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New online news site to cover Orange County
September 14th, 2009, 2:40 pm · 77 Comments · posted by Peggy Lowe
A group of Orange County Democratic and liberal leaders will soon launch a non-profit online news site dedicated to “real-time investigative coverage” in three languages.
Spearheaded by former state Sen. Joe Dunn, a Democrat from central Orange County, the site will be called “Voice of OC,” and will be modeled on “Voice of San Diego,” a daily news site lauded as an innovative approach to local coverage. The Orange County site, to be launched by the end of the year, will be funded with a $140,000 start-up grant from the Orange County Employees Association, the county’s largest union. Organizers will also seek donations, foundation money and PBS-style memberships, according to a press release issued today.
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the School of Law at UCI, will serve on the board, which will be chaired by Dunn and rounded out with veteran reporters, former lawmakers and attorneys. Norberto Santana Jr., a former investigative reporter from The Orange County Register, will be executive editor of the news operation.
A press conference is scheduled for Tuesday. The press release described the site as “an independent non-profit online news operation focused on giving residents real-time investigative coverage of the institutions and power brokers that impact their daily lives.”
Nick Berardino, OCEA general manager, said his group gave start-up funds because many county residents believe there was a void in local coverage.
“Members of the community got together and said ‘We need to have a news outlet that is community-controlled and free from corporate interest and control’,” Berardino said
Dunn noted in the press release that the shrinkage of local newspapers — both the Times and Register are in bankruptcy proceedings — has created less coverage of government agencies and ethnic communites.
”So we here in Orange County are standing up as a community and are committing ourselves to secure the resources that ensures this important civic work– investigative journalism –stays alive at the local level on a long-term basis,” Dunn said.
The board will also include: Dan Morain and Henry Weinstein, formerly Times reporters; former state Sen. Marta Escutia; and attorneys Jess Araujo, Tom Girardo and James Brosnahan.
The site will be published in English, Spanish and Vietnamese.
In addition to the San Diego site, the Voice of OC will join several other non-profit interests dedicated to investigative or local journalism, including California Watch, ProPublica, and MinnPost.
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Great- another Union backed “progressive” site making excuses for Obama’s myopic policies, and illegal immigration.
“myopic policies”
Yea, health care for all is so myopic. I guess it’s time for your conservative brain to crack open a dictionary.
FYI, it was Republican’s myopic view that got us into the mess we’re in today. It will take grand ideas to get us out of it.
Let me get this straight, government control of health care, run by the left is not myopic. You’re so smart steve.
It’s not my role to provide you with health care as it’s not your role to provide for me.
I would guess this “news” site will only survive if it has deep pockets behind it.
Yeah, I can think of a “Liberal” “OC” site that is already doing the hard working non-pensionized citizens of this county enough of a disservice. Most people have already given up on Obama and most of his “ideas”, anyway. Why waste all this time, effort, and money trying to propogate it further.
**Only moronic dead-enders would give up on a President who has been in office for 7 months, and is trying valiantly to clean up the mess left by his predecessor. The last administration has almost brought this country to its knees, so why don’t you GOP enablers just shut the um HECK up? That would be very nice. Obama won. Get used to it.
You don’t know much about politics. The daily kos is not a good place the get information.
I’m used to it all right. now it’s time to turn the page. the guy sucks.
Gary, do you really think union groups are in favor of immigration? Are you that dense?
Unions don’t care if a member in legal or illegal. Look at SIEU. I notice your incapable of using the word “illegal”.
WELCOME! How we have waited for this subscriber-only service. It is the best way to keep balanced content. Also to finally give VOICE to the many worthy nonprofit, grassroots programs that go unannounced on commercial media.
Congratulations,
Marilyn Lees, League of Women Voters/Orange Coast–Govt & Advocacy Delegate
Amazing that the employees union has $140k today to flush in a doomed-to-fail venture like this.
Why three languages? Are we not in the US?
