About Us

New Editor in Chief: Colleen Belcher

2011-09-27T17:08:16Z

To all staff, collaborators and readers of The Sacramento Press.

I would like to briefly introduce our new Editor in Chief, Colleen Belcher.

For most of you, Colleen needs no introduction because she has personally worked with literally hundreds of contributors and everyone on our small staff. You all know her glowing smile and her indefatigable spirit.

Colleen started working as an intern at The Sacramento Press even before there was a live website. I remember how instrumental she was at setting the tone with that first group of interns and staff. She created a sense of camaraderie with her fellow interns while setting a very hardworking pace for all of us continue to follow.

We hired Colleen as a resource coordinator for our growing volunteer community. Her work greatly increased the quality and quantity of contributions. Her roles included creating and running journalism workshops, coordinating copy editing and assigning media passes.

For the past year and a half, Colleen has been our Managing Editor. She makes sure that there is quality content on our front page every day. This may sound routine, but those of you who read our site when we first started out know better.

There is a huge difference between words on a website and compelling local news and information. Additionally, volunteer contributions often come in waves, so daily consistency is hard to achieve. Colleen has improved our content and consistency so greatly, it is almost impossible to look back.

I would say I don’t know how she does it, but that’s not true – I know precisely how she does it because she wrote down her process as part of her job. She contributed heavily to a handbook on our operations that outlines everything that goes into making this site possible.

Colleen has been instrumental to our success at every level. She has worked with amateurs, interns and professionals and faced down “the daily beast” here at The Sacramento Press. Inside our office and well beyond, Colleen is respected and loved.

So it is with much pleasure that I introduce her to you as our new Editor in Chief, a title she has earned over the course of three amazing years.

Disclosure: I am COO and one of the founders of The Sacramento Press.

10,000 Articles

2011-09-02T22:43:32Z

A couple of days ago, something noteworthy happened on The Sacramento Press: We passed 10,000 articles on the site. These are all original works, and they are all local news and information about Sacramento.

Some are of no real consequence. Some are even factually incorrect. But they are written by more than 1,000 different people with unique and valuable perspectives on our region (some professional, most amateur). Not only that, many of these stories are of major civic importance. All one has to do is visit our front page any day, and the laid-out portion across the top will be filled with stories that affect our daily lives.

Some people don’t like our experiment for one reason or another. We’ve been criticised for allowing amateurs behind the gates. We’ve been criticized for our unique front-end design (the big size of our rating and tagging buttons, for example). We’ve been criticized for our moderation policies from both sides – are they too loose or too strict? Sometimes it is best to pull back and remember what The Sacramento Press is at the root of it.

Our policies, our front-end design, our business model and our community outreach – these are all designed for the community to take ownership of their relationship with the media. At first, this shift will happen on our site and social media platforms, but I expect it to grow. It is our responsibility not only to tell stories or provide a forum for others, but to actively increase the media literacy of our community.

We must create a better-informed populace and be the tool that allows residents to act as engaged citizens. This is a major shift from the philosophy of traditional media, but it is one borne by the technological and economic reality of our day. Our philosophy is the real journalism 2.0. It is a recognition that we are a public trust, and the virtuous circle has widened to demand engagement at human scale.

And I expect that our community will grow into this new role and demand the same of other media outlets. This is the real revolution of new media. It is not the toppling of traditional media – I would certainly not want that – but a popular revolution wherein the community members become full partners in sharing their stories and debating critical issues of consequence to their daily lives.

The Sacramento Press, with its 10,000 original articles, belongs to everyone who reads, comments, rates, tags, flags and writes. It belongs to the community at large, whose members can use it as a living history of the last two and a half years. It is not a product of visionary skill like an iPad or couture fashion. Rather, we have designed a framework to be hijacked by our community, and at this point, I can say conclusively that the community has embraced this concept and is collectively creating something more fun and beautiful than I could have ever imagined.

