Belated birthday announcement! The Frisc is now more than a year old. We’ve allowed ourselves a mini-cupcake and a frosty mug of local pilsner, not exactly in that order, but then it was back to work. We’ve got a lot going on and a lot to tell you about.
Since we launched last spring, we’ve posted more than 70 stories, nabbed a couple scoops, spotlighted great local photographers, and more. Most important, we’ve begun our mission of covering San Francisco — a city of immense privilege and pressure—not as a collection of fragments but as a complicated whole that often seems ready to rip apart at the seams.
San Francisco’s events, ideas, and trends fan out like seismic waves; even when we report on something specific in the Mission, the Richmond, Visitacion Valley, Bayview–Hunters Point, and even the newly rebranded East Cut, we want you to gain insight about the whole city; about San Franciscans like José Quiñonez, Kathy Ford, Carlos Bocanegra, Edie Epps and Russell Morine, Luke Chappell, Stephanie Linder, and the Presidio alpha female coyote; about our politics and policies, small businesses, tribal affiliations … woven together, they all make our city such a fascinating, frustrating place.
We hope our first year convinced you of our commitment to all 47 square miles of San Francisco. Follow us if you don’t already; we’re on Twitter and Facebook and also shoot out emails. In year two, we’ll be publishing many more stories, both in variety and volume.
We’ll also be asking for your help.
We have decided to be not-for-profit, which means asking you to subscribe in an unusual way. We are putting some stories behind a modest paywall. Here’s how it works: Readers who join Medium, our publishing host, for $5 a month or $50 per year unlock an all-you-can-eat menu of writing — not just ours, but all the thousands and thousands of other writers and publishers on Medium. In any case, the more you “clap” on our story pages, the more Medium will highlight us, and the more we’ll get paid.
TL;DR: The more you read and enjoy The Frisc and the more you “clap” for our stories, the more we’ll get paid.
Like so much in journalism these days, especially independent journalism, this paywall is an experiment. If you don’t like it, let us know. If you have suggestions, let us hear those too.
Please also take one minute and ask five people — in or near San Francisco, or with ties to the city — to check us out. You can send them this handy sampler of stories we’ve published in our first year:
- A deep dive into racial tensions at Lowell High School that spurred a controversial teacher-training program;
- An analysis of SF’s establishment progressives and their struggles to combat London Breed;
- A feature on the political movement to prevent Mission Street gentrification, plus context on the Mission District’s history and demographics;
- A look at how studies of shadows become a proxy in the city’s housing and development debate;
- A profile of a pop-up art space that is rebranding a rapidly changing neighborhood as the East Cut;
- An examination of the snail’s pace of transit improvement on Geary Boulevard;
- A scoop on a Mission Street nonprofit that raised millions of emergency dollars to help Dreamers under threat of deportation.
- Spotlights of the city’s most talented street photographers, including Jessica Christian, Juan Buhler, and our own art director Jeremy LaCroix.
In the next year, there’s a lot to grapple with. Mayor London Breed will be working toward reelection in 2019. The city will keep struggling with housing, homelessness, congestion, and a hostile federal government. We’ll be there with our take — and hopefully yours too — along with new photo essays and features. We might even throw in a contest or two.
Here’s what we won’t give you: clickbait and exasperating ads. (“I love video pop-ups that grind my browser to a halt!” said no one, ever.) Restaurant and movie reviews. Irrelevant listings. With every post and profile, we want to foment ideas and influence policies that make the city more inclusive, a place where we think about the bigger civic picture instead of particular fiefdoms.
We’re proud of what we’ve done so far on a shoestring, working nights and weekends around our day jobs. So spread the good word. And support us however possible. We’d love to hear from you: thefrisc AT gmail.com.
Many thanks,