About
Berkeleyside is Berkeley, California’s independently owned local news site. We report on the extraordinary diversity of people, issues, events, food and environment in our city on the Bay.
Launched in 2009, Berkeleyside was founded by three veteran journalists – Lance Knobel, Tracey Taylor and Frances Dinkelspiel – and is produced along with Senior Reporter Emilie Raguso, and a team of community contributors. Wendy Cohen is our Advertising Director.
Our strength is our community and the engaged — and always fascinating — citizens of Berkeley.
Berkeleyside has an average of 115,000 unique visitors a month.
Read our stories, follow us on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.
Contact Us
If you have a tip, please email us at:
If you would like to report an error, contribute to Berkeleyside, or have ideas you want to share, please email us at:
Or email Berkeleyside staff individually:
Lance Knobel: lknobel@gmail.com
Tracey Taylor: traceyktaylor@gmail.com
Frances Dinkelspiel: fdinkelspiel@gmail.com
Emilie Raguso: emilie@berkeleyside.com
Wendy Cohen: wendy@berkeleyside.com
Sici Trevino: sici@berkeleyside.com
Who we are
Lance Knobel (Co-Founder) is an international consultant and professional writer. In 1999-2000 he was director of the Programme of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. He was also editor-in-chief and managing director of World Link, the magazine of the World Economic Forum. He was an adviser in Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Strategy Unit in London. His journalism credentials include being editor-in-chief of Management Today, the leading business magazine in Britain, and founder and editor of Designers’ Journal in Britain. He has published four books on architecture and design. His blog, Davos Newbies, has been running since 1999. Email: lknobel@gmail.com
Frances Dinkelspiel (Co-Founder) is a professional journalist and author. Her book, Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California, published in November 2008, was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. Frances is a former staff reporter for the Syracuse Newspapers and the San Jose Mercury News. Her freelance work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, People Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Miami Herald, the Detroit Free Press and San Francisco Magazine. Email: fdinkelspiel@gmail.com
Tracey Taylor (Co-Founder) is a professional freelance writer and editor.
Her writing has been published in The New York Times, the Financial Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. Her articles include business stories, features on food, homes and architecture, as well as profiles and interviews. Tracey has worked as an editor for various business-to-business magazines and at the Financial Times, as well as for private clients, including non-profits and authors. She has edited two books — and worked as a professional blogger. Email: traceyktaylor@gmail.com
Emilie Raguso (Senior Reporter) ran community news site Albany Patch in Albany, CA, from April 2010 until October 2012. Her stories have been featured on the New York Times website, Salon and NPR, and in the East Bay Express. Emilie was a crime reporter for The Modesto Bee after getting her master’s in journalism from UC Berkeley in 2006. She has lived primarily in the East Bay since 2004. Tel: 510-459-8325. Email: emilie@berkeleyside.com
Wendy Cohen (Advertising Director) has been Berkeleyside’s Advertising Director since October 2010. She has an extensive background in magazine publishing and media sales. wendy@berkeleyside.com
Siciliana Trevino (Sales Executive) is an award-winning media producer who has traveled the country promoting sales, flagship events, world-class chefs and restaurants for Macy’s. She joined Berkeleyside in 2013 as a sales rep and is focusing on the East Bay’s vibrant food and drink culture. sici@berkeleyside.com
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Contributors
John Seal is Berkeleyside’s film critic. A movie connoisseur with a penchant for natty hats who lives in Oakland, writes a weekly film recommendation column at Box Office Prophets, as well as a column in The Phantom of the Movie’s Videoscope, an old-fashioned paper magazine, published quarterly. He also writes regular film reviews for IMDB which can be read here.
