Bay City News Foundation

06/21/2024

FBI raids home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao.

Several hours after the FBI raided the home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, a small group of protesters had gathered there, calling for her to resign. 

06/18/2024

Creating career pathways for the next generation through paid internships is key to our mission.

As a nonprofit, we depend on the support of readers and supporters like you to keep this critical work going. We have already raised $25,000, thanks to matching funds. Our goal is to raise an additional $50,000 for our internship program to be fully funded this year.

Will you help us meet our goal and support the next generation of journalists? 🤝

💙 Click to donate - https://localnewsmatters.org/internships/

We’re thrilled to help these graduates and students with intensive mentoring and real-world experience on their way to getting those critical first jobs

01/19/2024

Local News Matters publisher Katherine Ann Rowlands will be speaking at an upcoming lecture series at The College Preparatory School about the rebirth of local news.

Please join us in supporting local news!

Thursday, February 8, 7:00 – 8:30 pm at College Prep’s Buttner Auditorium

Doors open at 6:30 pm for light refreshments and mingling, panel begins at 7:00 pm.

Tickets:
Free: Current College Prep Students, Faculty, and Staff
$15: College Prep Parents, Alumni Parents, and Alumni
$25: Non-College Prep Community Members

LiveTalk evening lecture series is engaging, thought-provoking lectures by local and national experts and celebrities on intriguing topics and current events.

12/21/2023

We’re proud to be a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News Network – an alliance of 425+ organizations working to build stronger, better-informed communities.

Find a newsroom near you:

Match me with nonprofit newsrooms…

12/14/2023

We won big last night at the 2023 San Francisco Press Club Journalistic Excellence Awards!

Blog/Commentary: Joe Dworetzky
Entertainment Review: Kalpana Mohan
Environment/Nature Report: Tony Hicks and Ray Saint Germain
General News: Joe Dworetzky
Photography/Feature: Harika Maddala
Series or Continuing Coverage: Joe Dworetzky

Congratulations to all the winners!

https://sfpressclub.org/2023/12/13/sfpc-46th-annual-greater-bay-area-journalism-awards-winners/

12/03/2023

This is why local journalism matters. Access, transparency and accountability keep public officials honest and inform the public so citizens know what’s happening with their representatives, elected officials and government agencies. We cannot do this work if public officials pick favorites and deny access to others.

The Alameda County District Attorney's Office on Saturday reversed course after excluding some journalists from a media briefing this week. The action was roundly criticized by First Amendment advocates as being unconstitutional and inappropriate.

11/15/2023

We believe in the power of images to tell community stories.

Our staff photojournalist Harika Maddala and photo editor Ray Saint Germain work around the clock to serve the greater Bay Area region with compelling visual journalism like the image below.

Will you make a generous gift today to sustain this work?

Thanks to NewsMatch, your gift will be DOUBLED through the end of the year!

https://localnewsmatters.org/support-our-publication/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=newsmatch2023

09/28/2023

Harika Maddala’s CatchLight Local Fellowship project, “A Matter of Trust: Inside Stockton’s Police Department and the Residents They Serve,” compiles visual stories from 2022 with additional reporting by Victoria Franco.

It explores the dynamics of trust between residents and police, focusing on families and individuals feeling broken trust, while also looking into the department’s efforts to bridge the gap.

Harika Maddala is a Local News Matters staff photojournalist, CatchLight Local Fellow and Report for America corps member who documents everyday Stockton.

Harika Maddala is a Bay City News staff photojournalist, CatchLight Local Fellow and Report for America corps member who documents everyday Stockton.  A look at the dynamics of trust between Stockton, Calif. residents and the police department

09/20/2023

In , activists have launched Beloved Birth Black Centering, a program staffed by an all-Black team of health care providers that reimagines treatment for pregnant Black people with its midwifery-led group perinatal care model.

https://localnewsmatters.org/2023/09/20/advocates-work-to-end-race-related-disparity-in-health-care-for-pregnant-black-patients/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=all_content

Helena Getahun-Hawkins is an intern at Bay City News Foundation through Stanford University's Rebele Fellowship. She’s a rising junior at Stanford majoring in International Relations and minoring in Spanish. She writes for The Stanford Daily under the campus life desk and was most recently managing editor of the Daily’s podcast section. She enjoys covering stories that center around education policy, immigration policy, and identity.

