4 ms·

Berkleyside is a good local news source. Oaklandside, in neighboring Oakland, is my go-to. Very happy to send them a monthly donation.

wombatmobile 6y ago
"The Oaklandside was launched with initial funding of $1.56 million from the Google News Initiative (GNI). This is the GNI’s third collaboration in its Local Experiments Project, which aims to develop new business, operational and product practices to create sustainable local news business models. Google has no input or influence on our editorial decisions." I had not heard of GNI. How's that going? Here in Australia Google is facing off with a conservative government that is assisting Murdoch with an extortion attempt (forcing Google to pay for linking and grabbing summaries from News Limited publications). Google's strategic response has been confused and ineffective, prompting commentators to suggest something possibly more like GNI would be a better destination for the dollars than Murdoch's pocket, since Murdoch's output isn't even predominantly news anymore - it is entertainment and ideology.
- kemitchell 6y ago
  I hadn't hear of GNI. Thanks for the link. I'm slightly more suspicious now. Sounds like they want to seed nonprofit news sources that won't gang up and fight them for royalties, as in Europe or Australia. But I read Oaklandside pretty much every day, and I can vouch for their coverage. Especially Natalie Orenstein's writing on the housing and homelessness beat. It's amazing they have a housing a homelessness beat.
  - wombatmobile 6y ago
    Sounds like Oaklandside's editors are well intentioned. How will they get funding to pay journalists' wages long term? If they try to do it through advertising, they compete with Google. If they find a sustainable alternative method which can scale to support thousands of local news publications all over the world, they are Houdini.

wombatmobile 6y ago

"The Oaklandside was launched with initial funding of $1.56 million from the Google News Initiative (GNI). This is the GNI’s third collaboration in its Local Experiments Project, which aims to develop new business, operational and product practices to create sustainable local news business models. Google has no input or influence on our editorial decisions." I had not heard of GNI. How's that going? Here in Australia Google is facing off with a conservative government that is assisting Murdoch with an extortion attempt (forcing Google to pay for linking and grabbing summaries from News Limited publications). Google's strategic response has been confused and ineffective, prompting commentators to suggest something possibly more like GNI would be a better destination for the dollars than Murdoch's pocket, since Murdoch's output isn't even predominantly news anymore - it is entertainment and ideology.

kemitchell 6y ago
I hadn't hear of GNI. Thanks for the link. I'm slightly more suspicious now. Sounds like they want to seed nonprofit news sources that won't gang up and fight them for royalties, as in Europe or Australia. But I read Oaklandside pretty much every day, and I can vouch for their coverage. Especially Natalie Orenstein's writing on the housing and homelessness beat. It's amazing they have a housing a homelessness beat.
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  Sounds like Oaklandside's editors are well intentioned. How will they get funding to pay journalists' wages long term? If they try to do it through advertising, they compete with Google. If they find a sustainable alternative method which can scale to support thousands of local news publications all over the world, they are Houdini.