Bay Citizen cuts ties with NY Times

Steven T. Jones of Bay Guardian reports that this Sunday is the last day The Bay Citizen will provide stories for The New York Times, which prints a Bay Area edition twice a week.

The Bay Citizen, a nonprofit started with $5 million from the late Lehman Brothers executive Warren Hellman, has merged with the 35-year-old Center for Investigative Reporting, headed by former Chronicle editors Phil Bronstein and Robert “Rosey” Rosenthal.

The Guardian headlined its piece “The Bay Citizen divorces NYT to marry CIR.” With the merger, which seems more like a takeover, The Bay Citizen will stop covering breaking news and instead focus on investigations and “accountability journalism.” Dropping the exclusive deal with the Times will allow The Bay Citizen to provide its work to newspapers and broadcasters. CIR has already been doing that through its California Watch label.

Jones says in his Guardian piece:

But CIR wasn't as successful as The Bay Citizen in creating a stable, long-term financial base. Starting with Hellman and a handful of his wealthy friends, The Bay Citizen sought donations from a wide variety of sources that totaled more than $15 million. By contrast, CIR had limited term foundation funding for a staff of talented journalists.

In the end, it comes down to money. As Bronstein told Jones: “We're betting on the idea that quality journalism is something people are willing to pay for.”

Bay Citizen will no longer supply stories to New York Times

The Bay Citizen will end its relationship with The New York Times as of April 29 so that it can have relationships with multiple media partners in the Bay Area, according to Steve Myers of Poynter.

The Times prints a section twice a week on Bay Area news that carries reports from The Bay Citizen, a nonprofit that also distributes its stories online.

The Bay Citizen has recently merged with the Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, whose executive director, former Chron managing editor Robert Rosenthal, confirmed to Poynter that the Times deal is over.

“We want the opportunity to have multiple media partners in the Bay Area and not be in an exclusive relationship with, really, anyone,” Rosenthal said.

He said he wants to work with many outlets in the Bay Area, on all platforms. Another problem with the Times relationship, he said, was “being able to manage the creative process on our own deadline cycle.”

CIR, Bay Citizen may merge

The Bay Citizen and the Center for Investigative Reporting have signed a formal letter of intent to merge the two nonprofit news organizations. Under terms of a memorandum of understanding approved by both boards, management of The Bay Citizen will be handed over to the existing leadership of the Berkeley-based CIR within 30 days. Phil Bronstein, the chairman of CIR’s board of directors, will become the executive chairman of the combined companies. Former Chronicle Managing Editor Robert Rosenthal would remain the CIR's executive director, and head up editorial operations at the combined organization. Here's Bay Citizen's coverage of its merger, the Chronicle's take on it, and Chris Rauber's story from the SF Business Times.

The Bay Citizen in merger talks

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that The Bay Citizen, the two-year-old nonprofit news organization, is in merger talks with the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting. The Journal attributed its report to Bay Citizen staffers and others familiar with the discussions. Those sources said the talks are in the early stages and could fall apart. CIR executive director Robert Rosenthal is quoted as saying that it is unclear where the conversations will lead. In the past few months, Bay Citizen has lost its editor (Jonathan Weber), CEO (Lisa Frazier) and interim editor (Steve Fainaru) to other jobs or projects. And its founder, Warren Helman, died. CIR is headed by Rosenthal, former Chron managing editor, and has as its board chairman ex-Chron editor Phil Bronstein.

Steve Fainaru to leave Bay Citizen

Steve Fainaru

Steve Fainaru, interim editor-in-chief of The Bay Citizen, announced Friday that he will be leaving the nonprofit news organization next month to pursue a book project with his brother, ESPN sportswriter Mark Fainaru-Wada. His departure follows the resignations of editor-in-chief Jonathan Weber in September and CEO Lisa Frazier in October. Last month, financeer Warren Helman, who launched Bay Citizen, died at age 77 of leukemia. The Bay Citizen, in its story about Fainaru’s departure, said it is currently hiring reporters and editors. Frazier, whose last day is Feb. 6, said Bay Citizen has raised $17.5 million since its inception including $6 million from Hellman. Replacements for Fainaru, Weber and Frazier have not been named. (Photo credit: Bay Citizen)

Bay Citizen's well-paid CEO quits

Frazier

After 21 months as the chief executive officer of The Bay Citizen news site, Lisa Frazier is stepping down from the $400,000-a-year job for what she said were personal reasons. Last month the news site lost its editor, Jonathan Weber, to Reuters.

