KQED TV 9

Mondo Times editors    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 11:06pm on Sunday, September 27th, 2009

September 24, 2009: KQED Public Media, the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism (J-School), and San Francisco business leader Warren Hellman today announced their collaboration in launching a non-profit news organization to provide high-quality, original coverage of Bay Area civic and community news.

The Hellman Family Foundation intends to provide a gift of $5 million as initial seed money for the project. Once formed, the new entity will seek tax-exempt 501(c)3 status as an organization supported in large part by public donations. The operating name, Web address, and key staff of the project will be announced in the near future.

The locally produced, professional news organization plans to leverage broad collaborations and new digital technologies to provide Bay Area news that reflects the region's dynamic social and cultural diversity. At the heart of the enterprise will be a professional staff of experienced journalists who, in collaboration with KQED and the J-School, will generate original, in-depth Bay Area news content focused on local topics increasingly underserved by commercial media outlets. Coverage will include government and public policy, education, the arts and cultural affairs, the environment, as well as food and wine and neighborhood news.

Original content from the new entity's team of reporters, as well as from KQED and the J-School, will be distributed through multiple channels. The primary channels will be online and mobile, with public radio and television distribution planned through KQED. The parties are also in discussions with The New York Times to disseminate news content in new Bay Area pages being launched by The Times.

In response to the decline of local news coverage, non-profit news ventures are developing around the country to fill the void being created by newsroom layoffs at newspapers and broadcast outlets. The new Bay Area venture, designed to serve one of the world's most sophisticated markets, will be unique in the breadth of its institutional collaborations, the reporting quality and editorial depth of its news operations, the significance of its startup funds, and its potential for distribution through multiple outlets.

Innovative approaches are clearly needed to maintain the quality and quantity of news coverage. In the Bay Area, local newspapers have collectively reduced their newsrooms by nearly 50% during the last five years.(1) The impact is seen in the number of original, professionally written stories about the Bay Area, which at one major regional newspaper has declined from 100 to 40 stories per day.