The Berkeleyside team is ambitious but small: We need the community’s help to stay informed. We value reader input and do our best to respond in a timely manner.

For news tips and story ideas, use the tips form for best results.

If you would like to report an error, pitch a story or have other ideas, email editors@berkeleyside.com. Review our op-ed and obituary guidelines.

If you are a Berkeleyside member with a question, email members@berkeleyside.com

If you prefer to phone us, our general number is: 510-671-0380

If you have a question about advertising, email Colleen Leary at colleen@berkeleyside.com or call her at 925-451-5425.

• Helena Brantley Co-curator, Uncharted Festival
• Frances Dinkelspiel Co-founder, executive editor
• Sarah Han Editor, Nosh
• Lance Knobel Co-founder, publisher, and co-curator Uncharted Festival
• Colleen Leary Director, client partnerships
• Doug Ng Designer/Developer
• Natalie Orenstein Reporter
• Emilie Raguso Senior reporter
• Tracey Taylor Co-founder, managing editor

• Sarah Baughn
• Melati Citrawireja
• Mary Corbin
• Tom Dalzell
• Kate Darby Rauch
• Joanna Della Penna
• Ted Friedman
• Andrew Gilbert
• Tony Hicks
• Stuart Luman
• Janis Mara
• Emily Mendel
• Elaine Miller Bond
• Risa Nye
• Chris Polydoroff
• Mary Rees
• Pete Rosos
• Nancy Rubin
• John Seal
• Benjamin Seto
• Kelly Sullivan
• Moriah VanVleet
• Alix Wall
• Justine Wang
• Mal Warwick
• Daphne White
• Cirrus Wood
• Supriya Yelimeli

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 relevant, be courteous and argue with issues not people.

Read our full Comments Policy.

Summer 2019 reporting internship

Berkeleyside, the award-winning independent news site for Berkeley, California, is looking for a reporting  intern for summer 2019 (typically 6 weeks during June-July).

Now in its tenth year, Berkeleyside is widely regarded as a national pioneer in the provision of local news and interns are guaranteed valuable reporting experience.

Berkeleyside is a small operation, with a core team of seven working from our downtown Berkeley office, and a roster of freelancers. Our core news focus is Berkeley but we cover the wider East Bay in areas including food and real estate.

Reporter interns: Interns at Berkeleyside jump right in and have the opportunity to build a significant portfolio of published work. Expect to write about City Council meetings, crime, the community, culture and development issues, as well as longer feature stories. If you have data journalism chops, all the better. Get the inside, hands-on experience of creating a successful online news site.

Strong reporting and writing skills required. Reporters at Berkeleyside also take photos and engage on social media. While the bulk of our internships are journalism-focused, some administrative work may also be required.

Knowledge of the city of Berkeley and its workings is helpful, but not essential, and interns will be expected to be based in or near Berkeley during the internship, with reliable transportation options. Interns will work out of Berkeleyside’s co-working offices downtown.

Interns receive a modest weekly stipend and direct guidance and mentoring from Berkeleyside editors.

Berkeleyside is committed to diversity and especially encourages members of underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities.

To apply, please email the following to editors@berkeleyside.com using the subject header “2019 intern application”:

• Covering letter explaining why you want to work for Berkeleyside and what you have to offer
• Resume
• Clippings (URLs or PDFs)
• Critique of Berkeleyside (max 300 words)
• Your availability during summer 2019

April 2019: Berkeleyside reporter a finalist for national education writing award

Feb. 2019: Inside the Facebook Membership Accelerator

Feb. 1 2019: Berkeley City Council supports release of police records after Berkeleyside, ACLU sue city — Daily Californian

Dec. 2018: Berkeleyside reporter finds middle ground with BPD— Berkeley High Jacket

Oct. 2018: Here are the local news organizations boosted in Facebook’s Membership Accelerator — Nieman Lab

Oct. 2018: Chez Panisse chef, cannabis salon featured at 2-day Berkeleyside event — KTVU

Oct. 2018: Uncharted fills Berkeley with adventurous voices — 48 Hills

April 2018: First in the nation: Berkeleyside raises $1M from readers in direct public offering

Berkeleyside raised $1 million in capital from 355 of its readers, making it the first news site in the country to do a Direct Public Offering. The success of the DPO testified to Berkeleyside readers’ belief in the need for high-quality independent local journalism in their community. The funds enabled Berkeleyside, founded in 2009 by three veteran journalists, to make the site mobile friendly, hire an additional reporter, and augment its events and membership programs.“While Berkeleyside could have chased investment from more traditional financiers, there was something symbolically compelling about giving readers the opportunity to have a direct role in the site’s future,” Nieman Lab reported in October 2016, when Berkeleyside launched its DPO. Read more about Berkeleyside’s DPO.