“I set out to transform an idea into a reality and to build the foundation for that reality to continue,” Frazier said in a story posted on The Bay Citizen's website Friday afternoon. “I’ve created jobs in a field of journalism that is disappearing, in a recession, but to do so in a way that has a sustainable infrastructure.”

Frazier, who will remain on the board, launched The Bay Citizen with founder Warren Hellman. She was instrumental in raising $17.5 million in funding for The Bay Citizen since the idea was born in 2009.

“She really, to a substantial extent, was the founder of this organization,” said Hellman was quoted by The Bay Citizen as saying. “My druthers would be that she stay here forever.” (Photo credit: James Irwin, from The Bay Citizen website.)

Weber stepping down as Bay Citizen editor

Weber

The editor of nonprofit news website The Bay Citizen, Jonathan Weber, announced today that he is stepping down after 18 months.

His departure was first reported by SF Appeal, which said he was going to Reuters. But Weber would only say in his announcement that he plans to "pursue a new opportunity, the details of which will be announced shortly."

Pulitzer-winner Steve Fainaru, a former Washington Post reporter, will take over as interim editor. Fainaru has been with The Bay Citizen since March 2010.

Weber, a former LA Times staff writer, later co-founded The Industry Standard.

Bay Citizen workers decide to unionize

By a vote of 7 to 5, journalists at the nonprofit news website The Bay Citizen have decided to affiliate with the Pacific Media Workers Guild, Local 39521 of The Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America.

The union reports that 14 votes were cast, but that two of the ballots are being challenged. The remaining ballot count resulted in a 7-5 win to form the union. The two challenged votes have not been opened, however the Guild said that whether these two voters are included in the unit or not, the concluding tally will remain in favor of forming a unit. The Guild is asking the NLRB to count all votes cast.

The majority of the organization's editorial staff signed union cards seeking to be represented by the Guild on May 26, the one-year anniversary of The Bay Citizen's launch. Voting was conducted June 27 at The Bay Citizen's San Francisco headquarters and by mail-in ballot. NLRB officials counted the votes on July 12.

“We believe The Bay Citizen, as one of the pioneering exponents of new civic journalism, should also be a leading example in the area of workplace democracy,” The Bay Citizen’s editorial staff wrote in a letter to TBC President and CEO Lisa Frazier ahead of filing cards with the National Labor Relations Board.

Support came from unionized journalists at The New York Times and KGO radio, which have agreements to obtain local news content from The Bay Citizen.

A statement from the Guild said, "Bay Citizen staff members are committed to the success of the organization and expect their new Guild unit to work in partnership with management to create a contract appropriate for their nonprofit startup."

Panel discusses survival of nonprofit journalism

Lisa Frazier, president and CEO of The Bay Citizen, said Saturday she doesn’t know if nonprofit journalism online will be able to sustain itself. Frazier was one of the panelists for a discussion on nonprofit journalism at the 12th International Symposium on Online Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin.

According to Reportr.net, Frazier said The Bay Citizen can be a “test kitchen” for journalism, technology and business models. To make the model sustainable, takes time but also takes money to make money, she said. “The community will decide if nonprofit is sustainable,” said Frazier.

The Bay Citizen reaches 150,000 unique readers a month and additional 61,000 readers through its stories appearing in the Bay Area editions of The New York Times on Friday and Sunday.
Frazier said Bay Citizen has 27 people working in editorial and “innovation.” She pointed to one example of innovation — a web application that helps bikers in San Francisco avoid places where there have been a high number of bike accidents.

Bay Citizen announces additional fundraising

The Bay Citizen says it has raised $14.5 million and that it only will spend $4 million in its first year, according to a report by Staci D. Kramer on the PaidContent.org website.

Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Weber decided to release the news that Bay Citizen had raised the $14.5 million (which includes the $5 million in seed money from Warren Hellman) after a Matier & Ross item on Dec. 26 said the nonprofit was hitting the streets of Oakland to sell subscriptions. The M&R item, which the Press Club picked up, said that Bay Citizen's budget for its first year was $5 million — the same amount Hellman had put up for the venture.

"The impression left was that the new news org was out of money just six months after launch and had to race to raise funds by 'hustling donations on the corner,'" Kramer wrote.

Two more quotes from Kramer's piece:

"Weber tried to set the record straight on Twitter through his @citizenweber account, mentioning total fundraising of $14 million and spending of less than $5 million. It turns [out] when we spoke a day later, he was still flummoxed by how the budget and the Hellman gift had been connected ... — and more than a little frustrated to be put in the position of defending salaries after going through it nearly a year ago. (Frazier is out of the country.)"

