NEW YORK (AP) -- Oskar Garcia, a news editor for The Associated Press who oversees news coverage of Hawaii, has been appointed assistant sports editor for the east region for the news agency.
Garcia, currently based in Honolulu, will be based in Philadelphia and will report to Global Sports Editor Michael Giarrusso, who announced the promotion on Thursday.
He will work with a dozen sports journalists in the northeast and others around the globe to lead spot and enterprise sports coverage in 10 U.S. states.
“Garcia is a terrific journalist and editor, and he’ll bring creativity and energy to our team,” Giarrusso said. “He’s got great ideas, and he understands that great sports coverage goes beyond what happens on the field.”
Since 2012, Garcia has been the AP’s news leader in Hawaii, supervising a team of reporters as well as freelancers in a region that includes Guam, American Samoa and Saipan. He directed multiformat teams on breaking stories including the 2012 election, the death of longtime U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye and the state’s legalization of gay marriage. He also led the state’s sports coverage, reporting on two NFL Pro Bowls, college football and college basketball. In February, Garcia was part of the AP team that covered the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
From 2008 to mid-2012, Garcia was a news reporter in Las Vegas covering various subjects including the casino industry, the World Series of Poker and tourism.
Garcia, 32 and a San Francisco native, joined the AP as an intern in 2006 in the Los Angeles bureau and later worked as a general assignment reporter in Omaha, Nebraska.
He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley and an undergraduate degree in communications from the University of California, Santa Barbara.