Berkeleyside is a pioneering independent digital news platform in Berkeley, California, reporting on Berkeley and the East Bay. It was founded in October 2009 by journalists Frances Dinkelspiel, Tracey Taylor and Lance Knobel. In 2020, the Berkeleyside founders, together with Tasneem Raja, created Cityside, a nonprofit, civic journalism organization that publishes both Berkeleyside and The Oaklandside.
Berkeleyside has a loyal and engaged community of readers who visit our site, read our newsletters and follow us on social media. They contribute in myriad ways to help us deliver on our mission of “breaking news and building community.” In 2020, Berkeleyside has averaged more than 1.5 million page views and 485,000 unique visitors each month. Our core audience is people who live or work in Berkeley, but it also extends into neighboring cities, in particular for Nosh, our popular East Bay-wide food coverage. As well as being our ears and eyes on the street, and engaging with us on the issues that matter to them in the community, our readers help fund our work: more than 4,300 Berkeleyside readers are Berkeleyside members, making regular donations to support our journalism.
Support us
Berkeleyside’s nonprofit newsroom is committed to serving its readers with in-depth local reporting and resources to keep our community informed and better able to engage in the civic life of our incredible city. If you find our work valuable we hope you will support us, and keep our journalism free for all, by making a donation or becoming a monthly member.
Berkeleyside is part of Cityside, a 501c3 nonprofit news organization (EIN 84-3448887) so all donations are tax-deductible.
Awards
Publisher of the year, Local Independent Online News Publishers, 2020Â Awarded to Berkeleyside’s parent organization Cityside in the large newsroom category
Benjamin Ide Wheeler Medal, 2019 Berkeleyside founders Frances Dinkelspiel, Lance Knobel and Tracey Taylor received this prestigious award that honors community members whose work has benefited the people of Berkeley
Community journalism, Society of Professional Journalists (Northern California Chapter), 2019 Excellence in Journalism Award in the community journalism category
Longform storytelling, SPJ NorCal Excellence in Journalism award, 2018 Berkeleyside’s Frances Dinkelspiel for her article, “One day, one night: The fuse that lit the Battles of Berkeley”
Journalist of the year, SPJ NorCal Excellence in Journalism award, 2017 Berkeleyside’s Emilie Raguso
Explanatory reporting, SPJ NorCal Excellence in Journalism award, 2016 For comprehensive coverage of homelessness in Berkeley
Community journalism, SPJ NorCal Excellence in Journalism award, 2014
Community journalism, SPJ NorCal Excellence in Journalism award, 2013
Feature stories, Education Writers Association, 2018 Reporter Natalie Orenstein a finalist for her “Beyond the Buses” series on school integration
Best local Twitter account, East Bay Express, 2018 Best of the East Bay
Best local Twitter account, East Bay Express, 2015 Best of the East Bay
Overall excellence, San Francisco Press Club, 2017 Berkeleyside won first-place in the digital media division for overall excellence, breaking news, and coverage of the November 2016 election, among other awards
Editorial independence
Berkeleyside retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of contributors or their products, services or opinions.
We accept contributions, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities, but our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of that support.
Our organization may consider contributions to support the coverage of particular topics, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content.
Our organization will make public all donors who give a total of $5,000 or more per year. We will accept anonymous contributions for general support only if it is clear that sufficient safeguards have been put into place that the expenditure of that donation is made independently by our organization.
Read more about our policies at Cityside.
Our ideas festival
From 2013 to 2018, Berkeleyside produced the annual Uncharted: The Berkeley Festival of Ideas, the Bay Area’s first ideas festival. It brought together some of the world’s great thinkers for two thrilling days of discussion, debate and workshops designed to engage and inspire. Questions about the festival? Please email Uncharted founder and co-curator Lance Knobel at lance@berkeleyside.com.
