Joe Howry

Mr. Howry was named editor of the Ventura County Star in 2004, after serving as the managing editor for 11 years. Before coming to Ventura, he was the managing editor at the Salem Statesman-Journal in Salem, OR. He began his career at the Havre Daily News in Havre, MT, and also served in reporting and managing positions at the Reno Gazette-Journal in Reno, NV. He is a graduate of the University of Montana.

Under Mr. Howry's leadership, the Ventura County Star has won numerous awards in both print and digital media. The Star has been named the best general excellence newspaper in its circulation category in California for the past two years. In 2006, Mr. Howry launched, with the help Jane Ellen Stevens of the University of California, Berkeley, an ambitious multimedia training program. The program consisted of training reporters and editors to tell stories on multiple platforms, and to do so entirely on their own. To date, 32 people have been trained in multimedia journalism at The Star. The training is ongoing and consists of four to six weeks of full immersion in multimedia techniques, depending on the size of the classes.  Participation is voluntary. Mr. Howry has attended two API seminars: City and Metro Editors in 1986 and Executive and Managing Editors in 2002.