Here we go again, all US citizens have to be fluent in English.
Or is this applying to the illegals and just being written in English to appease the people who are actually citizens and speak English?
What a farce.
**Maybe they’re doing it in 3 languages because they CAN. LOL!
Damn smarty pants liberals just want to show off.
I’ve noticed the Register can’t even do a good job in one language.
They would display the fourth language (moron) but it’s too difficult to figure out which moron dialect to use in order to ensure that the majority of current OCREGISTER readers can understand it.
If you don’t appreciate the Register, why are you on the site?
I think the Register reporters do a great job and this is a wonderful Web site too!
Interesting that the Register calls it democrats and “other liberals” a euphemism, I guess, for republicans that don’t toe the ultra-conservative, neo-fasco-right-wing line.
Print newspaper is dead. The people in Orange County know it, most of the newspapers in bankruptcy know it and now, the OCR knows it. This website will give a fresh view on news coming out of the Real OC.
Good luck, Joe, Nick, Norberto et al.
Last I checked, the editorial page of the is OCR is Libertarian in nature. They cowtow to illegal immigrants, and are not considered conservative in general to most people in OC. if that’s ‘ultra-conservative neo-fascist’ to you, so be it.
The problem is, they tout the Libertarian line, but they don’t really toe it. Just look at the fact that the Register itself is using the same laws it supposedly pooh-poohs in its editorials to relieve itself of its’ legitimate debt. How libertarian is that?
Reading the Register is like reading the minds of the OC Republican Party. The rank-and-file in OC will be happy to forego their tripe.
Bring on the Voice of OC.
Bring on the hard core leftist voices of OC. What cracks me up is they call themselves a news site.
no, no popcorn. that’s “hard journalism” to you….!
I agree…its about time that the OCR realizes that there other views besides their own narrow one…if they don’t choose to print it then someone else should
Such a Waste, instead of a free twitter or Blogger they are just going to pour money down a black hole. Not nearly as behind the times as I thought, but seriously if these guys want to make a difference put the cash into a scholarship.
These guys do put their money into scholarships! You should do your homework before you issue challenges like that.
me likes
LOVE IT!!! I think this is a GREAT idea and am glad that OCEA is backing it. I can’t wait for it to go live so I can log on and plug in. We have NO local news organization anymore! It’s about time!
“an independent non-profit online news operation focused on giving residents real-time investigative coverage of the institutions and power brokers that impact their daily lives.”
LMAO
“Members of the community got together and said ‘We need to have a news outlet that is community-controlled and free from corporate interest and control’,” Berardino said.
ROTFLMAO
Let me know if (and when) you criticize your own. That will be your first ounce of credibility.
Exactly. If I see a story calling out the unions as the selfish, greedy, state-ruining groups they are, then I might buy their agenda. Until then, no thanks.
Y’all think that just because OCEA is brave enough to invest in this venture, they aren’t willing to take the heat. We’ll see what happens when it goes live. I’m betting that Norberto will enjoy the freedom to publish in an environment free from bias from either side. He never pulled punches in the past, why should he now?
Like they would really report on corrupt organizations like ACORN that receive billions of dollars from state and federal taxes.
What a joke! This will crash & burn just like all other liberal biased fairy tale story telling sites. Waste of money. Make sure to have a public comment section so all of us can write in and set you straight on a daily basis.
Oh, I would love to hear where you get your unbiased news from. Let me guess, Fox News? LOL. You crack me up, as do most people posting on this article.
site, to be launched by the end of the year, will be funded with a $140,000 start-up grant from the Orange County Employees Association, the county’s largest union.
This way the Union can ask for a higher budget next year, and the beat goes on, till it all breaks down.
wow, sounds phenominally stupid. who in the world would read this rag… I wouldn’t even line my birdcage with it, even at the price of “free”.
and after all, the OC public employees already get plenty of free publlicity from the OCR. so I’m not sure why they’re funding this propoganda piece.
