Kristen Go was named Managing Editor/News of USA TODAY in July 2018 as the national newspaper expanded its western U.S. coverage. One of the highest-ranking Asian women in the newspaper industry, she is based at USA TODAY’s San Francisco bureau. Kristen is responsible for covering breaking and enterprise news for states west of the Mississippi River.

Previously, Kristen was the Managing Editor/Digital for the San Francisco Chronicle. Respected for her front-line editing, strategic planning, and organizational and managerial skills, Kristen developed and led the innovative Chronicle’s program in 2015 to teach staff digital and social media tools. She left the Chronicle to become editorial director for a startup focused on in-depth reporting for children’s issues and then became Director of Special Projects for the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism.

Before being recruited to the Chronicle in 2008, Kristen was an award-winning reporter and editor at the Gannett-owned Arizona Republic. And previous to that, Kristen was part of the Denver Post team that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Columbine High School shootings. Kristen is the mother of two young children and lives in the East Bay.

Here, former Chronicle Executive Editor Ward Bushee interviews Kristen Go. The Q and A is from January, 2019.

Question: Could you describe the goals of the expanded West Coast coverage by USA TODAY under your leadership?

Answer: USA Today has tremendous reach: The newspaper has the largest subscriber base in the country and digitally it is second only to CNN.

That said, the organization’s staffing has largely been focused on the East Coast. So the West Coast push is to find from stories from our part of the country that could resonate at a national level, help grow west readership and staff news 24-7.

Q: The USA TODAY Network, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018, coordinates and distributes news content from the staffs of the 110 U.S. newspapers owned by Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper company. How does that network incorporate work from your staff and where can readers find the content that it produces?

A: Part of my responsibility is to coordinate with editors in the western half of the country to collaborate on stories and to make sure that if we write something in their area, they can use it.

In California, you may see our stories in the Ventura County Star, The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Redding Record Searchlight, Visalia Times-Delta, Salinas Californian and Tulare Advance-Register.

For example, ahead of the November elections we wrote a profile of now Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom that was available for all properties.

In Texas, we followed closely the Border Patrol agent accused of killing several women and several Texas properties used our stories.

Q: What are some of the big stories that your staff has worked on in the second half of 2018?

A: The past few months have been pretty steeped in breaking news. First came the shootings in Pittsburgh — and even though that happened on the East Coast, some of the news about the shooter and the victims broke late in the day. Rather than have our East Coast staff stay up all night, my team worked on a profile of the shooter and then profiles of each of the victims. That’s where staffing 24-7 really came into play.

But immediately after that we had the midterm elections, then the Borderline shooting, the Southern California fires and the Camp Fire, so we’ve been pretty busy.

Q: How do you plan coverage that is unique and original in highly competitive news settings such as the recent California wild fires?

A: When we have big breaking stories like the wildfires, we have had the advantage of working with local properties like the Redding Record Searchlight and Ventura County Star to have local expertise to guide some of the coverage. In those cases we were in constant contact to find interesting angles. In the case of the Camp Fire, we paired up with a reporter who was on the ground to spend time with forensic investigators as they tried to find and identify remains. In the case of the Woolsey Fire, we had several reporters familiar with the area already since they are based in Los Angeles and were the first to find and identify that the house in the “Bachelor” was safe.

Q: How does your Bay Area bureau differ in mission and content planning compared to other national media with S.F. bureaus such as the New York Times, Bloomberg, online digital news gathering organizations and TV networks? And, by extension, do you see local and regional media as competitors?

A: The Bay Area and Los Angeles bureaus have similar missions to those of major news organizations — to find the most interesting and important stories resonating in the West and bring them to a national audience. However, our reporters also have areas of expertise so they can break news as well. In the Bay Area, Jessica Guynn’s beat is tech accountability and she has covered Facebook from its inception — so she provides a wealth of institutional knowledge and breaks stories because of her vast network of sources.

However, because our reach is quite broad, we have to make sure our stories are interesting whether you’re a reader from Des Moines, Iowa, or San Francisco, so we don’t necessarily consider local media our competition, but we do pay attention to what they’re covering because they are often highlight issues that can surface as a national story.

Q: You are regarded by those who have worked for you as a superb front-line editor, reporter advocate and supportive coach. What can you tell us about your editing style and skills that have inspired and connected so well with reporters?

A: I’ve had the good fortune to work with some really gifted editors and managers, so I’ve had some good role models, including you.

I think there are a few things that have served me well: I have an open-door policy, treat everyone with respect and listen. Showing people you care and value their ideas earns a lot of trust; not to mention allows you to get a variety of perspectives and ideas.

Q: During your time as ME/Digital for the San Francisco Chronicle you created a boot camp as a crash course for reporters and editors to learn digital and social media skills quickly. How did the boot camp operate and did it quicken the transition to a more efficient digital newsroom?

A: For boot camp we worked with different department leaders to identify the areas they felt their staff needed help with. We also combined those goals with what we felt needed to happen as we wanted to move to a more digital-first newsroom. This was done in conjunction with people’s daily jobs — so it involved everything from social media training to finding ways to move away from waiting to publish online until the print deadline. Some of things we did were simple steps, others were more involved. When I left, training wasn’t complete, but it laid the foundation for the Chronicle to think about and execute in a more digitally savvy way.

Q: How do you see the future of print editions for USA TODAY and regional papers like the Chronicle in light of revenue shortfalls and readers converting to online versions of newspapers?

A: There is still a role for print, but it may not be with the same frequency as before. People still value saving the paper after big events — think historic elections and regionally Giants winning the World Series, the Warriors winning the title, but those days are fewer and far between.

Q: As local newspapers across the country have cut their staffs and resources deeply or even shuttered, the phrase local “news deserts” has been coined to describe communities with no news outlets whatsoever. Do you see any hope that these voids might be filled digitally or in some other way in the future?

A: There are more news deserts than ever — but what’s encouraging is there’s also a realization that local news really matters. Several nonprofit organizations are working to change that — whether through direct funding or through partnerships. While nonprofit news ventures can be difficult to sustain since they are largely philanthropically funded, there’s hope that a model can be found that works and can be replicated.

I also see that in the future more news organizations will team up to combine reporting resources on issues that matter.

Q: You have edited and coached aspiring career journalists hoping to land good journalism jobs in today’s tough media job market. What can you tell us about their skills and the kinds of jobs that interest the next generation of journalists?

A: Technology has changed so much and it will constantly evolve over time. I tell students they you should never get fixated on just one medium or platform, but instead should focus on their ability to tell a good story. That means knowing how to interview people, how to dig for information, how to think about what would interest the audience the most. Those basic storytelling principles translate whether it is through the written word, Instagram, Reddit or a documentary.

Q: How’s it going managing a new demanding job while being a mother of two young children?

A: Juggling my job and family is a constant balancing act. Thankfully I have a lot of help and support from my husband and my extended family. It helps that the leaders at USA Today are supportive of creating a work environment that allows their employees to balance work and family, which for me means working from home most days of the week. Since I sometimes work odd hours, I find breaks during the day to spend with my family — and we almost always we find a way to sit down for dinner every night.