San José Spotlight is a finalist for two national journalism awards, including the prestigious Publisher of the Year, the Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers announced last week. The honor recognizes San José Spotlight among the top local news websites in the U.S. San José Spotlight, which launched its ad-free, paywall-free website Jan. 2019, is...
From the editor: Welcoming a new leader in our newsroom
I’m excited to announce that San José Spotlight has hired a seasoned managing editor to lead our award-winning newsroom. Simar Khanna joins our team after a distinguished 25-year career in Bay Area journalism. Simar spent 16 years at the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner where she served as an editor in nearly every...
From the editor: What was the point of that 9-hour City Council debate?
Regardless of what side of the political aisle you sit on, one thing is clear. The split City Council vote Wednesday to put a measure on the November ballot that would award Mayor Sam Liccardo two more years and expand his powers was political theater. The councilmembers spent 9 hours debating the issue. That’s not...
From the editor: San Jose police detention of journalists is City Hall’s problem
The morning after one of our freelance reporters covering the George Floyd protests was detained by San Jose police and left on the ground, my phone lit up from a text message from Police Chief Eddie Garcia. “Ramona, saw you tweet last night,” he wrote. “Getting more information on all of that. Let me know...
From the editor: San Jose small business owners, we’re here to help
Owning a small business in Silicon Valley has never been easy. Now with the coronavirus pandemic closing local businesses for two months, it is nearly impossible. We know you’re struggling. As founders of San José Spotlight, the city’s first nonprofit news startup, we are small business owners ourselves. We launched our organization more than a...
From the editor: Santa Clara, stop the attacks on the press
In an increasingly divisive political climate, our job as journalists is to tell stories of power and privilege. And by virtue of our jobs, journalists and government officials often clash. We fight City Hall for answers. We fight for documents to shed light on what’s really going on. We fight to question powerful politicians, sometimes...
From the editor: We could not do it without you
One year ago, my husband Josh Barousse and I started San José Spotlight with a small amount of savings, a painfully slow laptop and a big dream. Two San Jose natives, sitting in Las Vegas, decided to bring a new model of community-supported journalism to our hometown. We were leaving our full-time jobs, living off...
From the editor: San Jose mayor’s office should change outdated media policy
When we launched San José Spotlight nearly a year ago, we came ready to work hard to earn — and keep — the public’s trust. This doesn’t happen overnight; it comes only with time and consistently covering important local stories in a fair, ethical and transparent way. Those are the cornerstones of good journalism, whether...
From the editor: When the housing crisis hits home
The moment felt a little surreal. After months of planning, saving and talking endlessly about it, we moved back to California and here I was on a hotter-than-usual Saturday afternoon, turning the key to our new apartment. After living in Nevada for more than a year and fielding countless inquiries about when we’re moving back,...
Introducing San José Spotlight
San José is many things to many people. For me, it’s the cramped apartment in Hoffman-Via Monte that was ripe with graffiti and gang activity, but welcomed my refugee parents who came to this country with one suitcase. It’s the old Thrifty’s (now Whole Foods) where my sister and I snuck out to buy candy....