WEEKS AFTER HER doctor told her she had miscarried, Terilynn Nash still felt pregnant. Unmoved, her doctor told her the symptoms she was describing would

09/15/2023

Most voters prioritize diverse representation in elected leaders and support expanded immigrant voting rights, with concerns particularly pronounced among voters of color and women, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted in July 2023.

https://localnewsmatters.org/2023/08/17/uc-berkeley-poll-californians-want-diverse-leaders-more-immigrant-voting-rights/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=all_content

Center for Cooperative Media

A MAJORITY OF CALIFORNIA VOTERS are concerned that elected leaders reflect the diversity of the state’s population, according to a new poll by the

09/15/2023

As voter registration rates among youth in the Bay Area decline, several organizations are pushing efforts to boost political engagement and in the youth sector.

The main goal for these collaborative initiatives is to make sure “that we don’t lose the vote of young people” as the 2024 Presidential Election approaches, said Alex Lalama, lead student organizer for San Francisco Rising Alliance.

https://localnewsmatters.org/2023/08/30/bay-areas-young-voters-are-registering-at-lower-rates-organizers-are-combating-this-ahead-of-2024-election/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=all_content

This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org. Center for Cooperative Media

THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION produced some of the highest turnout of young voters and voters of color. Alex Lalama was among them.  A San Francisco

09/15/2023

Unlike criminal grand juries that can hand down indictments, civil grand juries report on the workings of public agencies and make recommendations to improve efficiencies. is one of the few states to continue with a practice that has its roots in 12th century England yet remains largely misunderstood by the public.

https://localnewsmatters.org/2023/09/11/little-understood-civil-grand-juries-labor-in-obscurity-to-hold-government-accountable/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=all_content

This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org. Center for Cooperative Media

THERE IS A tenet of American democracy that has fallen by the wayside in most every state except for one: California. It’s the convening of civil grand

09/15/2023

Over the past few election cycles, people of color have generally continued to make modest gains in the halls of power across the region but are still proportionally underrepresented compared to their share of the population, according to numbers compiled by PolicyLink's Bay Area Equity Atlas.

https://localnewsmatters.org/2023/09/11/people-of-color-continue-to-make-modest-gains-in-bay-areas-halls-of-power/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=all_content

This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org. Center for Cooperative Media

Times are changing, albeit ever so slowly, according to new data quantifying racial and ethnic diversity among the Bay Area’s local elected

09/07/2023

Native American culture took center stage over the recent holiday weekend as the University of the Pacific hosted the Annual Labor Day Pow Wow.

Reporting and photography by Harika Maddala, a Report for America Corps Member and CatchLight Local Fellow

NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE took center stage over the recent holiday weekend as the University of the Pacific hosted the Annual Stockton Labor Day Pow Wow.

08/23/2023

The Oakland A's have chosen a pair of companies to manage the construction of a new ballpark for the team in Las Vegas.

THE OAKLAND A’s have chosen a pair of companies to manage the construction of a new ballpark for the team in Las Vegas following talks that have

08/22/2023

Congratulations to Bay City News Foundation reporter Tony Hicks for being selected as one of the 2023 Age Boom Academy Fellows!

​​​In its third decade, Columbia University's signature media training to deepen reporting on issues around aging is a fellowship program of the Columbia Journalism School, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center.

08/17/2023

Around 43,000 former patients of Santa Clara Valley Healthcare can possibly get billing corrections and refunds, thanks to a settlement between some patients and Santa Clara County.

AROUND 43,000 FORMER PATIENTS of Santa Clara Valley Healthcare (SCVH) will soon receive notice of possible billing corrections and refunds as part of a

08/16/2023

Across California, a patchwork of food prescription programs are being tested using a variety of strategies, while an ambitious initiative to reform Medi-Cal and a bill that failed in the Legislature this session would standardize the effort.

EVERY OTHER FRIDAY, the Stockton Emergency Food Bank hosts two live cooking classes — one in English and one in Spanish. Last week, Brenda Munoz

08/10/2023

We are thrilled to share that we have been recognized as a finalist in the 2023 LION Publishers Local Journalism Awards in the category of Outstanding Coverage Award.

