Behind the story with The Riverside Record

Publisher Alicia Ramirez shares why supporting LGBTQ+ stories are vital to local news.

and

Sep 14, 2023

Last week I read an intriguing article by a small non-profit publication called The Riverside Record. The digital newsroom—founded by journalist Alicia Ramirez—deftly covers the community of Riverside County, California, and strives to increase awareness and engagement among its readers. But that’s no easy feat considering support for local media is on a steep decline.

Nationally, there’s been a 57 percent reduction in newspaper employees since 2004, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Weekday circulation among local news is down 40 percent from 2015, reports Pew Research Center. That same report estimates local advertising revenue has dropped 73 percent. And more than 360 newspapers shuttered between late 2019 and May 2022, says Northwestern Medill’s Local News Initiative.

That’s all to say it’s hard to keep a newspaper running, even when the news is literally in the palm of our hands. Blame it on a mix of the pandemic, lack of investment, less subscribers, and the cannibalization by national and streaming outlets, to name a few.

With this is mind, I was struck from the very first paragraph in Ramirez’s article:

Publisher’s note: The Riverside Record proudly stands with the LGBTQ+ community in Riverside County and beyond. For us, this is not a political statement, but rather our deeply held belief that all people—regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion, ability or national origin—are entitled to equal rights, equal treatment and equal protection under the law.

The article, “Experts Say Mandatory Parental Notification Policies Are Harmful To Trans, Nonbinary Youth,” covers a local school district’s forced outing policy that requires educators to notify a guardian or parent if a student identifies at school as a gender that doesn’t match the binary of their sex assigned at birth.

In 2023 it may not seem like much, but this publisher’s note is SCREAMING at its readers.

Think about it, if smaller outlets like The Riverside Record are starving for reader support and advertising dollars, then it makes sense to be as non-divisive in your coverage as possible. (Mind you, divisive should be in quotes because believing in the rights of all people isn’t up for debate in this newsletter.) Anyway, I had to know more about how this important story came together—and why Ramirez added the publisher’s note.

I’ve invited her to share more in today’s newsletter:

Do you think that standing up to injustice makes you a worse journalist? I know I sure don’t, but for all of my career I’ve been told that objectivity is the industry’s highest guiding principle.

And when I pointed out the ways in which this actively harms the people our society has marginalized, I was told that I was being “too emotional,” or “getting too close to,” the story, with the implication that my objectivity was compromised.

It wasn’t until I left a corporate news setting in the fall of 2021 that I realized those comments, meant to be criticisms of my work, were actually reflective of the news industry’s broken culture that seemingly embraces an “all opinions are valid opinions” approach, despite the documented harm that it does to communities marginalized by society.

In launching The Riverside Record last year, I decided that I would do things differently. I became a reporter because I care deeply about people, and this core value of mine has become a core value for The Record—helping to inform our strategy, content and partnerships.

So when school districts across our coverage area started passing mandatory parental notification policies that require educators to inform a parent or guardian that their child is transgender or nonbinary without the student’s consent, I knew that we needed to dig deeper into the impact these policies can have on these students and reach out to local experts and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

In putting this story together, I also wanted to make sure there was no confusion about where The Record stands when it comes to supporting the LGBTQ+ community, which is how the publisher’s note at the top of this story came to be.

For me, standing in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community is far more important than any backlash I or my news outlet might face for proclaiming that support—especially with attacks on the LGBTQ+ community on the rise—and I wanted to make it clear that The Record will always respect, honor and uplift their voices.

I also wanted to make it clear that we at The Record will not back down from our support for the LGBTQ+ community or any other community marginalized by society. For The Record, staying true to the company’s core values is far more important to the future of the business than accepting money from donors who don’t share the belief that all people are entitled to equal rights, treatment and protection under the law.

And, just as an aside: All of the feedback thus far has been quite positive, and for that, I am immensely thankful.