From Maya Chupkov, Media & Democracy Program Manager, California Common Cause:

Local news across the country has been in decline. 

More than 2,000 local newspapers have closed in the past two decades, leaving many communities without a reliable source of local reporting. Many of those that remain have only a fraction of the staff they had before and are owned by hedge funds like Alden Global Capital, putting their long term future in doubt.

Here in San Francisco, we’ve seen our own losses – the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly chief among them. But we’ve also seen perseverance among our local outlets, like the Bay Area Reporter which has served the LGBTQ community since 1971. New outlets have emerged, too, like the nonprofit San Francisco Public Press and the locally owned Wind Newspaper, launched in 2020 to serve the Asian American community in both English and Chinese.

We know local news – truly local and community-driven news – is vital to the health of our local communities and our democracy. And we believe there are things we can do together to protect and transform it.

That’s why California Common Cause is hosting listening sessions with communities in San Francisco about how people get local news and information and how we can make our local news ecosystem stronger.

We invite you to join an online focus group this October and be part of this work with us. Participants will receive a $50 gift card or digital payment. We’re offering sessions on the following dates:

• Thursday, Oct. 19, 8:30-10 a.m. 
• Thursday, Oct. 26, 6:30-8 p.m. 
• Friday, Oct. 27, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. 
• Saturday, Oct. 28, 10-11:30 a.m.

Click here to learn more and sign up. And share with friends and neighbors in San Francisco, too.

We want to hear from as many communities within our City as possible. While these focus groups will be in English, we’ll also be hosting events in Spanish, Cantonese, and possibly other languages, both in-person and online.

If you’d like to work with us on a listening session in your community, let us know on this form or email Maya Chupkov, Media & Democracy Program Manager, at mchupkov@commoncause.org.