P.S. - We also passed 1,000 unique authors not long ago. I blogged about it here on our Corporate Blog.

Disclosure: I am COO and one of the founders of The Sacramento Press.

1,000 Unique authors

2011-06-29T03:13:12Z

I'm proud to announce that The Sacramento Press hit a major milestone.

In two and a half years we have published work from over 1,000 unique authors.

A few are employees here and many are interns, but the vast majority are community contributors. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to all of our contributors!

What does this number really mean? There are a lot of big numbers flying around these days. AOL probably has plans for more Patches than we have had unique authors. Facebook just hit 750 million users. Compared to that 1,000 seems so small.

But "small" is precisely the point. Our small team has worked diligently to foster a deeply informed and engaged community. We know many of these people. Many have attended our free workshops. Many more have utilized our free copy editing services. I've attended neighborhood association meetings with contributors and taught people how to use modern blogging tools. We have an open office and several people without computers have come in to write their stories in our newsroom.

I can't believe it, but this really is a vast network for our purpose and scale. It grew person to person. It is made up of purposeful people who believe in the power of community.

1,000 people gives me goosebumps. A couple of years ago I could have predicted 1,000 but I could never predict the texture of the journey. The intensity of local and the joy of it - leaves me speechless.

Our Vision

2008-11-22T06:36:55Z

I wrote this document a couple of years ago when Geoff and I were just developing a set of ideas that would eventually lead to The Sacramento Press. it is our vision. We are working hard every day to make this a reality. And so far, with your help, we are getting there.

Compare the words news and information. News is a form of information. It is quick, disposable, always up to date,
decimated from a few to many; it is new. Information is much broader. It can be old or new, it can ﬂow in any
direction (between people and organizations in webs and bursts).

Disregard the traditional parameters of a newspaper. Imagine instead a greater variety of information. There is more
of it now; it is freer ﬂowing. There are more sources, more end users. End users can be sources. Interaction can
create new information through synergy and synthesis of ideas. Old ideas interact with new ones. History, news,
and interactivity form storylines rather than articles. It is lightning quick.

This is a dream and a nightmare because now news is so simple, so ﬁltered and easy to use. These new forms of
information may not be, and this system may overwhelm rather than inform. It is time to take a risk and apply new
filters to information, to better inform people about relevant issues. Some new ideas about ﬁlters may be technical in
theory, but the end result should be simple: a great user experience. These ﬁlters, and the powerful search tools used
to affect them, will present a simple user interface that looks and feels intuitive and provides relevant information to
a wide variety of users. Share our vision. Imagine the possibilities with us . . .

Ok, I know it is a little cheesy. And maybe there are some lofty platitudes in there. But its a dream for us and right now we get to live it out with all of you. Thank you.

If you want to know more about us just click the green "storyline" tab on the right of the page or visit the help section.

The very beginning of The Sacramento Press

2008-11-15T17:53:51Z

Recently a reader emailed and asked me about The Sacramento Press as a business. What is our direction? How do we make money? Why would anyone want to write for The Sacramento Press?

I think it is best to start at the beginning. Geoff and I wanted to cover local news. We were both working other jobs at the time and The Press was just an idea. We wanted to start a traditional newspaper, brick and mortar, with regular paper editions and a full staff of writers. Plus we wanted to have an online edition with a focus on community debate. We put together a business plan and had some consultants take a look. It didn't go well. This was in 2003 and even back then most people realized paper newspapers were part of a mature industry heading for a slow decline.

The advice of the consultants? Cut costs in three areas: paper, delivery, and labor. We weren't really too happy. Essentially these people just gutted our dream. We tried a few other plans on paper, but nothing incredible happened until I stumbled upon The Northwest Voice, a community newspaper in Bakersfield, CA. I was able to speak with their editor at the time Mary Lou Fulton. She was cheery and encouraging. And she had reason to be, The Northwest Voice was pioneering a new era in community journalism: citizen journalism.