Andrew Gilbert writes a Thursday music column for Berkeleyside. Andy, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, covers a wide range of musical cultures, from Brazil and Mali to India and Ireland. A Berkeley-based freelancer, he contributes features on jazz and international music to numerous publications, including the San Jose Mercury News, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times and Los Angeles Times. His column covering the Bay Area dance scene, Dance Card, runs monthly in the Contra Costa Times. And his CD reviews air regularly on KQED’s “California Report.” Email: jazzscribe@aol.com
Nancy Rubin is a Berkeleyside contributing photographer. Nancy is a long-time Berkeley area resident who moved here from her native Los Angeles to attend UC Berkeley, a family tradition begun in 1929. She taught for 25 years at Berkeley High School, then worked at Drake High in Marin County. Nancy authored the book Ask Me If I Care: Voices from an American High School. Since retiring in 2002, Nancy has travelled extensively, honing her photography skills. She specializes in candid shots, capturing people being themselves and the emotions of the moment.
John Rieger produces the regular Berkeleyside Podcast. John is a writer and media producer who has been imbibing the spirit of Berkeley, from Peet’s to PTA meetings, for 40 years. He began his career answering phones for the revolution at KPFA. His work since then has ranged widely from journalism to the arts. He has appeared as host of NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered and done performance art in the Soviet Union. In 1996, he helped create the public radio program Beyond Computers, where he was a contributing editor for several years. He is a voting member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (The Webby Awards), and a founding partner of BEHINDtheBEAT, a new media company. He lives with his wife and two teenage sons in Berkeley, where he has a small recording studio with a view of the garden. Email: john@riegerworld.com
Lou Fancher writes a monthly dance feature for Berkeleyside. When the Bay Area freelance writer isn’t covering technology, science, dance, film, theater, music, visual arts, feature profiles and education, Lou is a coach and teacher for professional
ballet and modern dancers in the US and Canada. She writes locally for WIRED.com,Bay Area News Group papers, Diablo Magazine, Walnut Creek Magazine, East Bay
Express, Lamorinda Weekly, AOL/Patch, and other East Bay publications. She is the author of two original children’s books and has designed and illustrated over 50 picture books. You may visit her website online at Johnson & Fancher Inc.
Ted Friedman, B.S. Journalism, 1961, University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana was kicked out of photo-journalism in 1959. “Turn in your Speed Graphex,” the award-winning photographer/professor demanded. He developed his shot-from-the-Southside photos at the Berkeley Daily Planet. He uses his M.A. in Creative Writing from SF State, 1967, to practice “creative journalism” at Berkeley Reporter. A former syndicated feature writer, and reporter for newspapers in Central Illinois and Hawaii, he spent 35 drop-out years in Berkeley hanging out in gyms, bookstores, and Caffe Mediterraneum. At work on “Medheads,” a collection of stories from the Med, he wonders ”Where Is the Life That Late I Led?” (Cole Porter).
Comments Policy
We want Berkeleyside to reflect the passionate, diverse voices of Berkeley, but we also want it to remain a place of civility and respect for other people. Guidelines for comments are simple: be brief, be relevant, be informed, be polite. We screen comments from first-time users before they are published. We will delete or censor any comment that:
- is abusive
- is off-topic
- contains ad-hominem attacks
- promotes hate of any kind
- uses excessively foul language
- is blatantly spam
Repeat offenders will be banned from commenting on the site.
Notes for Contributors
Berkeleyside thrives through its vigorous community of readers and contributors. Many of our readers are also contributors: offering comments, sending in pictures, writing posts for the site. At this early stage in the site’s development, we are going to be rather deliberate about bringing on new writers.
If you’re interested in doing more than commenting, we expect our posts to adhere to the same standards we demand of our comments. Here are some other guidelines that should be helpful.
We love people that want to specialize. If you, for example, want to attend all of the meetings of the Berkeley school board and report on them, that would be hugely valuable for Berkeleyside. If you want to take photos of the best front gardens in Berkeley and post them to our site, we’d love it.
We want you to be transparent. If you have a financial interest or a friendship or an enmity that is spurring you to write something, you should tell the readers.
Strive for accuracy. Try to get your facts right. If something is wrong, we want to correct it as soon and as visibly as we can.
Contributors retain the copyright to their material unless otherwise specified.
Partners
Berkeleyside is proud to have editorial partnerships with:
