FUND DRIVE FEATURE: Sports Journalism Career Talk with Oskar Garcia

KCSB News spoke to several KCSB alums in honor of this year’s Fund Drive, including former sports director and general manager Oskar Garcia. Garcia, who is now a Sports Editor at the New York Times, joined us on January 20 to discuss his impressive career in sports journalism and how he got started at KCSB. Check out highlights from the talk here.

RECAP:
KCSB reporters and staff attended a Zoom webinar with UCSB alumni and former KCSB Sports Director and General Manager, Oskar Garcia. Garcia who is now a Sports editor at the New York Times shared his advice and educational journey with KCSB members in Jan. 2021. His talk mostly covered his exposure to different types of journalism and how his interest in journalism has evolved over time.

“A lot of people come into having strong opinions about what they like, what they don’t like, what they think makes a story, what they think is boring or entertaining,” Garcia said.

He mentioned that as a sophomore he came in wanting to report on sports because it was what he found interesting. However, after taking a sports management class, he gained a new perspective on the business world of sports.

After graduating from UCSB, Garcia continued his educational journey at the University of California, Berkeley. At UC Berkeley he learned how to shoot and edit news media. He credits his acceptance to UC Berkeley to KCSB and the Daily Nexus, UCSB’s newspaper. Having put in so much effort into both types of publications gave him the experience he needed. The asset he thought was the most important in regards to the two types of media was the fact that by being a part of any of the two, you were surrounded by people who are interested in the same topic as you.

After graduating from Berkeley after their two-year program, Garcia went on to intern at the Associated Press in Los Angeles for three months. There he learned and wrote about breaking news, enterprise, features, and covered red carpet events.

Following his internship, Garcia continued to be a reporter for the next four years of his life in Las Vegas.

He advised that anyone who wants to pursue this type of career keep a file of potential stories. He also listed important traits such as curiosity and the ability to listen as keys to being a great reporter. He also advises students to start curating well-balanced lives now in order to not get burnt out later in life.