Dave Jones, a newspaper reporter and editor for 30 years, has joined Dateline as associate editor. He took up his new position on Nov. 1.

Jones holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley. He has spent the bulk of his career with McClatchy Newspapers, mostly as a copy editor and assistant city editor at The Modesto Bee. He started his McClatchy career in 1976 as editor and publisher of the weekly Lincoln News Messenger, which McClatchy no longer owns.

In Modesto, Jones was an editor on many stories focusing on the site selection process for the first UC campus in the San Joaquin Valley, and the resulting development of UC Merced, which opened in September.

At Dateline, Jones will report and write on faculty and staff news and features, and contribute to the newspaper's weekly layout and Web production.