Finally! A voice for the Neo-Socialist Anti-Capitalist Revisionist Workers Union and Brotherhood of Orange County! Its what we really need. It is nice to know that the OCEA has funds to donate. I guess the workers feel guilty about their hours long coffee breaks before lunch and before clocking out for the day. Now if there were any guilty feelings about cheating the tax paying public, they can proudly say that they are “giving back” to the community. Maybe a posting from the OCEA should be called “Kernals from ACORN”.
Unions = bad. Sorry folks, but regardless of who is backing this, it will likely fail. Not because it’s necessarily a bad idea, but because there hasn’t been a demonstrable audience for this type of outlet.
I’d like to see more news/reporting/investigative entities move more towards the middle and report, letting readers/listeners/viewers come to their own conclusions. There isn’t currently an outlet out there for those of us who prefer to do our own thinking.
Calling it Democrat or Liberal just means I probably won’t ‘tune-in’, because it will be slanted one direction. Fine for you if you’re into that, but not for me.
**I’m excited to see something coming to Orange County that is not a megaphone for the bat-guano crazies who hate everybody.
Love your hate.
“but because there hasn’t been a demonstrable audience for this type of outlet”
Then, you should check out the Voice of San Diego, which it looks like this site will emulate. They have a huge following and the site has been a great success. Print News is dead. The OC Register is trying to re-brand itself on the net but it will have a lot more competition, in real-time, to deal with. Can they stand the heat?
The fact that this venture is funded by unions doesn’t bother me. I’m willingly to give this new venture a chance to prove its credibility. We will be able to tell early on if they only go after Republicans. There’s plenty of corruption from both sides to make a venture like this a net benefit to open government.
Ain’t that the truth!!
FAIL!
I only listen to NPR for real news. The L A Times has shrunk to nothing and both it and the O C Register have been manipulated by advertising dollars to a degree that the only trustworthy news they produce any more involves the obituaries. The Register reported, about 2 weeks ago,on Disneyland being affected by a power outage for the second day in a row and this information was obtained from a Twitter feed. If they did any “investigative reporting,” they would have written about the unfortunate station operator at the electric substation who was nearly killed when a transformer blew-up in his face, causing that outage. He was critically injured.
Any hard news is going to be appreciated by this party.
State sponsored news. Run by the left. That makes sense.
Very little of NPR’s support comes from public funding. I know. My husband and I support KPCC at the leadership level and know how hard it is to meet expenses.
Don’t be disappointed but just based on sheer numbers I would expect that most of the stories will be about Republicans. It would be like travelling to Venus and looking for Martians to expect a lot of stories about Democrats. I am however a little perplexed that people are so quick to assume that some of the best investigative reporters in the country would somehow compromise their ethics or could be bought.
It doesn’t take long for the wingnut vitriol to bloom. Their black and white view of the world is headed for the same place as the black and white newspaper that spewed it for them - down the tubes.
As the publisher of the Orange Coast Voice, also registered with the county as the Orange County Voice, I would like to point out that there might be some difficulty in providing “an independent non-profit online news operation focused on giving residents real-time investigative coverage of the institutions and power brokers that impact their daily lives” when most of your operating money comes from one of those major power brokers. The OC Voice (www.ocvoice.com) has been in existence for over three years, most of that time as a monthly community print paper (circulation 15,000) with in-depth local reporting not available anywhere else. Like the rest of the media, we have had our economic problems, but we are building up our web presence for a rebirth to occur very soon. Although the OC Voice is progressive, it is not nor will it be a mouth-piece for any corporation, any particular union or any political party.
Just because you deliver 15000 newspapers to doors on the coast (your website says 20000 by the way), doesn’t mean everyone reads it. There is a reason they call them throwaway newspapers.
And what journalistic awards have your reporters won? Norberto has actually won a few.
