Veteran U-T San Diego Reporter Leaving to Work for Supervisor Jacob

Veteran U-T San Diego reporter Steve Schmidt, who has covered East County in recent years, is taking a job with 2nd District county Supervisor Dianne Jacob, he has announced.

“From hack to flack: I’m leaving the U-T next week to work as communications advisor for county Supervisor Dianne Jacob. Wish me well!” he said Tuesday via Twitter.

Scott Peters, the Democrat running for Congress against Rep. Brian Bilbray in the 52nd District, tweeted: “Good luck Steve! Our community was well served by your analysis. So will be the supervisor.”

Schmidt, an El Cajon resident, called himself fortunate for having worked at the San Diego daily since April 1985, he said.

“I’ve had a rich and full journalism career,” Schmidt wrote Ramona resident Jack Reber, who maintains a mailing list of current and former Union-Tribune newsroom workers. “Now I get a chance to have a rich and full career doing something else, and I’m excited about it.”

Schmidt, originally hired by the morning San Diego Union, has covered transportation, National City, Escondido, downtown redevelopment, San Diego City Hall, higher education, K-12 education and California and the West.

“I was given the time to burrow into topics of deep personal interest (the Navajo, the state prison system, East County education),” he wrote. “So yeah, I’ve been fortunate.”

His many awards include one in 2011 from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.

He was honored for a story headlined “Veterans Recall the day of the War's End 65 Years Ago Today.”

“Mr. Schmidt wrote a feature newspaper article that revealed what it must have felt like on that August day, 65 days ago, to know the joy that the war was over and that the service men and women would be returning home to their families,” said the San Diego chapter.

Schmidt is one of several high-profile reporters leaving U-T San Diego, according to San Diego Free Press. The website said: “WatchDog reporter Ashly McGlone is relocating to the Silicon Valley.” 

“It’s a tough move & I will miss this town and its headaches on some level,” McGlone tweeted.