Final Days to Contribute!
The countdown is on! Be a part of Bay Area history by supporting our campaign!
The Goals of the Guardian-in-Exile Project
We, the staff of the San Francisco Bay Guardian when it was suddenly closed down Oct. 14 after 48 years in existence, have three main goals with this fundraising campaign:
- Create a final commemorative edition that celebrates our history, explores what's happening to San Francisco and how that led to the Guardian's closure, and says goodbye to our loyal supporters and readers.
- Preserve and enhance public access to our print and online archives.
- Explore the possibilities of reopening the Guardian under new ownership and support other independent, progressive media outlets in the Bay Area.
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What is the San Francisco Bay Guardian?
The San Francisco Bay Guardian was founded in 1966 as an independent, local, progressive newspaper. While this award-winning publication has always aspired to the highest journalistic standards, we've also been an aggressive advocate for communities that lack economic and political power, including renters, progressive activists, artists and cultural organizations, small businesses, government watchdogs, communities of color, neighborhood organizations, and others who aren't regularly given voice by the mainstream media.
Like many newspapers, the Guardian has struggled to remain financially viable in this digital age, even as we developed a strong online presence at SFBG.com, breaking important stories on a daily basis. In 2012, the Guardian was sold to San Francisco Media Company, the Canada-based owners of the San Francisco Examiner. Later that year, the company also bought our main rival, the SF Weekly. And on Oct. 14, 2014, Guardian staff was told the paper would be closed and we were being terminated, effective immediately.
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How you can help and where your money will go
Contributions will directly fund ongoing efforts to preserve this important journalistic history of the Bay Area and progressive political movements around the world, and to give the Guardianistas a chance to wrap up that history and say what our closure means. Specifically:
- Pay Guardian staffers and freelancers a small stipend to report, write, and design content for our final commemorative issue, which we expect to hit the streets in January 2015.
- Pay the direct print and online hosting costs for that issue, as well as the costs for distribution, promotion, and inserting the issue into the January 2015 edition of San Francisco Public Press, which will help disseminate it widely.
- Pay for a big party to promote the issue and celebrate the Guardian, with special VIP invitations and perks for those who contribute $100 or more to the project.
- Pay for our ongoing efforts, in collaboration for archivists from academia and open source activists, to preserve our print and online archives and enhance access to them, including allowing keyword searches that will greatly improve their value to researchers and the general public.
- Support any efforts to continue the Bay Guardian under new ownership, and communicate with Guardian supporters about the status and possibilities of those efforts.
- Any money left over after these efforts will be given as donations to other public interest media outlets in San Francisco, including 48hillsonline.org and the San Francisco Public Press
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Why save the Guardian?
As people from across the political spectrum said as news of the Guardian's demise was breaking, the loss of this institutional progressive voice hurts the entire city and moves the city's political center to the right. It also removes an important avenue that Bay Area arts and cultural communities used to communicate with their audiences and supporters. The Bay Area and the newspaper world are both diminished by this loss, and we need to do what we can to ensure the body of knowledge we created doesn't just slide down the memory hole.
So please:
- Give what you can.
- Share this campaign with your social networks.
- Support independent media and the progressive movement.
- Stay in touch -- we're not done yet!