And:

"Where did the money go?: 'We’re certainly not out of money. We’re very much on plan,' Weber said, with first-year spending at $4 million. That covers 26 full-time staffers (18 editorial, including Weber), news gathering expenses, site development, fundraising costs and more. They’re in the process of hiring three more in editorial. And yes, as he and Frazier confirmed when we spoke last January, they do make — and pay — competitive salaries. Her salary is $400,000. Weber’s salary will be public when they file with the IRS and he prefers to keep it that way."

Kramer said that Bay Citizen has enough money to keep going through 2012.

Bay Citizen to spend $5 million in one year

Matier & Ross report that the $5 million in seed money Bay Citizen got from philanthropist Warren Hellman is only expected to last for a year. That's forced the nonprofit to hire a half-dozen paid fundraisers to hit the streets to find new members at $50 a pop.

"Of course, we want to be sustainable and rely on a variety of funding sources, and one of the most crucial is memberships," Bay Citizen membership director Rose Roll told M&R.

Roll wouldn't say how many people have signed up to become members.

Where did the money go? M&R said a chuck of it went to hiring top executives. In January, the SF Weekly reported that Bay Citizen CEO Lisa Frazier would be paid $400,000 a year.

Online News Association plans first meetup

The first meetup of the SF Bay Area Online News Association will take place Wednesday, Nov. 17, at 6:30 p.m. at The Bay Citizen, 126 Post St., Suite 500, in downtown SF.

Attendees can look forward to networking, light refreshments, and remarks by Jonathan Weber, editor-in-chief of The Bay Citizen, a new non-profit news organization serving the nine counties of the Bay Area. The Bay Citizen covers civic news and culture, with its own reporting staff and through partnerships.

Bay Area NYT affiliate partners with Young Dems

Most news organizations wouldn't even consider co-sponsoring an event with a political party. But as Peter Jamison of the SF Weekly reports, Bay Citizen, the new online news organization that is providing stories to the New York Times, held an event Tuesday night in conjunction with the San Francisco Young Democrats at The Chieftain, an Irish pub on Fifth Street.

Writing before Tuesday's event, Jamison said:

The event will feature drink specials, pub trivia in which contestants can challenge The Bay Citizen's lead editor and reporters -- and an active volunteer drive conducted by the San Francisco Young Democrats on behalf of three specific candidates in races for the Board of Supervisors. 

Maxwell Szabo, president of the Young Dems, told us that his organization will be trying to enlist volunteers tonight to work on the campaigns of District 2 candidate Janet Reilly, District 8 candidate Rebecca Prozan, and District 10 candidate Chris Jackson, all of whom the group has endorsed. Szabo said he has also invited representatives of each of these campaigns to attend and woo volunteers. 

"The Bay Citizen, which is the New York Times offshoot in the Bay Area, they had been wanting to partner with us on some event at some point," Szabo said. "This is something we're kind of doing as a fun event, that we're tag-teaming up with them on." He added, "We're not really co-sponsors. We just said, 'We might come over and do this.' They said, 'Yeah, do that.'"

It appears from reading Jamison's story that as soon as he began asking questions, both the Young Dems and Bay Citizen began backtracking. A Bay Citizen marketing person claimed that the Young Dems were to meet before the Bay Citizen event, and that the website reached out to the Young Republicans (are there any in SF?) and got no response. Later, Szabo was no longer saying Bay Citizen was partnering with the Young Dems, and instead was insisting the events were separate.

Bay Citizen is the nonprofit news organization created when the Chronicle was talking about shutting down. It was started with a $5 million grant from Wells Fargo heir F. Warren Hellman. Bay Citizen provides copy to the New York Times' Bay Area editions.

Bay Citizen branches out into online apps

Bay Citizen, the nonprofit online news site that provides stories for the New York Times, is busy creating apps (online applications).

The first gives information on how much San Francisco workers make and where they live. For example, the San Francisco city workers living in Placer County brought home an average of $127,164 in 2009 — nearly three times the county's average per capita income, according to Bay Citizen.

The second provides immunization rates among Bay Area kindergarteners.

Editor Jon Weber says the third app will be a comprehensive arts calendar for the Bay Area, in partnership with SF Arts. These apps are being created by a four-person tech team -- CTO Brian Kelley, Software Architect Dan McComas, developer Aurelio Tinio, designer David Suriano and producer Tasneem Raja.

