One of the great things about travel is being stuck on a plane and catching up with the magazines I’ve been collecting.

Of special note is a fascinating piece in San Francisco Magazine by Nina Martin on Danielle Bologna, the wife, mother and survivor of a family tragedy that began when her husband and two sons were murdered. Martin writes:

Three and a half years ago, when the worst thing that could ever happen to a person happened to Danielle — when Tony and Michael and Matthew were taken from her in a burst of violence that shook the city to its core — she struggled to remain true to the values she and Tony had believed in. Her greatest test came during the preliminary hearing for the accused killer, a 21-year-old Salvadoran named Edwin Ramos who police said had mistaken the Bolognas for gang rivals.

It’s a great example of picking up the pieces of a story when everyone else has let it go. Martin looks at the case from Bologna’s point of view, but also digs into Ramos’ background and the city’s handling of the case, stringing together the story like a master jeweler. It’s a good read for anyone interested in the city’s sanctuary history, but a must for local journalists and those who want to write long-form narrative.

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I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still here.

As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.

As founder and an editor at ML, I've been trying to figure out how to make my interest in local news sustainable. If Mission Local is a model, the answer might be that you - the readers - reward steady and smart content. As a thank you for that support we work every day to make our content even better.

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