48 Hills is San Francisco’s largest daily, independent community news and culture site, launched by the editors of the legendary SF Bay Guardian alternative weekly newspaper. For almost a decade, 48 Hills has covered local and global music, arts, nightlife, and cultural events from a deep and fiercely independent point of view, as well as reporting on vital news stories and issues, with a diverse array of community voices.

Launched in 2013 by Tim Redmond and updated daily, 48 Hills has grown to 35,000 readers a week and covers news, politics, arts, music, nightlife, and a vast array of cultural topics. 48 Hills is entirely community supported — please support us here! Advertise with us here. Contact us here.

48 Hills the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization. Read our full mission statement and story below.

EDITOR AND FOUNDER: Tim Redmond
tim (at) 48hills.org

PUBLISHER: Imelda Carrasco
imelda (at) 48hills.org

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR, CO-FOUNDER: Marke Bieschke
marke (at) 48hills.org

EDITOR AT LARGE 
Caitlin Donohue

CONTRIBUTORS: Jasmine Liu, Genevieve Quick, Tamara Palmer, Dennis Harvey, Jesse Hawthorne Ficks, John-Paul Shiver, Joanna Ladd, Maddy Clifford, Alan Chazaro, Mary Corbin, Tom Molanphy, Jackie Blandón, Reese Erlich (emeritus), Elaine Elinson, Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí, Karen Macklin, Emily Wilson, Daniel Bromfield, Josh Rotter, Garrett Leahy

If you like what we’re doing, and want to contribute, please contribute — we rely on your support! 

OUR MISSION: 
Our mission at 48hills (the publication of the San Francisco Progressive Media Center) is to amplify marginalized Bay Area community voices, uplift local arts and culture, employ local writers and editors, and deliver in-depth reporting, breaking news, and analysis of city issues from a non-corporate, hyperlocal angle. 48 Hills does not discriminate in regards to race, age, gender, orientation, abilities, or socioeconomic backgrounds.

OUR STORY:
Bernal. Potrero. San Miguel. Telegraph. There are 47 named hills in San Francisco – and as those of us who have spent their lives fighting for social and economic justice know, there’s always one more hill to climb.

That’s the genesis of 48 Hills, a new online publication that will report on, expose, and explore the ups and downs of a great city – the stories that don’t make the MSM, the adventures you’ve never heard of, the secrets of making this your home.

48hills will be a new kind of newspaper – the progressive daily that San Francisco has always needed. Not a blog, not a content aggregator, but a place where you can read original work by reporters and critics who know the city. Breaking news, analysis, investigative reporting, cutting-edge arts and culture … that’s 48 Hills.

We are a nonprofit venture, under the auspices of the San Francisco Progressive Media Center, formed by former Bay Guardian editors with a community-based board and a mission to serve a city battered by evictions, displacement, and economic inequality. We are unafraid of controversy, proud of our politics, owned by no investors, driven not by profit but by a passion for journalism that matters.

Review our tax-exempt disclosure forms here.

Contact Us or Submit an Event:

www.48hills.org/contact

Ethics Statement: 

We started 48hills in 2014 as a paper of the San Francisco left. We are not sectarian or partisan. We do not endorse candidates for office, but there are causes we care about. 

We believe economic inequality and climate change, which are directly related, are existential crises for civilization. We believe, as the scholar Susan Fainstein writes, that “equity is by definition redistributive.”

We seek to elevate the voices and issues that the mainstream news media dismiss, denigrate, or ignore.

We are not convinced that the private market will ever solve our housing crisis; we see housing as a human right that should as much as possible be taken out of the speculative market. 

We believe that the tech industry should be tightly regulated. We believe that police officers and departments should be accountable for their actions.

We agree with Heather McGee that systemic racism is at the root of many of our social and economic problems.

We endeavor to be fair, but not objective.

We are a nonprofit that survives on donations. The vast majority of our donors give less than $250 a year. We have an annual gala, with sponsors, who give between $1,000 and $25,000, and you can see the list here.

We also have donors who have asked to be anonymous. Some are simply good humble folks who don’t want their names in lights. Some have reason to worry, for example, that giving to a left-wing publication could have implications for their jobs. Some are involved in local politics, or in some of the issues we care about. 

We have received, and continue to receive, contributions from Donor Advised Funds that are anonymous; we don’t know who sent that money.

When we started 48hills, we met with the head of a labor union that represents some of the most underpaid workers in the city, who are up against some of the biggest corporations in the nation. When we asked if the union would contribute some money, the leader said that he was worried that if his union gave us money, people would think we were biased in favor of the workers.

We told him it was too late; we’re already biased in favor of the workers over the big corporations. And that won’t change, money or no money. 

The bottom line is that our journalism stands on its own. If anyone seriously thinks they can influence 48hills by giving us money, please: Donate here. 

And good luck—because it’s too late. After 43 years in this business, everyone already knows where we stand.

48 Hills Gala Sponsor Organizations: Rainbow Grocery Co-op, Recology Inc., The Next Fund, SEIU 1021, California Nurses Association, Unite HERE Local 2, TODCO, The Lapointe Group, Lighthouse Public Affairs, United Educators of San Francisco, Flywheel, The Steve Silberstein Foundation, Propel Capital.