Many posts have dealt with media problems such as ghost newspapers and news deserts.
A city of roughly 800,000 residents, San Francisco now boasts 27 news organizations, ranging from hyperlocal nonprofits and radio stations to billionaire-backed outlets like The San Francisco Standard vying to become the city’s paper of record. Unusual for a major American city, San Francisco has about the same number of media outlets today that it did a decade ago.
“Virtually every type of news model out there exists in the Bay Area,” said Bill Nagel, publisher of The San Francisco Chronicle, the city’s largest newspaper. “It’s a hypercompetitive environment.”
There are a few reasons the region can support so much news. The technology industry has made the Bay Area one of the wealthiest places in the country, and that wealth supports local news through donations large and small. It is also a highly educated region, which typically correlates to paid news readership.
It helps, too, that there is lots of news to report on and read about in San Francisco, from local political stars like Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom to nudist good Samaritans, driverless car crashes and contentious local politics.