November 2017: Berkeleyside wins Excellence, other SF Press Club awards

Berkeleyside was honored for overall excellence by the San Francisco Press Club. The Berkeleyside team won first-place awards in the digital media division for overall excellence, for breaking news, for coverage of the November 2016 election, for Frances Dinkelspiel’s series on the Premier Cru scandal, for Emilie Raguso’s feature on an injured bicycle rider, and Alix Wall’s story on Rubicon Bakery, among other awards. Read more about the awards.

November 2017: Emilie Raguso named Journalist of the Year

Berkeleyside Senior Reporter Emilie Raguso was named Journalist of the Year by the NorCal chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. “A reporter with deep knowledge of the community, Raguso is dedicated to exploring the longterm implications of local events,”SPJ NorCal wrote in its release about the award. “Her work also explores the local impact of state and national level decisions. As a senior​ ​reporter, she covers several beats including crime, land use and local government, and doggedly tracks down the information her readers need. Raguso is there for the breaking news and for the follow up stories. The board commends Raguso, whose work provides the kind of nuance, context and depth that are increasingly rare in community journalism.” Read more about the honor, and watch Raguso receiving the award.

October 2017: Berkeleyside’s fifth Uncharted Berkeley Ideas Festival

Berkeleyside’s held its fifth annual two-day ideas festival, Uncharted: The Berkeley Festival of Ideas, on Oct. 27-28 at the Peet’s Theater at Berkeley Rep and the Freight & Salvage in downtown Berkeley. This year, Helena Brantley joined Lance Knobel at the helm as co-curator. Highlights included Joan Williams on class cluelessness, Ronald Rael on the architecture of border walls, and Rick Wilson on why “everything Trump touches dies.” The festival was attended by more than 400 people, many of whom came to its opening-night party at the Brower Center, participated in the new Living Room Conversations workshops hosted by JCC East Bay, and patronized the festival’s popup book store managed by Books Inc. In a feedback survey, 57% of festival-goers said the event was “Excellent” and 29% said it was “Very Good. ” Over 70% said they’d be very likely to recommend the festival to their friends. Read a recap and browse the photo galleries. Want to know more? Email Lance Knobel at lknobel@gmail.com

September 2017: Lenfest Institute awards Berkeleyside grant 

The Lenfest Institute for Journalism  — a newly formed nonprofit whose mission is “to develop and support sustainable business models for great local journalism” — awarded Berkeleyside a $60,000 grant to create an open-source “Reader Revenue” tool-kit to help other local newsrooms around the country explore raising capital through a DPO. Berkeleyside Co-Founder and Managing Editor Tracey Taylor is driving the project and went to Philadelphia in October to meet with Lenfest and its other grant winners. Taylor was also invited to speak about Berkeleyside’s pioneering direct public offering at the 2017 Online News Association’s annual conference in D.C. Want to know more? Email Tracey Taylor at traceyktaylor@gmail.com

July 2017: Berkeleyside joins Facebook Journalism Project

Berkeleyside was invited to become a member of the Facebook Journalism Project whose goal is to establish stronger ties between Facebook and the news industry. Facebook says it is collaborating with news organizations to develop products, learn from journalists about ways it can be a better partner, and work with publishers and educators on how it can equip people with the knowledge they need to be informed readers in the digital age. Want to know more? Email Lance Knobel at lknobel@gmail.com

June 2017: Berkeleyside joins Membership Puzzle Project

Berkeleyside was invited to become part of the Membership Puzzle Project — founded by New York University Professor of Journalism Jay Rosen and pioneering Dutch news nonprofit De Correspondent — which is exploring the whys and ways of having readers become members. Want to know more? Email Tracey Taylor at traceyktaylor@gmail.com

November 2016: Berkeleyside launched Direct Public Offering

Seven years after three veteran journalists launched Berkeleyside, the independent news startup invited its readers to become shareholders through a Direct Public Offering (DPO). Berkeleyside is the first news organization in the country to do a DPO. Its goal is to raise $800,000 to invest in the business so it can build on, and improve how it serves Berkeley and the East Bay. The funds enable Berkeleyside to hire a second full-time reporter, invest in more in-depth journalism, redesign the site to be more responsive and mobile-friendly, and expand its sales and marketing efforts. The DPO had raised $600,000 from 233 investors by Nov. 2017 and aims to close by March 2018. Visit Invest.Berkeleyside.com for details. Want to know more? Email Lance Knobel at lknobel@gmail.com