"The Bay City News Foundation project recognized the weight and legitimacy of often conflicting narratives about homelessness: the tragic situation of those living unsheltered and the impact of homelessness on neighbors, local businesses, tourism, and public safety. By highlighting the failures and mistakes made by those in power, while presenting all narratives fairly, their reporting has already made a difference: their feature on Site F near Pier 94 led to engagement by the city Board of Supervisors and, ultimately, their unanimous resolution to oppose the closure."

Congratulations to all of the finalists for your outstanding work! 🎉

LION Publishers is delighted to announce that 99 entries have been recognized as finalists of the 2023 LION Local Journalism Awards.

07/20/2023

The legacy of lives on at UC Berkeley.

Shooting locations for Oppenheimer included Oppenheimer’s offices, the Berkeley Physics building on South Drive and Oppenheimer Way surrounding Physics South and the pathway leading up to the west side of the Campanile clock tower.

IT WAS THE summer of 1942 and a secret group of senior theoretical physicists at the University of California, Berkeley — dubbed the “luminaries” — took

07/15/2023

Where to find cooling centers to beat the extreme heat this weekend.

COOLING CENTERS ARE opening around the Bay Area amid an excessive heat warning issued for Saturday and Sunday. The National Weather Service issued the

07/14/2023

Introducing our next summer intern, Catherine Allen!

Catherine is a data intern through the Dow Jones News Fund, Inc. She is a rising senior at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) with a major in journalism and minor in statistics.

Catherine previously served as editor in chief of Mustang News, Cal Poly’s multimedia news organization. She is passionate about public policy’s impact on communities and individuals and often writes about housing and homelessness, public health and politics.

Marin County’s application for COVID-19 rent relief is set to close after Aug. 1 amid low funding, the county announced this week. The county said its

07/14/2023

Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration spent hundreds of millions on a private program to help parolees, but has little evidence it prevents future crime.

AS GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM retools the state’s prison system to emphasize rehabilitation, his administration has little evidence that a privately run program

07/14/2023

Santa Clara County will provide $1,200 per month to some homeless graduating high school seniors.

Santa Clara County will provide monthly stipends of $1,200 to some graduating high school seniors who are homeless, beginning next summer, officials

07/13/2023

Our next intern from our summer cohort is Helena Alexandra Getahun-Hawkins!

Helena is an intern through Stanford’s Rebele Fellowship. She’s a rising junior at Stanford University majoring in International Relations and minoring in Spanish. She writes for The Stanford Daily under the campus life desk and was most recently managing editor of the Daily’s podcast section. She enjoys covering stories that center around education policy, immigration policy, and identity.

AS A CELEBRATION of their work to help combat graffiti and beautify Stockton, the Graffiti Abatement Society recently hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony and

07/12/2023

Please join us in welcoming our next summer intern, Nibras Suliman!

Nibras is an intern through the Emma Bowen Foundation. She is a rising senior at UC Berkeley studying Media and Data Science. She is passionate about the intersection of data and journalism and previously served as the deputy editor of the data department at the Daily Californian.

Emergency departments in California fail to meet demands as state population rises.   According to a new study by the University of California,

06/12/2023

Please join us in welcoming our next summer intern Deidre Foley!

Deidre is a graduate student at Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she studies data journalism and health & science reporting. She is interested in using data and visuals to engage people in stories about social inequities like homelessness.

California boasts some of the toughest gun safety laws in the nation, and they would become the blueprint for all 50 states if Gov. Gavin Newsom has

06/09/2023

Please welcome our next summer intern, Lydia Sidhom!

Lydia is a rising third-year at University of California, Berkeley and a Business Reporting intern from Dow Jones News Fund, Inc.

A return to a pre-pandemic economy in the East Bay would not be enough, according to a new report from the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Many East Bay workers

06/08/2023

Please join us in welcoming Charles Ayitey as a summer intern with Bay City News Foundation!

Charles is a graduate student at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism with a special interest in reporting on racial equities in health, business, and policy.

Four-term Antioch City Councilmember Monica Wilson has announced her bid for a state Assembly seat next year. The District 15 Assembly seat is currently