Laura Wenus

We’re changing course — not for the last time Our Tenderloin newsroom is shifting due to public feedback.

just participated in a good session with @daphnem.bsky.social for @tinynewscollective.bsky.social about listening.
The whole *point* of listening is that we change what we're doing in response to feedback. @noaharroyo.bsky.social wrote about that here:

We’re changing course — not for the last time Our Tenderloin newsroom is shifting due to public feedback.

For months, we’ve asked SF's Tenderloin what it needs in a newsroom.

What people said, surprised us:

- Community calendar
- Power to tell their own stories
- Articles offering ways to help people
- Some coverage intended for citywide readers
- Muckraking

newsrelaynetwork.org/changing-cou...

California's incarcerated firefighters to see a ‘historic’ pay increase in laws Newsom signed Hundreds of California state prisoners worked to put out this year's deadly Los Angeles wildfires, inspiring new laws that will improve their pay and open other opportunities.

Yesterday, California adopted a law to raise the pay received by incarcerated firefighters when they’re fighting a fire from $1 to $7.25 per hour—meeting the federal minimum wage. Four other new laws also give new rights to incarcerated firefighters.

Spyware maker NSO Group confirms acquisition by US investors | TechCrunch NSO Group confirmed to TechCrunch that an unnamed group of American investors has taken “controlling ownership” of the surveillance tech maker.

NSO Group confirmed to TechCrunch that an unnamed group of American investors has taken “controlling ownership” of the surveillance tech maker.

California enacts law to prevent sexual abuse in K-12 schools following Business Insider investigation The new legislation comes after a 2023 Business Insider investigation into sexual misconduct at a California high school.

Business Insider wrote up a story on how some of their past investigative work led to a new California law. The story is strangely unbylined.

The reason perhaps? The publication recently laid off the reporter behind that investigation, Matt Drange.

www.businessinsider.com/california-e...

Takeaways from our listening session last week. I'm so glad we got to have this conversation!

On trial for journalism in Kentucky. Two months after their arrests while covering a protest, a pair of local reporters face criminal charges.

Two journalists are set to be tried in Kentucky this week.

Their crime? Covering a protest of the immigration detainment of Ayman Soliman, who himself fled persecution for his journalism in Egypt. Soliman’s lawyer called it a “cruel irony.”

She managed to get a farmworker visa. Once in the U.S., she endured abuse. A Prism investigation reveals that women are routinely shut out of the H-2A program. Those who get in report doing non-agricultural labor and facing sexual violence and trafficking

I want to do a little breakdown of this investigation I published today for @prismreports.org about gender-based violence in the H-2A agricultural visa program.

had no idea they were doing that, this thread is educating me!

good points...
Are we thinking that the Meta glasses actually *look cool*? 🫢

Sorry a couple more I forgot:

@aftermath.site & @roguesite.bsky.social for video games

@newsrelaynetwork.bsky.social in SF modeling a really cool inclusive journalism model

@theautopian.bsky.social for car stuff

And there are still so many more I'm sure I'm forgetting!!

who was that tho because I sort of felt like it was, idk like...anyone who encountered the concept

1. yeah yikes so true
2. holy crap they're just handing these out?? To regular people???

Can someone explain to me, an extremely uncool person, why Google Glass was was a resounding flop 10 years ago but Meta's video glasses are somehow cool? Or at least not getting the same intense rejection that Glass did?

Hundreds of Alligator Alcatraz detainees drop off the grid after leaving site As of the end of August, the whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained at Alligator Alcatraz during the month of July could not be determined by the Miami Herald.

More than 1800 detainees are missing after the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. Feels like this should be a much bigger story www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

Journalist Mario Guevara Speaks - Letter from ICE DETENTION FACILITY — THE BITTER SOUTHERNER The only journalist detained by ICE on US soil, sends a letter to The Bitter Southerner.

Must-read by journalist Mario Guevara for @bittersouth.bsky.social: "On the afternoon of Saturday, June 14, 2025, my life changed completely. Just as I was doing a regular news coverage, I was arrested by the police in the state of Georgia."

NYT headline: Draft Bill Would Authorize Trump to Kill People He Deems Narco-Terrorists Potential legislation circulating in the executive branch and Congress would grant President Trump sweeping military powers.

there’s a lot going on but this seems uh extremely bad. our duterte era spreading its wings www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/u...

The Tenderloin you don’t see There’s more going on in this neighborhood than crime and drugs — like resilience and recovery.

I don't mean to put a happy face on a neighborhood where truly bad things happen and really, deeply affect people. But events like Recovery Day showcase the hard work, care and wisdom of the community. We should give that its proper attention, too.

newsrelaynetwork.org/the-tenderlo...

A second mass shooting of a homeless encampment in Minneapolis. Five more people died. Meanwhile, congress is working on passing the ability to jail homeless people for up to 30 days or charge them $500. It bans camping on public property. abcnews.go.com/US/people-hu...

Bookshelves, {Some} Banned Books, and {Lost} Books, Oh My!, a project from Mrs. Gall Help me give my students new books to choose from in my classroom library! For years, books have been banned or challenged because of different or unpopular ideas. It is so important that students ...

Classroom #2. This one needs $530 to finish giving this South Dakota high school a rad collection of diverse and banned books: www.donorschoose.org/project/book...

Here's where you come in. If you can throw a few bucks to the classroom, that's rad. If you can't give money, that's okay, too. *Share* the projects as they come up and share this thread. That makes a difference, even if it doesn't seem like it does.

If the journalists and news companies you rely on did not make clear prior to last year's election that these were the stakes in last year's election, I would urge you to reconsider your media diet.

AGREED. Also clearer than "in accordance with our policy [hyperlink nobody wants to read] on anonymous sources"

SF Streamlined Its Street Teams. Now, Fewer People Are Getting the Help They Need Street medicine outreach workers describe a new, expensive, and disorganized program that lacks clear objectives.

love the way @nuala.bsky.social explains quoting unnamed city workers in this @coyotemedia.org piece on street health teams. I think it's so important to talk about how opaque cities have become and what it does to accountability when workers can't talk publicly and press statements are vague.

They did it!! They've brought back the alt-weekly!! As a worker-owned collective and for the whole Bay Area no less.

AWOOOOO!

Thinking a lot this morning about how the dispersed nature of these kidnappings over such a broad area makes it so easy for them to avoid making bigger waves. The surface can appear totally calm while they're grabbing neighbors, and most people have no idea until/unless something flashy happens

thank you 😊

The long, muti-carrier group Navy deployment around the Red Sea to fight the Houthis saw billions spent, one F/A-18 shot down by friendly fire AND the US firing a missile at a UFO. And that was just the 2024 part.

A white and orange cat with a neutral expression sits next to a microphone. The image is styled as a news broadcast with the label "URGENTE" in red, the word "Gato" in black, and a string of "Miau" repeated multiple times below. The broadcast channel logo is in the lower right corner, along with the text "LIVE" and the date "01 02 DEC."

Finally, news we can trust

Community-driven reporting: three examples Here’s how we’d turn our audience’s interests and concerns into coverage.

So let's say we're up and running in the Tenderloin and you want us to do a story. How does that work exactly? We get specific: newsrelaynetwork.org/community-dr...