JMS Lecturer Returns to Union-Tribune Covering Arts News

Lecturer and theater critic David Coddon returns to the San Diego Union-Tribune this fall to launch a new digital newsletter focusing on arts and culture.

The newsletter debuted earlier this month and will appear every Monday in the digital version of the Union-Tribune. The mission is to provide readers with commentary and news about the local performing and visual art scene while also identifying critical picks for upcoming events. 

The publication goes live at the beginning of each week enabling readers to plan ahead and stay up to date with what’s going on in the arts. City-wide news, critiques, and links will all be included in addition to event listings.

Coddon’s vision for the newsletter is that it will act as a way for people to stay informed about the arts, but also a way to interact and share their thoughts about past events. As part of his spotlight on the KAABOO Del Mar music festival, Coddon had the idea to do a retrospective on San Diego’s Street Scene music festival and ask readers for their favorite memories of the event.

“Part of what we want to do here is to get the readers to interact,” Coddon said. “That’s what digital is all about. With print, you can’t really do that. We want to build engagement with our readers.” 

Coddon’s return to the San Diego Union-Tribune follows a 10-year hiatus from his career there where he spent 24 years before leaving in 2009 to pursue other ventures. Since then, he’s stayed active in the theater community as San Diego CityBeat’s theater critic as well as occasionally freelancing for the Union-Tribune. 

In addition to writing, Coddon serves as a lecturer in San Diego State University’s School of Journalism and Media Studies and teaches English at Mesa College. He intends to continue teaching and writing for CityBeat in addition to this new project. 

“I’m excited about this project for a few reasons,” Coddon said. “Doing this is giving me a chance to reconnect with some of the art organizations that I used to be very much in touch with and it’s going to be gratifying to work with those people again. I also think it's going to be good for San Diego State because I’ll be able to give some buzz to some events at SDSU that people might not otherwise get to hear about.”

The content within this article has been edited by Lizbeth Persons.