Times public editor faults labeling of local column

The New York Times' public editor, who answers questions about the paper's news coverage from readers, has taken the side of readers who complained that a column in the Times' Bay Area section blurred the line between news and opinion.

The Aug. 15 column headlined "Fighting Tooth and Nail, Unions Overstep" was was written by Jonathan Weber, the editor of the nonprofit Bay Citizen, a new news-gathering organization funded through donations led by a $5 million contribution from San Francisco financier F. Warren Hellman. The Times oursources its Bay Area section to Bay Citizen. The section appears Fridays and Sundays in copies of the Times distributed in the Bay Area.

Brisbane

Readers felt that Weber's column should have been treated as an op-ed, and not placed on a news page.

"It’s easy to see why these readers reacted as they did," wrote Public Editor Art Brisbane. "The Weber column, which concerned union opposition to pension reform in San Francisco, stood at the very precipice of political opinion writing — analyzing union opposition while noting 'vituperative' union attacks and 'scorched-earth' tactics."

Brisbane continues:

Times editors said they carefully edited the piece and that Weber simply analyzed the political conflict without weighing in personally on pension reform. 

Still, it strikes me as risky to bring on an outside entity — even one like The Bay Citizen that the Times has fully vetted — and empower it with a mandate to produce such work.

Brisbane said such pieces should be better labeled in the future. "Call it commentary or call it opinion, but call it something that people can understand," Brisbane writes.

Weber

Weber posted a response to Brisbane's column. He writes, "…the whole idea of a reported column is that it marries facts and point of view. Journalism today embodies a whole range of styles, some with more point of view and some with less, and while clear labeling of what's what is a good goal, it's not realistic to think that there can be some kind of calorie counter measuring the amount of opinion in a given piece. It's also worth noting, as Brisbane does, that Times editors edited my column and came to a different conclusion about it."

But Weber is quick to compliment the Times:

One of the things that has been fascinating, and inspiring, about working with The Times is experiencing their maniacal commitment to journalistic quality and credibility. They take very seriously their role as the preeminent global source of news reporting and analysis, and there is no gap between what they expect of their own staff and what they expect of us. I'd like to think the learning goes both ways too, as we bring our own approaches to the mix and, together with all of our partners, push the frontiers of next-generation news.

'Wild Experimentation' in the local news scene

Christin Evans, owner of Booksmith in San Francisco, describes in a Huffington Post piece a panel discussion she moderated that included journalists who are attempting to reshape the business with new business models. The panelists were The Bay Citizen's Lisa Frazier, SF Public Press' Micahel Stoll, Mission Local's Lydia Chavez.

All three said their news organization had not yet reached sustainability. They all described foundation and citizen donations, or "the NPR model" of news underwriting through sponsorship, as their aim. 

Lisa Frazier disclosed the initial endowment of $5 million dollars the Bay Citizen received from Warren Hellman as a "tremendous gift" that has allowed her organization to fund its start-up costs, hire 26 journalists "at market rates" and develop a plan to reach sustainability in 5 years. ... 

Today, the news stories they report are distributed online on their website. Lisa Frazier said that approximately 25% to 30% of people are getting their news from friends posts on Facebook and Twitter and that online is the first place to be. 

But all three have news stories which have gone to print. Many of the Bay Citizen's stories are printed on Friday's and Sunday's in the Bay Area Report section of the New York Times. Mission Local recently printed copies of their top stories half in English, half in Spanish. And, Michael Stoll said that Public Press had just broken even with their first print edition which is sold for $2 at independent bookstores around the city and that they plan to print quarterly with their next issue in the fall.

Guest speaker for Press Club banquet announced

The guest speaker at this year's Press Club awards banquet will be Jeanne Carstensen, managing editor of The Bay Citizen, the nonprofit Bay Area news organization that launched last month.

She'll provide an insiders view of The Bay Citizen, which has 24 paid staffers including a newsroom of 16 journalists. The nonprofit plans to go beyond a website and eventually offer news through podcasts, radio and TV.

Carstensen came to The Bay Citizen from Salon, where she also held the title of M.E. Previously, as senior arts and features editor at SFGate.com, she wrote about the first cellphone photography show and the artist who genetically engineered God.

She was awarded a National Arts Journalism Fellowship at Columbia University in 2001. Jeanne lived in Costa Rica for six years, where she covered human rights and feminism for the shortwave station Radio for Peace International and worked as a translator.

She covered digital culture at the Whole Earth Review magazine under Kevin Kelly and was the managing editor of the Essential Whole Earth Catalog. Jeanne lives in Bernal Heights in San Francisco.

