Cecilia Vega — who covers Mayor Gavin Newsom for the San Francisco Chronicle, where she broke big stories ranging from the big sex scandal to the mayor’s extravagant spending during hard times — has taken a job with KGO-TV Channel 7 covering Oakland City Hall.
It’s a loss for the newspaper industry, which Vega has worked in for about 10 years, reporting for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and San Bernardino Sun before joining the Chron four years ago. But Vega — who has been a colleague of mine on the City Desk News Hour (a TV show she’ll also be leaving) for the last couple years — sees it as a good opportunity during these trying times for the Chron, which has made deep staff cuts to cope with declining readership and big financial losses.
“Making the decision to leave newspapers wasn’t easy — even in these uncertain times in the industry. It’s not something I ever thought I would do. But I’ve got a great opportunity to learn a new form of story telling at Channel 7. And besides, with all the scandals going on in Oakland City Hall right now, what political reporter isn’t itching to do stories there? It’s an exciting opportunity I just couldn’t pass up,” Vega told me.
Her last day at the Chron is July 25 and she’ll be starting her new gig in early September after getting married in August. The word is reporter Erin Allday, a novice to political reporting, will take over the Newsom beat.