Serving Local News to Audiences via Information Hubs in the Bay Area
Bay City News Foundation is turning three!
As we pass the three-year mark for our nonprofit news organization, we are taking a week to ask for your support and highlight some of the best of our work. Information Hubs, for example, have proven to be an effective tool to collect useful, actionable information for local audiences in the Bay Area as we faced multiple crises — just one of the ways we have been building our nonprofit news operation since starting Bay City News Foundation in 2018.
As the COVID-19 pandemic reached the Bay Area last year, accurate and comprehensive news coverage became more important than ever before. Our free, nonprofit news site, Local News Matters, stepped up to the challenge by creating a COVID-19 Information Hub, providing details on vital services and resources to help residents stay informed about the rapidly-changing situation. Read more here about how we built it.
As the pandemic evolved, so did the information hub, which was created with seed funding from the JSK Journalism Fellowships program at Stanford University and has since been expanded to other topics. From tracking the region’s daily cases, changes in local ordinances, available testing sites, vaccine availability and other developments, we remained committed to providing up-to-date information for the entire Bay Area in one convenient location.
Next, we used the hub format to create a Voter Information Hub for the 2020 election. And then we iterated again to create a Library Information Hub, connecting communities with the resources they need to adapt to the new normal of working and learning at home during the pandemic.
As we move into the summer, scientists, fire officials and local leaders worry that climate change and dry conditions are setting us up for another dangerous fire season. Our Wildfire Information Hub will track the trends and provide the news you need to know to stay safe and prepare.
Whether it’s COVID-19, elections, libraries, wildfires or any other public health and safety issue, we work around the clock to keep Bay Area residents informed about the news that matters most to them. We recently hosted a series of Q/As with experts to answer reader questions on these issues to track your concerns and provide relevant information. And by sharing that public service work with dozens of other media organizations through our affiliated newswire, we have reached as many as 8 million people every day.
As we build a base of supporters during our Three Year Anniversary campaign, can you help us maintain this coverage with a tax-deductible gift today of $30, $300, $3,000 or whatever amount feels right for you?
Bay City News is here to stay and we have proven that our hybrid model works: a nonprofit newsroom combined with our affiliated newswire for distribution to other media is a powerful and impactful combination. With your support, we can continue to provide this public service for the Bay Area, and ensure our region is prepared for whatever may come its way.
With gratitude,
Katherine Ann Rowlands
Founder and Executive Director, Bay City News Foundation
