It’s #GivingTuesday — help 48hills grow!

Dear Friend of 48hills,

It’s been a crazy year, with attacks on journalists and the credibility of the news media dominating national politics. The Washington Post responded with a new slogan: “Democracy dies in darkness.” When reporters aren’t around to shine a light on what the powerful are doing, we can’t have a functioning democratic political system.

The same, of course, is true locally. That’s why we started 48hills four years ago.

All over the country, local news media are in trouble. Here in San Francisco, we just lost SFist, a locally focused blog, after a right-wing owner shut down the entire national operation because the employees dared to try to unionize. Daily newspaper owners don’t want to spend the money on investigative reporting and hard-hitting analysis. The alternative weeklies, which once offered a different and valuable perspective to local news, are dying, closing their doors, and operating too often as a shadow of their former selves.

We are trying to build not only a powerful voice for progressive ideas and local investigative reporting, but a model for what can be a new generation of local news media. 48hills survives almost entirely on reader contributions. We are a nonprofit that keeps expenses to the minimum — the money we raise goes right into our reporting team. We can cover the news, break big stories, write about local arts and cultural institutions that the mainstream media ignore — and shine a light on not only City Hall but the powerful private interests who are trying to control San Francisco.

We can operate without fear or favor because we don’t have to answer to out-of-town corporate owners who are always trying to fatten the bottom line. We have you. Your generosity keeps us going.

This year, we’re launching a new effort to establish a sustainable revenue base. We’re asking people who can afford it to pledge $25 a month (less than a dollar a day); if just 200 people do that, we can hire another reporter. If 600 people sign up, we can expand our staff even more.

With more reporters, we can bring you more of what we do well. We can do more investigative reporting, more City Hall coverage, more of the work that we want to do and that this city so badly needs.

You can sign up here, and receive a free t-shirt.

You can also donate any amount you wish here.

Or mail a check to:

SF Progressive Media Center
176 Winfield
San Francisco, CA 94110

But no matter what you can donate, your contribution makes a huge difference. Please help us out, so we can help you and the city we all love.

Thanks again. We could not do this without you

Tim Redmond, Founder and Editor

Marke Bieschke, Publisher

48hills is published by the San Francisco Progressive Media Center, a nonprofit organization under Section 510 c 3 of the Internal Revenue Code. All contributions are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.