The Long Beach Post and Long Beach Business Journal, two of the city’s most trusted news sources, are joining The LA Local, expanding our network of neighborhood-led newsrooms into L.A. County’s second-largest city.
For nearly two decades, the Post and Business Journal have helped residents understand what’s happening in their city and hold power accountable. When they reported onLong Beach’s failure to reduce traffic deaths, residents showed up to City Council meetings citing the coverage and the Council voted to expedite safety improvements. When they spotlighted a beloved local bookstore at risk of closing, the story spread and the bookstore found a new home.
But like so many local outlets across the country, the Post faced real financial instability as the old funding model for local news continued to collapse. Not because Long Beach readers stopped caring but because the economics stopped working.
Since The LA Local launched, we’ve been building neighborhood newsrooms in Boyle Heights and East LA, Koreatown, Pico Union and Westlake, Inglewood and South LA. We listen to the community before we start our reporting and produce journalism that’s actually useful to people’s daily lives. The nearly half a million residents of Long Beach deserve the same.
The Post and Business Journal will stay locally led, with a senior local editor and reporting team focused on Long Beach. By joining The LA Local, the Long Beach Post and Business Journal will get more resources, stability and a network that makes the work sustainable.
The LA Local will also expand its youth journalism and LA Documenters program into Long Beach and connect the Long Beach Post and Business Journal to our media and university partners across LA County.
What we’ve learned from building newsrooms across LA is powerful and simple: residents feel more connected and informed when the journalism is rooted in the community and shaped by the people it serves.
Long Beach has spent years building something worth protecting. Our hope is to ensure its sustainability and growth for years to come.
All of Los Angeles deserves that. All of Long Beach deserves that. Read more about the announcement from the Long Beach Post here.