By the way, I just looked at your online rag. You call that unbiased news? When you can actually find an article between all the advertisement, it talks about “green” living. Not that I am against that, but I already own a copy of “Composting for Dummies”. Let me know when you start writing real news stories and maybe I’ll take the time to pick up a copy.
I don’t normally respond to cowards who hide behind fictitious names, but the 20,000 figure represented a planned change that was to take place this month. However, we have decided to stick to the Internet for the time being for economic reasons. That figure may be revised according to new plans. Nobody knows how many people actually read articles in any newspaper. However, if you were to look back at all the issues published you would see a very robust letters to the editor section, a good sign that people are reading the paper. As for too many ads, if that were true we wouldn’t have had to join other newspapers by going primarily or exclusively online. You obviously didn’t read any of the articles in the sample issue on the website nor did you look at any of the other back editions, which cover a wide variety of political and social issues with a depth not seen from our competitors, including the one that owns this website. As for awards, we haven’t applied for any official industry awards because 1) we’re too busy producing a great community newspaper; 2) the categories don’t seem to include small monthly newspapers such as ours (though I haven’t looked that hard); 3) I have never had much respect for self-serving, self-given in-house industry awards that favor the elite; 4) just read the reader comments about our paper, some of which are printed on the website–those are the only awards that really matter. Throw-away papers? Again, you haven’t really read the paper, but all papers are thrown away, but if you read our paper you would know that it is far different from the type of rags that are published simply as an excuse to get ads with no commitment to the community. We know for a fact that many readers keep our paper for at least months because the paper is so informative on the issues they care about. My guess is that you have an ax to grind, which is why you are afraid to give your real name.
Hey all of the Register readers should be interested in this, I hear they are going to do LOTS of stories about puppies and all of those horrible illegal immigrants. hahahahaha
You must be talking about the PAWS program at at OC Probation…. or is it the New Leash on Life?
At last, some coverage of local news and maybe, just maybe it will concentrage on issues that matter to the citizens of Orange County instead of publishing stories that only matter to a few. We need journalism, true journalism that requires our elected officials to be accountable for their actions. This is great news!
I agree with twinkie. Having Orange County elected officials bein accountable for their actions will be very positive. I can’t wait!
Hey Twinkie, where do you think that news will come from? I mean, you can only write so much news about the Gang of Five when they keep cancelling meetings to go do “important stuff”. Besides, the Register hasn’t had a decent reporter since…. well, since Norberto left.
This has been a one party County with a one opinion local paper….lets’ give this a chance. There will be plenty to report. Oh by the way Santana is an equal opportunity blaster so before you criticize take a look at his articles…..mostly union bashing. The Board of Directors assembled are top flight and heavy hitters and will insure a quality product. Look how successful they have been in their own right.
What’s wrong with the LA Times. Their left wing. Their the creator of the PC handbook. Remember back in the 70’s when that was leaked.
This could be very interesting. I’ll be watching.
I’m trying to figure out what article everyone has read. Doesn’t the taxpayers in Orange County want someone to look into how your money is spent by public officials, (regardless of whether they’re democrats or republicans, Board of Supervisors, Agency Heads) and if they abuse their position. Each county agency should be run with the thought that the money in their budgets belongs to the taxpayers and everything they buy, the salaries of employees, and how they use this money should be looked at to ensure there is accountability and they are held accountable.
Reading the comments on this blog is full justification for this project. Many of the comments here are from the center and hard right. Last time I checked this county has over 1/2 million people who ID as Democrats and many many more who do not subscribe the “tea bagger”, “birther”, “deather” or “Glen Beckers” school of thought as the Register (and the readers above) does. Amazing the Register went bankrupt with their amazing buisness model of alienate 1/2 of your potential client base…
Keep dooming it fail and keep conversating in your shrkinking echo chamber. I am going to get my news from a place that is: #1 not bankrupt #2 Actually has reporters, not part time staff writers and news sharing with wire services #3 Not catered to a shrinking political minority in Orange County.