The Press Club awards banquet is scheduled for Saturday, June 19, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 1221 Chess Drive, Foster City. Cocktails begin at 6 p.m. and the program starts at 7. More than 100 Greater Bay Area Journalism Awards will be presented at the banquet. For more information or tickets, e-mail Press Club Executive Director Darryl Compton.

Bay Citizen, a nonprofit news project, launches

With $5 million from Wells Fargo heir F. Warren Hellman and $3.7 million from other donors, The Bay Citizen launched its website today. It carried stories about the region's worst global warmers, the battle in Oakland over restraining orders aimed at gangs, the low property tax bills of some of San Francisco's richest residents, and the Chinese exodus from San Francisco.

In sports, the Citizen reports that the Warriors got eight bids, some topping $400 million, but not Larry Ellison's. The Citizen also has sections on the arts and opinion. The environment appears to be a major focus.

CEO Lisa Frazier said in an introductory blog post:

At The Bay Citizen, we are focused on three things: enhancing local news coverage in the Bay area, stimulating innovation in journalism, and fostering civic engagement. We believe that the more informed we are about local civic issues and cultural events, the more apt we are to participate, which strengthens the fabric of our community.

The Citizen has 24 paid staffers including a newsroom of 16 led by Jonathan Weber, co-founder of The Industry Standard and a former LA Times staff writer.

The nonprofit plans to go beyond a website and eventually offer news through podcasts, radio and TV.

The New York Times used some of the Citizen's stories on its website today, and more are expected to be published in the Times' Bay Area Section. A partnership with the Times has given the Citizen "instant credibility," the Chicago Reader remarked in a story about the Citizen's launch. But the Reader quotes David Greising, head a similar nonprofit news cooperative in Chicago, as saying:

"They are going to learn a lot about what it's like to deal with the New York Times, which will be an awakening for them, ... The Times has very exacting standards. It has taken us quite some time to really understand what the Times wants, and how our report fits into the rest of the Times national report."

Greising predicts that the Bay Citizen staff is in for "considerable discussion with their clients in New York."

Steven T. Jones, writing in the Bay Guardian, said he's heard some detractors in the local media grumble that the Citizen's presentation seemed “banal” and unworthy of their big budget.

"I don't agree," Jones writes, "Personally, I think The Bay Citizen strikes the right tone and balance, emphasizing solid journalism rather than flashy gimmicks, while also drawing on multimedia tools such as the video of yesterday's protests against President Obama's visit to SF."

On the eve of its launch, the Citizen announced that it had obtained $3.7 million in donations to supplement the $5 million in seed money from Hellman. The new money (actually some of it dates back to February, but wasn't revealed until now, according to the Business Times) came from the Don Fisher family, the Knight Foundation, Jeff and Laurie Ubben, Diane Wilsey, the S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation, Arthur Rock, Lynn Feintech and Anthony Bernhardt, and the San Francisco Foundation.

The Citizen said it has also raised $65,000 from more than 750 people who paid $50 or more to become founding members.

The Bay Area Citizen to start May 26

The Bay Citizen, the nonprofit formerly known as the Bay Area News Project, plans to launch its online news service on May 26, Editor Jonathan Weber announced on his blog.

Weber said the Citizen's managing editor for news, Steve Fainaru, starts next week, and then the nonprofit will begin hiring reporters. Weber said the project is also looking to hire a "community editor," and that position will be posted by the end of the week.

Weber told the San Francisco Business Times that while some of the Citizen's content will come from volunteers and UC Berkeley journalism students, "the core of the operation is a professional newsroom." And the pros will be the ones whose stuff will be sent over to the New York Times for its Bay Area edition.

Steve Fainaru joins nonprofit news startup

Steve Fainaru, a Bay Area native who won a Pulitzer Prize at the Washington Post, was named today the managing editor of the F. Warren Hellman-funded Bay Area News Project, which has become The Bay Citizen.

Fainaru was born in Mountain View and graduated from Redwood High School in Larkspur. He has been based in the Bay Area for the Post since 2002 and currently lives in El Cerrito.

Fainaru won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2008 for his 10-part series on widespread abuses involving Blackwater and other private security contractors in Iraq.

Fainaru began his career with the Mercury News, where he covered sports. He later worked at the Boston Globe before moving to the Washington Post. He is the author of two books, "Big Boy Rules: American Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq" (Da Capo, 2008) and "The Duke of Havana Baseball, Cuba< and the Search for the American Dream"(Villard, 2000).