Today we’re changing our name to The San Francisco Standard. Though our nameplate is different, we're more committed than ever to building a modern local news organization around the idea embodied in our tagline: “Know Your City.”
Why the new name? We did love Here/Say; We thought the play on words was a nice expression of the idea that people should have a voice in shaping the future of their locale. But we have found, as you may have, that it was a bit too clever—and hard to spell. We believe The San Francisco Standard does a better job of describing what we are about: trusted, authoritative news and information about this city.
The Standard has a long history as a newspaper name, and we’re proud to evoke some of the great traditions of metro journalism, especially when it comes to campaigning for good government. At the same time, we’re aiming to establish new kinds of standards for journalism, with fresh approaches to distribution, visual storytelling, data-driven reporting, explanatory journalism and more. And we’ll be looking for all manner of new ways to connect with you, our readers and viewers, who are the point of it all.
This past year was one of experimentation for our small team. We’ve produced high-quality video journalism, told important stories about how city policies affect the most vulnerable, spurred debate with live Twitter threads and brought creative use of data to local issues. We’ve celebrated local heroes, gotten close to the ground in underreported corners of town and brought some straight talk on topics like housing.
Now, under our new name, we’re building on what we’ve learned and scaling up: this month alone we’re welcoming half-a-dozen new reporters, with many more to come. We’ll be digging deep on politics and policy, spotlighting the cultural riches of our great city and finding fresh ways to bring it all to you. As a start-up company, we’ll also be contributing to the entrepreneurial energy of our business community, even as we scrutinize the complex interactions between the public and private sectors.
We’ll have a lot more to say about our specific plans in the months to come. For now we hope you’ll join us by signing up for our daily newsletter, visiting our site and following us on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Please reach out with any questions or ideas, you can always email me directly at jonathan@sfstandard.com.
Warmest thanks for your interest from all of us at The San Francisco Standard!
—Jonathan Weber, Editor in Chief at The San Francisco Standard