You got that right. Nowadays, most of the opinion page in the OCR is written by wannabe volunteers and interns. I guess the official term is “guest writer”. More like blathering idiots. My kid writes better term papers.
Bye bye OCR
**I think that most of the OCR readers are just unsettled because they’ve realized a dwindling number of their fellow travelers are happy with their mexican-loathing, tea-partying, birther/deather, Obama-hating nonsense.
I look forward to the new venture.
Welcome back Peggy Lowe! It’s about time a true, competent reporter started writing stories for the Register. Do us a favor, join Norberto before the Register burns you too.
Wow…such resistance to change on this posts…Hand it to OCEA for contributing to an effort to bring a fair and balanced approach to OC journalism. I wish this site the best and will eagerly log on every day.
This is great. Finally the news unfiltered by a Conservative/Libertarian point of view. I hate to use this phrase, but we need news the IS fair and balanced.
What many people are forgetting that regardless of where you are in politics, the OC Register has failed to live up to its obligation to properly report the news of the County. By becoming part of the Right Wing noise machine they let news organizations like KCAL and OC Weekly scoop them on an OC Assembly Member scandal that led to a resignation! They allowed Carona to be corrupt for years before the Weekly got to him first. The OC Register has no interest in Investigative Journalism, and Nomberto must have known that. Also, I trust journalist before a bankrupt corporation. OCR is dying a slow death, and they can only blame thenselves…
popcorn: you need grammar and syntax lessons. The LA Times is left-wing? Apparently you slept through the corporate takeover of the media. Go back to watching Fox and let those of us interested in real journalism and reporting celebrate this signature event.
Right and left wingers beware Norberto is a wild man. The Register beware if you loose Peggy she and Norberto will be a dynamo team. I can hear a collective suck of air on Grand St.
The evolution of New Age Journalism has turned to pertinacious views such as sensationalism, propaganda and indifference. Newspapers have become watered down cliffs notes for the masses that lack facts but inject arbitrary, illusory ideas from a skewed political point of view of the newspapers benefactors. Old style, hard hitting, factual journalism of the the past is on the rise. People crave facts and the ability to make their own final decision what the facts mean, not be told what the facts mean. The Voice of OC, a befitting name for a news outlet that is community controlled and not corporate controlled.
It is a great idea , finally!!!
Nice article. Observers should find the project exciting, regardless of their political leanings. With Chemerinsky on the Board, well, holy mackerel. Whether you agree with him or not, the man is clearly brilliant, and extremely articulate. Santana, from what I have observed, is an excellent writer, a thinker, and very sharp. I say, good luck on the endeavor!
What are all y’all afraid of??? That OCEA gave them a start up grant does not mean that it will be slanted their way. You are all yelling that if it comes from the left its crap. Well the Register has gotten so deeply in debt that the ad space is at least the same size as the news space. I guess that means that if an ad buyer does something criminal that the Register cannot report about it, because the idiot buys ad space…come on do you really believe the stuff that comes out of your own mouth?????????
Lots of fringe folks stuck on OCEA’s involvement - but look at the other players behind this project. They will help ensure the same kind of unbiased hard-hitting journalism Norberto Santana has provided his entire career. This looks like a new journalism winner, and a great addition to OC.
Who cares who is on the board, who backs the concept, who, who, who………………………..We are going to be the recepient of some honest, unbiased investigative reporting. What is the problem with that………….Well for those who have been calling the shots in the OC for oh so long, it means EXPOSURE! For the rest of us it means TRUTH!
Why do we need left or right leaning reporting? What happened to un-biased “just the facts” style of journalism? I really don’t need a story colored by commentary of the reporter. Tell me the facts and let me make a decision.
Hopefully they will burn through their 140K and just go away a la Air America.
I can’t wait to see what Norberto has been up to since he left the OCR. Look out Miss Sheriff, you can’t do anything about him now.