Fundraiser at the Writers Grotto brings cash and cachet

By David Cohn
Spot.us (reposted from http://blog.spot.us/2009/07/15/city-budget-watchdog-mixer-moving-mountains/)

 

On Monday (7/13/09) a combination of reporters, editors, and Bay Area residents gathered at the SF Grotto to talk politics. For those curious – that looks something like this.

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It was a fantastic event. At the end of the night w reached just above 60% of our goal to raise $5,000.We still have a long way to go – but we made some good inroads. If we reach our goal of 5k by the end of August, both Spot.Us and the Public Press agree to continue our coverage and see how far we can take this ship!

Where is the money going? To the City Budget Watchdog series. You can see some of the work already produced on the Spot.Us pitch or at the Public Press’ project page. And there is a LOT more to come. Even more exciting – this content is available to be republished by any interested parties – as long as credit is given to the writers, Public Press and Spot.Us.

In essence – we’re creating a small wire service for coverage of City Hall here in San Francisco.

And it’s a time when that reporting is sorely needed. Unfortunately my video of the night has been utterly corrupted. Otherwise you’d hear directly from Kevin Stark about how, as the budget season started ramping up, he was one of only a few reporters actually attending city supervisor meetings. Or you’d hear the gumption of Hank Drew as he does video interviews with every city supervisor – something nobody else is doing to get them on record about their decision making process. Or you’d embrace the openness of Michael Pistorio who encouraged folks to leave comments to improve and enrich the teams reporting.

Trust me – this was civic journalism taking shape.

It was also a moment to pause for both the Public Press and Spot.Us to take a look at how far they’ve come. As Michael Stoll noted, we crawled out of the crib together. Through this project both are starting to get recognized as a media force to reckon with.

And then of course there was the beer, wine, food, raffles and socializing. One thing I love about these in-person fundraisers is that it takes the “networking” out of social networking and just makes it fun and real. Spot.Us is about community. So whenever we can, we like to put faces to digital names.

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A hearty thanks goes to ALL who came out and showed some love.

You keep us motivated, you give us the courage to step out of our space and leap for something greater than ourselves. There is no way we can truly repay the debt we owe. We hope that by ferociously covering City Hall and the budget cuts being enacted right now we can pay it forward to the larger Bay Area community. If media can move mountains, you are helping to start that avalanche.

Related posts:

  1. Give, drink and talk it up with our City Budget Watchdog team tonight!
  2. We Did It! The City Budget Watchdog Reporting Off to a Great Start
  3. City Budget Watchdog – Help Us Shine a Spotlight on the Budget Cuts
  4. Shining Light on the City Budget Blues
  5. Spot.Us in the Blogs, City Budget Blues on Air, BART Fees in the Sky and Another Blow to the OPD

 

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