Editorial: a challenging, exhilarating first year for Stocktonia

An anniversary is a unique opportunity to reflect on the past, imagine the future and thank those who have helped you along the way.

Stocktonia News Service today celebrates its first year serving Stockton with rigorous, ethical and factual coverage of our community. It’s been a challenging and exhilarating experience, and we appreciate the support we have received.

When Stocktonia launched on June 1, 2022, we asked three key questions that would help guide us: What is Stocktonia News Service? What do we hope to accomplish? Why do you need us in Stockton?

We hope we’ve answered those questions and earned your support for a new kind of journalism in our city and San Joaquin County.

Stocktonia is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3), news website supported by donations from our readers and local businesses and grants from interested institutions. We are a direct response to failing legacy newspapers that dominated this country for over a century. Their sad situation has led to news deserts in many cities, including Stockton.

We’re not alone in our journey — Stocktonia is a proud member of the Institute for Nonprofit News, a group of more than 400 nonprofit news sites. We take our inspiration from the success of many of our sister sites, including CalMatters and Bay City News, with whom we partnered to expand area coverage.

Nonprofit news is a unique approach to Stockton’s news drought. We take an incremental approach to covering the news. We cover local government, education, business and public safety with a staff of seasoned professionals, younger writers honing their craft and student journalists.

We’re proud of the results. Stocktonia broke important stories such as the Stockton Unified School District being cited for violating the Brown Act. Our organization also received two first-place awards from the California News Publishers Association (CNPA) for our coverage of SUSD financial issues.

We also provided in-depth analysis and commentary on issues such as the high-speed rail project, the opioid crisis, homeless shelter construction and the state of the city.

We need your help to continue providing you with quality news that helps you engage in your community, hold your leaders accountable, and inform you so you can make decisions important to you.

We learned many things in the first 12 months, most importantly to listen to our readers and how to listen to them. We encourage comments and suggestions and have reached out by appearing at groups such as Rotary Clubs and holding listening sessions at the homes of dedicated readers. These meetings have been very productive, but there’s more we will do to reach out to a wider array of Stocktonia supporters.

Stocktonia is in the midst of creating a survey we’ll share on our website and social media. We want your opinion on what you enjoy about our coverage, what you would like to change and what subjects are most important to you.

Hopefully we earned your support and trust in our first year, and we hope to accomplish even more to continue serving you. Good reporters and the infrastructure to support them cost money. We are applying for grants and news fellowships and appealing to you, our local readers, to help.

Stockton is a big, complicated and intriguing city. Join us as we continue providing you the news coverage it deserves.