This is our eighth year of issues-based, 100% San Francisco journalism passionately dedicated to a more affordable, inclusive, and accountable city.
If you are a writer looking to work with us, click here for our guidelines.
Our advisory board is here. Our privacy policy is here.
More about us:
Corrections.
Ethics and editorial independence.
Financial transparency.
Hey everyone, this is Alex Lash, editor and cofounder. Thanks for being curious about us and our nonprofit San Francisco journalism.
We launched The Frisc in 2017 to spur engagement, foment change, and celebrate what’s best about San Francisco, or at least what it strives to be: diverse, creative, and open to the world. Unfortunately, it’s become unaffordable and often unmanageable.
The city we love has many problems. We’re dedicated not just to exposing and explaining them but also highlighting solutions. Change is inevitable, sometimes for the better. San Francisco is always remaking itself, and The Frisc is here to tell the city’s story.
COVID brought devastation, but it also created chances to curb evictions, reclaim streets for people and pump the brakes on car culture, give small businesses a break, and demand more housing for all.
We focus on San Francisco’s core issues — no sports scores, restaurant reviews, or Sierra ski conditions. Housing is crucial: Without a denser, more affordable city, San Francisco cannot address the homelessness crisis, streets and transit, and struggling schools and businesses, all of which we cover.
I grew up in the Haight-Ashbury and in SF’s public schools. The city of today was developing around me all along. (For example, our neighborhoods were shaped by past racist redlining; the Haight was one of the few that were non-restricted.)
In our 47 square miles (not 49!), everything is connected. We want readers to finish every Frisc story with a better understanding of San Francisco: how it got this way, how it works, and how to make it better.
Your support is crucial to our mission of seeking a more affordable, inclusive, and accountable city for all of us. With your help, we can tell more stories from the Haight to the Bayview, from Ocean Beach to North Beach.
Please follow us however you like: via newsletter, X (formerly Twitter) where we live-tweet public meetings, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Thank you for reading!
Alex Lash
Editor in chief
ETHICS AND EDITORIAL INDEPENDENCE
The Frisc will not accept a donation from any individual or organization that compromises our editorial independence. All gifts, grants, and donations fund general operations and editorial coverage. Receipt of a financial contribution does not constitute endorsement of a donor or a donor’s position.
All editorial decisions are controlled by our editors. We don’t let donors assign, edit, or review stories before publication or otherwise influence our coverage.
We are nonpartisan. We neither endorse nor oppose candidates for political office, ballot measures, or initiatives. Our stories, reports, investigations and analyses strive to promote civic engagement, accountability, and discourse, as well as a more affordable and inclusive San Francisco.
We clearly label opinion and personal essays as “Commentary.” We don’t accept sponsored content.
More generally, we aim to uphold the standards in the Society of Professional Journalism ethics code.
We also uphold and embody the values of the Institute for Nonprofit News.
FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY
We accept tax-deductible donations via our 501(c)3 fiscal sponsor, Media Alliance of San Francisco, which does not direct or influence The Frisc’s editorial decisions, other than the stipulation that we follow all relevant nonprofit rules. Media Alliance charges a fee for processing donations to The Frisc. You can find Media Alliance’s 990 form here.
We pledge to identify all annual donors of $5,000 in our most recent fiscal year:
- Association of Alternative Newsmedia
- The Fund for Investigative Journalism
- Institute for Nonprofit News
- Silicon Valley Community Foundation
- Roz and Ron Levaco
- The Miami Foundation
We pledge that no more than 5 percent of our annual budget will come from anonymous donations.
CORRECTIONS
We are human and make mistakes. When we do, we make corrections as quickly as possible without introducing new errors or confusion. Corrections, clarifications, and updates are either embedded in stories, adjacent to the changed text, or at the bottom of stories. However, if we believe a correction is significant, we will flag it at the top of a story.
Please flag potential errors via email and put CORRECTION in the subject line: hello@thefrisc.com.
On Friday, our email newsletter notes the week’s corrections, if any, from our web site, email, and social media channels.
