October 2025 – July 2026
| Overview: With support from the Marin Community Foundation, Bay City News Foundation is providing a coordinated boost to local journalism across Marin County. The following report details how we’ve been filling coverage gaps in the first nine months. |
Strengthening the Marin County News Ecosystem
In nine months, our 250 stories reached an audience equal to 30% of the county’s population. Our weekly radio segments on Radio Sausalito and special reports aired on KRCB expanded our audience even more. Our Nextdoor verified journalist account grew, with an average 2k-3k views for each story. TV and radio networks, the SF Chronicle’s new Marin newsletter and SFGate are picking up our stories, especially on underserved communities (Marin City, the Canal District, West Marin and Novato) as well as topics like housing, the environment and climate change, civic engagement and community life. That coverage is built on a widening network of community relationships.Â
Snapshot of Stories Published in the Last 8 Months
Deeper Dives for Community Impact
Among recent highlights: “Last Days on Point Reyes,” a four part investigative and photo package; sustained accountability coverage of the Golden Gate Village renovation in Marin City; reporting on housing issues in Novato; analysis of sea level rise adaptation efforts in Marin County and flooding dangers in the Canal District in San Rafael; and a civic engagement hub with voter information.
The Rancher Series
A $30 million settlement between ranchers, environmental groups and federal officials brings most ranching on Point Reyes to an end. The agreement resolves years of legal battles over land use, prioritizing habitat restoration over agriculture. While ranch owners received buyouts, workers and tenants were largely left out of negotiations. The closure of 12 ranches marks the end of a long standing arrangement that once balanced conservation with working landscapes on the national seashore. The four part series follows Kevin Lunny’s last roundup, William Nunes’s forced move off his dairy, and displaced workers like Marco Alcantar and Rosa Rodriguez.
- Last Days on Point Reyes: Ranching Families Prepare Departure, Ending 167 Year Tradition
- Part 1: Ranchers’ Time Is Up as Deal Returns Grazing Land to Park
- Part 2: A Way of Life Ending for Three Generations of the Lunny Family
- Part 3: Dairying Made Money, but the Business Grew Tougher
- Part 4: Displaced Ranch Hands Pay the Price for Parks Expansion
Golden Gate Village Reporting
Unincorporated Marin City is highly vulnerable to gentrification and racial tension. The neighborhood of 3,000 includes 825 Black residents, the largest concentration in the county. The community also has the county’s largest concentration of public and affordable housing.
Our investigative reporting unpacks the ownership structure and financing of two controversial building projects — 825 Drake Ave. and Golden Gate Village. This reporting was shared on social media and helped to dispel misinformation within the community. We are also investigating a potential wave of displacement in other buildings, as long-term deed restricted leases begin to expire, with a multimedia documentary approach.
As the Black population has historically struggled to be represented beyond stereotypes, our careful reporting focuses on reflecting the concerns of the grassroots organizations within the community. The stories address environmental justice, tenant rights, workforce development, historic preservation, Black-owned businesses, senior living and a community land trust.
- Marin City Residents Press Housing Officials Over Massive Golden Gate Village Overhaul
- Golden Gate Village RAD Renovation in Marin City
- Golden Gate Village renovation: What real changes are coming to Marin City housing?
- Marin City entrepreneurship program aims to rebuild Black-owned business community – Local News Matters
Creating a Civic Engagement Hub
We launched the Marin County Civic Engagement Hub, a new reader-friendly section to anchor our focus on community politics. Ballot previews and election results provide critical information before, during and after Voting Day, from school board races to statewide measures. We’ve added a button linking to the Marin County’s registrar site, where an election data archive tool shows readers election outcomes and turnout comparisons going back to 2004. This collaborative project with the county Elections Department and Civera, a civic technology company that powers public information systems and governments, is the foundation for more political mapping to come.
Serving Our Growing Audience
Our Marin coverage reached 38% more readers this quarter than last. Our housing accountability coverage, from the San Rafael interim housing debate to the Golden Gate Village renovation in Marin City, drew some of our largest audiences while holding reader attention two to three times longer than average. Our enterprise reporting performed just as strongly. Our four-part investigative and photojournalism series, Last Days on Point Reyes, captured an irreversible shift in California’s public lands stewardship and ranked #7 for our readers during the reporting project. Similarly, the Ark license plate investigation, reported by our partner newsroom The Ark, ranked among our most deeply read stories, holding readers more than twice as long as average. West Marin coverage, in particular, shows the highest share of returning visitors at 25%, signaling a loyal and growing audience.
Marin residents are increasingly finding our stories in unique online spaces, including Nextdoor, the neighborhood app used widely across Marin county. Over the last few months more than 10,000 readers arrived at our stories by clicking links on Nextdoor, making it the biggest single source of readers for our Marin coverage, apart from people visiting the website directly.
Our contact list of Marin individuals and organizations now numbers 617 and includes grassroots groups closest to the communities we prioritize such as East San Rafael Working Group, Canal Alliance, Community Land Trust of Marin, Rebuilding Today East Bay Network, Point Reyes Station National Seashore Association and many others.
| Marin Coverage By the Numbers (October 2025 – July 2026) | |
|---|---|
| Marin County Content Published | 250 stories, 500 photographs |
| Readers on Marin News Matters | 112k pageviews |
| Audience Reach to Date | 30% of Marin County’s population, via republication and direct |
| Radio Broadcasts on Air and Streaming | 75 segments |
Redistributing and Sharing the Work
- The Marin IJ republished our coverage of protesters at the Board of Supervisors on migrant detainee data and ICE funding.
- Some stories are garnering national reach. MSN, for example, republished a Marin City housing development story, a Marin County housing progress story and a West Marin septic rules story, bringing national attention to these hot-button issues.Â
- We continue to produce a weekly radio newscast for community station Radio Sausalito, reaching thousands of live and streaming listeners in the North Bay and East Bay.
- The Marin County Post newspaper republished on the front page of its April 29 -May 5 edition our story about tax measures that show diverse tax burdens for voters.Â
- We continue to see a lot of republication of our stories on Patch, NextDoor and other targeted sites that serve smaller geographic areas. Hyper-local stories set within the context of regional data such as the election turnout and mail-in ballot story backed by data are a sweet spot.Â
Recognition for Our Work So Far
Marin residents face the widest local-news gap in the country, according to a study by Civic Information Needs Census. Our work is actively changing that.Â
Bay City News Foundation has been named a finalist for the 2026 LION Sustainability Awards for Collaboration of the Year — competing against tenured outlets across the country. LION’s judges pointed to the impact of what we built in the first half of this grant: content-sharing partnerships with local outlets, the publication of hundreds of original stories and photos to fill recognized coverage gaps, and wide redistribution. Our reporting resulted in meaningful stories for many residents who now feel seen, like the Smalls family, who reconnected with their unhoused daughter after seeing our article, and residents of the Canal District and Marin City. Built from scratch as a regional collaboration model, this is a new approach that shows promise for how more local news can reach more people.