Santa Barbara NewSource is a collaborative effort by a group of involved citizens to inspire and fund independent, in-depth and enterprise journalism for Santa Barbara and the South Coast of Santa Barbara County. NewSource aims to foster a more informed, engaged and democratic community by providing context, analysis and background in stories about important local issues.
With partners in local media and local foundations, NewSource hopes to hire experienced journalists to generate stories that other local media can’t afford to address. NewSource stories will appear in print and online and will be “open-source,” available for all media to use.
Thomas Jefferson said, “… were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
.” A democracy cannot flourish without a well-informed citizenry. In-depth reporting is now a luxury that few news organizations, for-profit or not, can supply. NewSource will provide enterprising watchdog journalism to help fill the gap.
We will serve primarily the South Coast of Santa Barbara County, including three cities, several unincorporated communities, a major university and a population of 196,000. Our focus will be in-depth reporting on hard-news topics such as local government, education, immigration, agriculture, science, energy, business, urban affairs and the environment. Occasionally, we will cover countywide stories with a regional focus. We hope to enlist media partners throughout the county as outlets for our stories.
Across the United States, news initiatives like NewSource have been established in areas with a much larger population than our South Coast. Yet local reporting has suffered everywhere as the traditional news industry shifts away from print operations or loses the ability to serve communities with in-depth insights. We believe Santa Barbara has the resources, the talent and the sophistication to become a model for mid-sized cities that want to preserve a strong and independent press.
Solutions to the crisis in local news will evolve and be developed by those who are “in the game,” not by bystanders. We are committed to building NewSource into a center for community knowledge, discussion and engagement in Santa Barbara.
Our editorial board has expertise in journalism, education, and new and “old” media.
Melinda Burns is a staff writer for Miller-McCune magazine and Miller-McCune.com and a former senior writer for the Santa Barbara News-Press. She is the winner of a first-place national Science Journalism Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a first-place “Best of the West” regional award for immigration and minority affairs reporting, and a first-place award for investigative journalism from the California Newspaper Publishers Association.
Dick Flacks is a professor emeritus at the University of California at Santa Barbara and was a professor of sociology for 40 years, including a stint as chair of the department. Flacks is the former chairman of the Santa Barbara city and county commission on public access television, leading the effort to create a public access nonprofit; and he is a former trustee of the Santa Barbara News & Review. Currently, Flacks is the producer of a long-running community radio program on KCSB and a blogger at “Step by Step” at City2.0.
Hap Freund is the associate director of Santa Barbara Village, a new nonprofit geared to helping seniors stay in their own homes. Formerly, he was a lawyer specializing in health and housing issues and a faculty member at The Evergreen State College. Freund has produced award-winning television documentaries on social issues and a NOVA/Film Australia investigatory documentary on international bird smuggling. He was the manager of the City of Seattle’s government TV station, and he served for seven years as the executive director of The Santa Barbara Channels, the nonprofit group that operates channels 17 and 21.
Abe Peck is a professor emeritus of journalism and director of business-to-business communication at Northwestern University, Medill School of Journalism, and he is senior director of the Media Management Center at Northwestern. Peck is a former writer and editor for Rolling Stone, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Daily News. He is a member of the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame and a winner of the Lifetime Achievement award given by the American Society of Business Publication Editors. He was named Educator of the Year by the AEJMC Magazine Division.
Warren Schultheis is the founder & publisher of City2.0, a scalable (currently Santa Barbara-only) community site that aggregates local headlines and provides a free blogging platform for Santa Barbarans. He also is a identity designer & web-developer.
For more information, please contact Hap Freund at hap.freund@gmail.com