, she began her career at Tijuana’s weekly Zeta in 2004, after graduating from Universidad de Tijuana with a degree in communications and publicity. She also worked as a reporter for Mexican and American Hispanic media in California, Utah and Washington, and as a bilingual copywriter and digital content creator at a marketing agency in San Diego.