skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

California Loses a Journalistic Innovator

play audio
Play

Monday, November 6, 2017   

SAN FRANCISCO -- California is losing a venerable independent news agency that leaves as its legacy a stronger, more diverse news landscape.

New America Media announced it will be closing its doors on November 30. The nonprofit started in 1970 in San Francisco as Pacific News Service. The name may not be familiar, but its articles became a staple for hundreds of newspapers around the country.

Executive Director Sandy Close said its writers broke many major stories about the war in Vietnam.

"It was among the first to provide eyewitness accounts on the impact of the air war and Agent Orange, fragging - when GIs turned on their own leaders - and we had the last American reporter in Cambodia after the fall,” Close said.

In the 1980s, the organization became New America Media and launched a number of publications designed to amplify the voices of low-income youth - some from behind bars - to combat the myth of the super-predator. Many of those are still publishing today.

Later, editors formed partnerships with many ethnic media publications to bring their perspectives to the mainstream.

Close said the whole enterprise has been funded by donors and foundations, but they got overextended in recent years because they tended to keep projects going even after the funding ran out.

"Our ambitions exceeded our budget constraints,” she said. "We've completed a lot of projects and we're now exploring opportunities to continue some key projects under other auspices."

Some of the projects that the organization hopes to continue concern issues such as immigrant rights, the 2020 census and the future of watersheds in California.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Iowa families can apply for up to $7,600 a year for private school costs. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

An ethics committee in the Republican-led Iowa House has dismissed a complaint filed by a group of community activists against a state lawmaker for hi…


play sound

Each spring, hundreds of thousands of California high school seniors have to figure out if they can afford to go to college in the fall - and two new …

Health and Wellness

play sound

A health care workforce shortage in New Hampshire is leaving Alzheimer's patients and their families with few options for treatment. Patients facing …


South Dakota ranks 49th in the country for its contribution to indigent legal defense costs, according to a 2023 report from the Indigent Legal Services Task Force. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

South Dakota is creating an Office of Indigent Legal Services after House Bill 1057 passed the Legislature with nearly unanimous support this month…

Environment

play sound

A Knoxville-based environmental group is voicing concerns over what it sees as an increasing financial strain imposed on taxpayers by nuclear weapons …

Environment

play sound

A bipartisan law set to take effect this summer prohibits foreign adversaries from buying Hoosier farmland. The signature of Gov. Eric Holcomb was …

Social Issues

play sound

Today, people across Arizona are voting in the Presidential Preference Election, a chance for registered Democrats and Republicans to choose their …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021