Today marks the fourth anniversary of The Riverside Record, the nonprofit news outlet I founded in 2022. A lot has happened since then.
Last year, I wrote about how our work had been highlighted by newsrooms across the nation, grants we had received from both Google and Press Forward, our partnerships with other local newsrooms and organizations that support our work and welcomed our first full-time reporter, Daniel Eduardo Hernandez. (If you haven’t yet read his reflection on his first year with us, you should definitely go do that.)
But over the last 12 months, the work has mostly been internal. I’ve been focused on growing our audience, finding new ways to bring in more money so we can continue to expand our coverage and streamlining our workflows so we can be as efficient as possible.
We’ve partnered with SeeGov, a nonprofit using artificial intelligence (AI) to automate the process of downloading and transcribing public meeting videos. The service also allows us to easily put together videos so we can show our audience what happened instead of just telling them. You can find one such video in this story about the Murrieta Valley Unified telescope project. (I promise they’ll get better.)
It’s important to note that while The Record uses AI to automate routine processes, such as collecting data and transcribing meetings and interviews, our content is still 100% human created.
We’ve also made the decision to switch up our tech stack so I don’t have to manage our website, donor and newsletter platforms on top of being in charge of news coverage and fundraising efforts. This means there will be changes coming to our website, but rest assured that our content will remain free to read.
I’ve also spent some time advocating for local news at the state level. Currently sitting on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk is Assembly Bill 2222, also known as the Community NEWS Act.
This bill would provide employment credits to help newsrooms like The Record increase reporting capacity and deepen coverage. If you feel compelled to share your support of this bill with the governor, his office can be reached here: leg.unit@gov.ca.gov.
This is a challenging time for local news, especially nonprofit local news, and it’s my goal as publisher of The Record to ensure the vital community-based work we do continues for many years to come.
And it’s why I’m including this ask at the end for folks who have made it this far: Will you support The Riverside Record?
We are just 40 days away from the start of our end of year fundraising campaign, and this year we’re going big.
We’re looking for four matching gifts of $5,000 each that we can leverage to get folks even more excited about becoming local news donors. If this is something you or your organization are able to do, please email me at alicia.ramirez@riversiderecord.org or give me a call at 951-906-2653 as soon as possible.
For those who want to donate, but are not able to do so at that level, I’m going to do something crazy and ask you to wait until November 1 so we can maximize your donation.
And if you can’t donate at all, that’s OK too!
You can still support us by signing up for our free weekly newsletter, sharing our work with your family and friends or following us on our social media pages: Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky and X. We’re also on Nextdoor, Apple News and YouTube.
Being able to run this newsroom continues to be the honor of a lifetime, and I remain endlessly grateful that I get to do this work in community with all of you.
Long live local news.
Alicia Ramirez
Founder/Publisher
The Riverside Record