Over the next two years Geoff and I crafted our business plan and talked about technology. Our goal never changed. We still wanted to find a way to get more local, neighborhood news out there and let people debate and discuss in a civil forum. We refined the concept to its core; let people do what people love to do:

Tell stories
Have conversations

So how were we going to run with low enough costs to make it happen? Being online only we not only eliminate costs associated with the rising price of paper, but also the rising costs of delivery (like gasoline).

Better yet, the price to host a site online is going down, not up. What about labor? Did we want to get rid of reporters? Our consultants from 2003 wanted us to be an aggregator and just show content other news outlets already wrote. But the catch is that Geoff and I got in this business specifically to get more local coverage, not just point to the very little local news that other outlets provide. Plus, there are other great options that aggregate local content from weblogs in Sacramento (like ipso sacto). Also, Geoff and I realized that not only do reporters want to get paid, but many do not want to cover neighborhood level stuff. I'm talking about sending someone out to cover a little league game, lack of lighting at a basketball court, or a house being torn down. These are things that matter to the community, but they lack the spice that would entice a great professional to do great work. Finally, wouldn't the people who care most about these local events be the best to cover them? The reporter we send to a little league game may know a ton about baseball, but do they know the names of these little players? I know that I would rather read a piece written by someone who lives in a neighborhood everyday than someone sent to cover it for one day.

Today Geoff and I want to be part of a mixed solution. There is a place for a spectrum of local coverage from professional to amateur and from very structured to independent blogging. The Sacramento Press is a place where we want to empower you to tell your local stories. We encourage you to become a community contributor and write. If your story is great, we will put it on the front page. If you want help copy editing, email your draft to journalism@sacramentopress.com. We will be hosting workshops if you want to improve your writing skills. It is time to come together and build a more vibrant Sacramento.

Contact info

2008-10-11T09:38:15Z

We're a local company, and as such we are located right in the middle of downtown. We're right next to the Amtrak Station, the Sacramento Valley Station of light rail and several Regional Transit bus lines.

Sacramento Press
431 I Street, Suite 107
Sacramento, CA 95814
916-443-5403

Here are several primary contacts at our business:

Chief Operating Office - Ben Ilfeld / ben@sacramentopress.com

Business Development - Sonny Mayugba / sonny@sacramentopress.com

Editor in Chief - David Watts Barton / david@sacramentopress.com
Managing Editor - Colleen Belcher / colleen@sacramentopress.com

Staff Reporter - Kathleen Haley / kathleen@sacramentopress.com
Staff Reporter - Suzanne Hurt / suzanne@sacramentopress.com
Staff Reporter - Brandon Darnell / brandon.darnell@sacramentopress.com

For questions about how the site works or technical problems with the site please send us an email at our support email. For all other comments and concerns please email us at the feedback email address.

Feedback - feedback@sacramentopress.com
Support - support@sacramentopress.com

What we're all about

2008-10-11T09:38:13Z

The Sacramento Press will be the most comprehensive, local news source and information center for the Sacramento Metropolitan Area.

We are a strictly online newspaper. Our writers are primarily volunteer Community Contributors.

We combined the best tools on the web and built an outstanding platform from scratch. This platform enables people to tell stories about their neighborhoods and have thoughtful conversations about these stories. Then our editors place the best content on the front page and section pages to highlight great work.

The casual experience is like a traditional newspaper. We take pride in putting the content front and center. We also take pride in making our tools for rating content, leaving comments, and flagging inappropriate content easy to find and easy to use. For those who are web savvy, we offer all the tools for a power user to aggregate (rss), categorize (tags), and dig deeper with our "storyline" button.

We are a for profit business, but we consider ourselves a public trust. The original concept of the corporation was a balance between allowing people to join together for a common goal with some profit potential and demanding that the corporation provide a public service to the nation. In our case, we will provide valuable services to the neighborhoods of Sacramento while showing that this kind of community journalism can be profitable.