You might have to blink twice.
We launched Lookout Eugene-Springfield at the end of last week. And it looks a lot like Lookout Santa Cruz, at first blush. There’s the familiar teal and tangerine and recognizable typefaces, but it’s – as it should be – wholly local.
After two years of fundraising and community building, our new stellar crew of journalists and friends achieved launch altitude and to great reception. Amazingly, three readers have written to us in our first days to say they are literally crying at seeing good, local news return to the area.
We’ve counted more than 570 members already. Eugene and Springfield are the two major metro areas of Lane County, Oregon’s fourth-largest county, and the biggest outside the Portland area. They used to be home to one of state’s, and country’s, best local dailies, the Eugene Register-Guard. Sadly, the paper was sold in 2018 to one of the hedge fund-owned chains, Gatehouse, which merged with another two years later, producing the same fate we’ve seen across the American local landscape: shriveled newspapers that are essentially disconnected from their communities.
Now, Lookout is beginning to offer a thorough, through-the-day trustworthy news service for the almost 400,000 people of Lane County. Our team works out of a great downtown office, as bright and welcoming as our Santa Cruz one, and we’re beginning to launch member parties this week. At that party, founding members will receive merch saying “I helped launch Lookout Eugene-Springfield.” Which they did, through their early financial support. But understand this: You did, too.
Today, Lookout Santa Cruz is thriving, meeting this unprecedented national/local moment, and doing what we’ve done for more than four years now: Tell the stories of our place and time.
All of you as readers have helped us get to the point that we could launch a second Lookout – and plan still more, likely on the West Coast. Your readership and feedback have made us better, step by step.
Now, you see the fruit of that for your neighbors a little north of us. As we’ve kept you informed of our progress toward launch, we’ve been surprised at the number of connections between Santa Cruz and Eugene, some longstanding progressive and environmental ones first forged almost a half-century ago. We’ll appropriately find value in those bonds as we look for ways our two newsrooms can work together, a process beginning now and one that will be helped by our new plans to increase Lookout’s impact in Santa Cruz County. (For those of you who might be interested in fully reading Lookout Eugene-Springfield, check out these offers; we’re unable to offer joint memberships to both publications.)
Next up at Lookout Santa Cruz
Last fall, we added Tania Ortiz to our newsroom team and asked her to emphasize South County coverage. Tania has done that and more as she’s covered the area, met hundreds of people and contributed more widely to all our news coverage. That includes the already-voluminous Trump 2.0 and Santa Cruz County Impacts coverage we’ve done – now totaling more than 50 stories. That coverage, led by Managing Editor Tamsin McMahon and editor Will McCahill, has kept all of us on top of the fast-moving events, human and financial.
If you have not yet read Tania’s updated story of Adolfo González, please do so today. It sums up so much of the local impact of our new national Administration’s decisions.
Now, we are taking steps to further grow our team, with a further emphasis on accountability reporting the times especially demand. We’ll share news of this growth over the next several months, but know you’ll see more of the kind of coverage we’ve captured on our Impact page. There, you’ll see the stories that have held government, education and business leaders to account, stories that often take sustained work. You can support this vital-to-2025 work in two ways: (1) Become a member today. Membership is THE most direct way of supporting our journalists who do the reporting; (2) Make a contribution to our Impact page, as we relaunch it. Thank you.
Further, as we strategize the important-to-you coverage of the next year, please share your thoughts with us on what you’d like to see most. We’d like to know what you’d most like to see covered.
What’s the best way to read Lookout?
It’s our app! It’s for our members, who both want to stay in touch through the day and want the fastest, easiest reading experience. Download it here.
Local-local news – and mapping
We keep adding info to our Neighborhood Newsletters. If you haven’t subscribed – they are free – to them, pick one or several today. You can get a good sense of them here, and sign up.
Also, we’re innovating another way to find out what’s going on in your area and throughout the county. Check out our new Story Maps here. Get to know Santa Cruz County like never before and use the map to uncover Lookout’s local coverage on food, business, history, arts and housing development projects. So far, the most popular stories readers have been drawn to are Lily Belli’s look at The Midway (located at the intersection of Seabright and Soquel Avenue) and Wallace Baine’s backstage look at Santa Cruz Shakespeare. Find these stories and more on the Story Map here.
Bringing the Santa Cruz food scene to life — with Lily Belli and you
After a sold-out wine-tasting event earlier this month, we’re cooking up more ways to connect our members with the incredible flavors of Santa Cruz County. We’re teaming up with Collective Santa Cruz and its Tasty Tour to bring you exclusive, members-only access to private tastings and behind-the-scenes bites — all hosted by Lookout food writer Lily Belli. First up: Sweet Home Santa Cruz, a celebration of local sweets and treats you won’t want to miss on May 24. Keep an eye on your inbox — invites are coming soon and are sure to sell out.
Standing with Pajaro Valley: A news conference series for action
Lookout is proud to serve as media partner for a vital news conference series hosted by the Pajaro Valley Collaborative — a coalition of 23 nonprofit organizations united in their mission to protect the health, stability, and civic life of the Pajaro Valley. With critical programs like Medi-Cal and CalFresh facing deep cuts, the collaborative is bringing the community together to share timely updates on available resources and support systems. Stay tuned for dates, coverage and ways to get involved.
Lookout In the Classroom
Now in its fourth year, we continue to add features to our Lookout in the Classroom service to all the teachers, students and administrators in the county. Eetai Swartz, our able UCSC Humanities intern, has recently published our latest News Quiz — making it easy to engage students with local news and media literacy discussions. Find our news quizzes and all our free educator resources here (link to educator resources page).
And we’re pleased to recognize the winners of our 2025 Lookout Journalism Scholarship contest. After a record number of applicants, the top ten have been published with the top three taking home $500 scholarships. Check them out here.
Successful interns!
We’ve been able to host a good number of interns over the years.
Just this spring, we were able to make Makenna Chasmar a part-timer, ably assisting Chief of Staff Ashley Harmon in marketing and messaging. A fourth-year business and economics major from Ventura, Makenna completed her UC Santa Cruz internship in March and she’s become an invaluable part of our juggling act as we created Lookout Eugene-Springfield.
And we’re glad to note that Santa Cruz native Gabrielle Gillette, who interned for Lookout out of Cabrillo College, is now the UCLA Daily Bruin’s metro editor.
Thank you for your readership — onward!