Today from Mission Local

Good morning!

Sara is off today and I am filling in. Hope you all are well and digging into our Election Coverage. We started early because – as you know – we also train young reporters and so we are trying to get everyone up to speed. They are doing amazing work.

It is ambitious coverage, but they have the indomitable Joe Eskenazi guiding them and that is a gift. Today, he parses the politics of pandas coming to San Francisco.

Andrew Gilbert writes a lovely elegy on the classical music critic Joshua Kosman’s retirement from the San Francisco Chronicle.

And today, Xueer Lu asks the District 11 candidates: What potential do you see in District 11?

If you like what we’re doing, please think of supporting us. The smallest donations add up to a lot of reporting. Our $5 to $99 donations last year totaled nearly $50,000, and with $10,000 more, that means a full reporter. So, truly, every donation counts.

It is inspiring to get your support!

Lydia

The Latest News

A smiling man with glasses and a white shirt, sitting indoors and holding an orange cat in his lap.

A Cultural Mission bids adieu to the Chronicle’s classical cat

“Maybe the Symphony will turn a corner, reorganize, and we report on that,”  said Joshua Kosman.

Credit: J. Patrick Fischer

SF is getting pandas! That could be great for the city. It may not be great for Mayor Breed.

“Exit, pursued by a bear” Shakespeare

Election 2024

Drawings of the four candidates for District 11 supervisor for 2024, from left to right are: Adlah Chisti, Ernest "E.J." Jones, Roger Marenco, and Chyanne Chen.

Meet the District 11 Candidates: ‘What potential do you see in D11?’

“I love Beep’s burger,” writes Adlah Christi.

SNAP

A white butterfly rests on the bright green leaf of a plant, with sunlight filtering through foliage.

The reclusive butterfly

By Walter Mackins

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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.