“We make our politest bow.” So wrote the cofounders of the Chronicle in their first issue on Jan. 16, 1834, according to longtime Chronicle columnist Carl Nolte. In that issue of what was then called The Daily Dramatic Chronicle, brothers Charles and Michael de Young (both younger than 20!) pledged “We shall do our utmost to enlighten mankind . . . and San Francisco . . . of actions, intentions, sayings, doings, movements, successes, failures, oddities, peculiarities, and speculations, of ‘us poor mortals here below.'” Their paper was funded by a borrowed gold piece worth $20.
“Enlighten mankind.” Nice.
Almost a century and a half later, a small group of students on the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison founded a weekly newspaper to take on the radicalism of the campus in those days. As The Badger Herald notes on its website today, “The idea was to create an alternative voice on a campus, a voice that would cast the protests in another light and challenge common ideology.”
“Challenge common ideology”—I like that. I liked it so much that when I was a UW student in the late 1980s, I joined that paper, eventually becoming its editor.
And decades later, we are launching a new nonprofit news site here in San Francisco and for San Francisco. Why?
We are a group of journalists who want San Francisco to be the best it can be, and that’s not a status the city by the bay can claim right now. As problems and challenges have mounted over numerous years, progress has been stymied by a toxic mixture of ideology, lack of political will, and, frankly, lack of journalistic interest in fearless exploration of what is really wrong with the city.
Our merry band of journalists draws from our decades of experience in daily newspapers, monthly community papers, social media reporting, television news, business magazines, podcasts, and more. We hope you will join us, here on the Voice website, in our newsletters, on social media, on our podcasts and videos, everywhere we will be reporting, informing, and occasionally entertaining. We’re about the best of San Francisco — everything from its past, what’s here in the present, and making sure there’s a lot more of it in the future.
As Susan Dyer Reynolds, our cofounder and editorial director has explained, “At The Voice of San Francisco, our mission goes beyond just reporting the news; we strive to build community through education and advocacy, including tangible solutions to some of San Francisco’s most pressing challenges: homelessness, drugs, affordability, education, crime, and corruption. San Francisco needs a new Voice to cut through the noise.”
“A new Voice to cut through the noise.” That says it.
Unlike many news outfits, we are not a commercial endeavor. We are a nonprofit, and that means we rely on those of you interested in and concerned about San Francisco to support us. And for those of you who have already contributed to us or who will in the future, we offer our heartfelt thanks. We literally couldn’t do this without you. Please tell others about us, share our articles and videos and podcasts, follow us on social media — and read widely, think, be unafraid to stand up for making your city better and better in every way.
Welcome to The Voice of San Francisco.
John Zipperer
Editor-in-Chief
