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OUR EXECUTIVE TEAM

Barry Shatzman

Lobby99 Director
News in FiVe Chief

Barry Shatzman is a reporter and editor who created News in FiVe. He previously founded Newbor.com - an online local information and news service that operated in California's Bay Area and soon will be a feature of News in FiVe.

Before launching Newbor, Barry wrote for The Argus in Fremont, California. He has won awards for his reporting, including a James Madison Freedom of Information Award in 2006.

Prior to taking up journalism as a career in 2002, Barry had a successful career as a database consultant, designing databases for companies as large as the U.S. Postal Service and as small as startups with fewer than 20 people.

Barry moderates discussions for Crossing Party Lines, and previously has volunteered with the Oregon Food Bank and the Community Alliance of Tenants.

Rob Dennis

Lobby99 Director
News Director

Rob Dennis was an award-winning reporter for the Oakland Tribune and has served as a local city editor.

Rob also produces documentary films, including the award-winning Beyond The Wall - which shows what life in Germany has been like since the fall of the Berlin Wall - and Under the Hood, about life in Belarus.

Bill Parks

Lobby99 Director
Consulting Editor

Bill Parks is a retired journalism professor at Ohlone College in Fremont, California. A former reporter, Bill has edited both newspapers and magazines, and is a director of the San Francisco Press Club.

SPECIAL MENTION

Lisa Ritter

We dedicate this site to the memory of Lisa Ritter.

Lisa was our original support person, but she also was a great writer who contributed writing and editing to News In FiVe.

Her sense of humor was off the charts. In fact, we aren't even sure she's dead. After a few years of being confined to a nursing home and posting TikTok videos making light of her situation, she chose to enter hospice in late 2024. Then she broke off all communication, apparently choosing an exit strategy where she would not be mourned.

So we don't mourn her. We just let her intelligence, wit, and dedication inspire us to make News In FiVe the unique source of news she believed it could be. And we hope she's reading this.