About Joe

The hit single

Joe Ruiz is relatively new to the online media industry, but considers himself both an evangelist and constant student of using sound editorial judgment and online tools to present information to the news consumers who expect better from us.

He works as the nightside Web editor for KSAT.com as part of Internet Broadcasting and as a freelance journalist. He is currently learning more about multimedia journalism, including audio, video and photography, and how best to integrate those into online news coverage.

Joe is an alumnus of Texas State University-San Marcos who eventually plans on obtaining his bachelor’s degree in electronic media. He is a Chips Quinn Scholar, a member of the San Antonio Association of Hispanic Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

The extended remix

Well, I’m a journalist living in San Antonio, TX, but you already knew the first part and likely knew the second, so let’s start at the beginning.

According to court records, I have a slightly longer name, but I’m a simple guy who chooses to use the seven-letter name instead. I was born in Uvalde, TX, way back in the day and have been in South Texas all my life, save for three months in West Texas a few years back. I’ve known I wanted to be a journalist since I was a much younger person (7th grade, actually). I attended Southwest Texas State University (now just Texas State for all you young folk) and worked in multiple positions at The University Star. I also did some time on the campus TV station (Bobcat Update) since my major work was in electronic media.

After being accepted into the Chips Quinn Scholars program, I joined the San Angelo Standard-Times as an intern working cops/courts before coming back to San Antonio to take my cracks working as as a freelancer and editorial assistant in the sports department at the San Antonio Express-News. During that time, I worked as a freelancer for Prime-Time Newspapers and began working professionally for b5media as the blog editor at LadiesCourt, a blog on women’s basketball.

Since then, I’ve been the news editor at KSAT.com through Internet Broadcasting where I produce content for the Web site based off the broadcast side of KSAT 12 (San Antonio’s ABC affiliate). I’m a contributor and the admin of the KSAT.com blog titled Broken News, which is a mish-mash of thoughts from staffers in the newsroom. In fact, one of my favorite nights on this job has to do with some work I did for the blog.

I’m still working on LadiesCourt, too. As of August 2008, b5media decided to retire LadiesCourt.com and we parted ways. I have nothing but love for the b5media team and would certainly entertain an opportunity to rejoin their staff of bloggers in the future.

This site will primarily serve as a digital resume and my opinions on journalism as a whole. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and in no way reflect those of my employers or anybody else unless specifically mentioned.

I’m a proud member of the Society of Professional Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Online News Association and the San Antonio Association of Hispanic Journalists. (For financial reasons — I’m broke — I haven’t yet renewed my memberships.)