Fall updates: Elections, Neighborhood Roundup, and Lookout’s expansion plans
Fall is in the air at Lookout.
We’re completing our voluminous election coverage, and endorsements, as you mark your ballots. And we all await the results, the potentially profound national ones, and all the local races and measures that set the table for 2025.
I’m proud of the job our newsroom of 10 has done, thoroughly covering the candidates and issues throughout the county. And your level of interest in it has told the story: Our audience numbers just keep on growing as you drill down on the nitty-gritty of local democracy. Many of you have told me how much you also appreciated our in-person (and shared via Facebook Live) forums.
For the first time, this year, we held those forums “in district,” with the District 5 supervisors forum held at the Felton Community Hall and the District 2 one at Cabrillo College in Aptos. As we do in each election season, we’ve made all the election coverage free to the general public – made possible by Lookout members. On that note, our election season special one-year price – $99 for new members for the first year – is coming to an end soon. Click the link below to take advantage of this limited time offer.
All members can sign up for our fourth-anniversary members celebration on Nov. 14; capacity in our large office is still limited, so join and sign up today. We all enjoy these gatherings so much as a way to informally catch up with each other. And this year, we’ll be talking about Lookout’s next wave of growth. We’ll preview something that will allow you to make more of Lookout Santa Cruz than ever before, with a live demo (bring your smartphone). Further, we’ll highlight the success of our Lookout in the Classroom program, and let you know how you can help propel it faster forward.
Neighborhood Roundups
Most immediately, make sure you check out the great new service we launched Tuesday. It’s our new Neighborhood Roundup. Hundreds of you have tested this unique new five-day-a-week briefing since the spring, and you’ve told us how much you like getting an email offering a neighborhood-specific quick heads-up. We’ve designated nine neighborhoods:
- Aptos
- Bonny Doon / Davenport
- Capitola / Soquel
- Corralitos / Freedom
- Eastside / Live Oak / Pleasure Point
- San Lorenzo Valley
- Scotts Valley
- Watsonville / Pajaro
- Westside / Downtown Santa Cruz
Within these neighborhoods we’ve been able to gather lots of info that has never been together all in one place. This Inside Lookout piece describes the new – free – service in detail. Significantly, we are doing what we believe all smart newsrooms should be doing into 2025 – harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (always vetted by humans) to give you a better and better idea of your hometown. If you haven’t signed up, do it here, and please share the sign-up link widely.
If you were part of the initial beta testers – we are grateful for your feedback over these last few months. Please note, there is no need to re-subscribe if you were a beta tester, but if you have any questions please reach out to help@lookoutlocal.com.
Lookout Eugene-Springfield
Expansion also means more Lookouts, and I’ve kept you up to date on the next Lookout, Lookout Eugene-Springfield. Importantly, building that enterprise – and the Lookouts that may follow it – takes a lot of work. To do that, we’ve added reinforcements. Jed Williams has joined us as our chief operating officer and chief revenue officer. Kirsten Carroll, who helped build the industry-leading New York Times subscription system, has joined us as director of member growth. And Ashley Harmon, whom many of you know and prize, is now our chief of staff, having been instrumental in the building of Lookout from its 2020 roots.
That Lookout Eugene-Springfield launch is almost a reality, planned for early next year. We’ll share some details of that at our anniversary party, and start building a Santa Cruz-Eugene connection. Since we made our announcement of the next Lookout, we’ve gotten a lot of national coverage, which you can see here. We appreciate that notice and also feel the responsibility to grow quickly but prudently. The national “news desert” phenomenon is still growing, with more than half of U.S. counties now having no access or very limited access to local news. Let us be clear: Members’ support of Lookout has made possible our great success (and Pulitzer!) in Santa Cruz County and the confidence to take it to other communities like Eugene-Springfield, the second-largest metro area in Oregon, and home of the University of Oregon.
And a note on the Pulitzer Prize, which we won in May and celebrated with many of you. A small Lookout crew will be on hand to accept the 2024 Pulitzer for Breaking News certificate this evening at Columbia University in upper Manhattan. It’s been quite a year.
Welcoming Tania Ortiz and UCSC Interns
Expansion has meant one more thing in Santa Cruz County: better coverage of South County. From our inception, we’ve striven to cover the whole county, but we can get to only so much every day and every week. Our South County coverage has distinguished itself with our Watsonville hospital reporting and continuing focus on pesticide usage near schools. Now, you’ve seen the new byline of Tania Ortiz increasingly appear. We’re thrilled that Tania joined us this fall, and she is focusing strongly on South County coverage, the politics, the people and the culture. A native of Oceanside, she earned her master’s degree in journalism from Syracuse University in December 2023. It’s been a fast month for Tania to start, both with her reporting and her participation in our ongoing Lookout Listens session. South County stalwarts Jacob Martinez, Shaz Roth and Tony Nuñez helped us organize those informal meetings, both for Tania to more quickly meet people and for her and Lookout overall to hear about the coverage you, our readers, want to see. We’ll be holding more Lookout Listens sessions in 2025, and will invite you to them.
Further, we welcome four new interns this fall. Carly Kay joins us for the fall from UC Santa Cruz’s nationally recognized science communications master’s program. You’ll see her byline soon on climate and environmental coverage.
And then there’s a program we’re glad to participate in for a second year. It’s the Humanities EXCEL program. This unique program allows fellows to spend a whole academic year with us, delving deep into the myriad corners of modern digital news publishing. Meet our three EXCEL fellows:
- Tara Roshan: A fourth-year UC Santa Cruz student, majoring in cognitive science with a history minor. At UCSC, she is actively involved in the SWANA Coalition, the Arab Student Union, and the Iranian Student Union.
- Isabel Cordova: A psychology and creative writing student. At UCSC, Isabel is a social media content creator for TWANAS Press, a student-led magazine centered around social justice.
- Eetai Shwartz: A history and philosophy student at UCSC, who joins us for a second year supporting our Lookout in the Classroom program.
Lookout made a commitment to working with the next generation of local news readers from its inception. Both our internship and classroom programs do that everyday, and membership provides essential support for them. Please consider becoming a member today.
Ken Doctor
CEO / Founder