THOUSAND OAKS : News Chronicle Editor to Retire

Thousand Oaks News Chronicle Editor Marvin Sosna has announced his retirement from the newspaper after 26 years.

The 63-year-old editor said he plans to leave the newspaper at the end of the year to pursue other interests, including a possible return to teaching. A new editor is expected to be named within a month, Sosna said Tuesday.

Sosna said the city, which incorporated about the same time that the newspaper was founded, has grown as rapidly as The News Chronicle’s circulation.

When Sosna founded the newspaper, it had a staff of about 30 and a circulation of 2,000.

Today, 190 people work at the paper and and it has a circulation of about 23,000, Sosna said. He oversaw five redesigns of the newspaper and saw the number of presses grow from the original three to nine.

“Things have come and gone at a quick pace here,” he said. “Twenty-six years in Thousand Oaks is the equal of half a century anywhere else.”

Sosna originally left the post of city editor at the Ventura Star-Free Press to start the John P. Scripps Newspapers’ first daily publication in eastern Ventura County.

Sosna has more than 46 years in journalism. He started out as a copy boy in 1944 working at the now-defunct New York Journal American.

Known for a lively newspaper column that appears regularly in the News Chronicle, Sosna also has taught journalism at Cal State Northridge.