Monica Lopez

Monica Lopez is the news director at KCBX. She's an audio journalist, editor, and podcast engineer with 25 years of experience in journalism.

She has been a news director and editor, bureau chief, writer, reporter, and producer on nationally syndicated newscasts and documentary programs in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Houston.

She received her undergraduate education on the Central Coast at UC Santa Barbara with a degree in Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies. Lopez also studied at the Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley where she specialized in video documentary production.

Early in her career, Lopez was a news director at KPFK in LA, and helped establish a bureau and nascent newsroom at KPFT in Houston. Soon after, she was hired as the senior producer for the international daily news program Free Speech Radio News (FSRN), with locally-based journalists filing from every continent around the world.

Lopez returned to her alma mater to mentor and educate undergraduates as a staff advisor and then news director at KCSB-FM on the UCSB campus. She and her students produced live coverage on-location from the Republican, Democratic, and Third Parties national conventions. They also produced special coverage after the tragic Isla Vista killings in 2014.

She was a host and producer on the weekly show Making Contact and a freelance writer and audio engineer for Bioneers Radio.

Most recently Lopez worked at The Financial Times as an audio engineer for their daily flagship news podcast, the FT News Briefing, and co-edited the documentary podcast series, 70 Million.

Monica says, “I’ve worked at terrestrial radio stations and remotely on podcast productions, but I’d have to say I love community radio and covering local communities where there can be a greater connection and impact with listeners.”