Mission Local

About the Project

Our stories submitted for the General Excellence Award illustrate Mission Local’s dogged reporting, spirit of innovation and a commitment to making complicated news, easy to digest. We’re a small newsroom, but take pride in ambitious projects, in getting to a story in a timely fashion, but also in adding value and clarity. We were the first news outlet to go to the immigration court after the Trump Administration began its assault. We wrote the piece that ended Alcaraz’s brief time as a supervisor, and we were the first to document what actually happened in the stabbing of a social worker at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. To readers confused about the onslaught of information on how upzoning would destroy their neighborhoods, we offered a tool so they could see exactly how they would be impacted. And to those confused about what police were doing in the mayor’s campaign to clean up 16th and Mission, we created a data tool to show arrest and citation trends over time.

All except the news story that we broke – use creative interface and online technology to tell stories.

• When researchers at UC Berkeley released a first batch of data on immigrants who had been arrested in our area, the numbers were reported widely. But we took a different look. Our data reporter noticed that each arrested individual had an identifying number, allowing us to track that person’s journey from arrest to deportation. To make the numbers come alive, we used scrollies and visualizations and pulled readers through with strong narratives. 2,123 lives: Inside the stats and stories of those arrested by ICE from the S.F. area
• When Mayor Daniel Lurie appointed Beya Alcaraz to District 4 Supervisor, the appointment came under scrutiny immediately because Alcaraz had no government or nonprofit experience. In texts, new S.F. supervisor wrote she paid workers ‘under the table,’ skimped on taxes, Joe Eskenazi broke the story of her texts. Four hours later, she resigned.
• When upzoning – a plan to increase building heights in residential areas – became a hot button issue, we stepped in with a tool allowing residents to type in their address and see immediately how they and their neighbors would be affected. How does San Francisco’s upzoning affect you? Use our map to find out.
• Marina Newman was the first reporter to document the hours and minutes leading up to the fatal stabbing of Alberto Rangel in one of SFGH’s clinics. Illustrations helped viewers imagine the scene. What went wrong in Ward 86? The hours and minutes leading up to Alberto Rangel’s killing.
• Focusing on the mayor’s crackdown at 16th and Mission has been an ongoing project. Readers had questions about arrests and crime there, so in December, we published What have San Francisco police been doing at 16th and Mission? Inside is a live dashboard that continues to be updated. “What this police data does show, over time, is where the police department is focusing resources and attention,” wrote Anusha Subramanian.

Strategy & Impact
We always start reporting a story with the question how best to illustrate the story – how best to pull readers through. And, it’s challenging. We sometimes try a tool, but it ends up being clumsy. Readers should not have to figure out a tool or imagine a room on their own. We should be able to do it for them. These stories illustrate those innovations and efforts.

All of the submitted stories have had impact. The immigration story inspired us to run a campaign to raise money for a fulltime immigration reporter–in one and a half months, we raised $300,000 and held two standing-room-only forums.

The Superintendent Beya Alcaraz resigned four hours after we broke the story of her texts. The upzoning story saved many a reader from headaches over believing that skyscrappers would invade their block.

Our story on what happened at ZSFGH directly challenged the Sheriff Department’s version of what happened and was later confirmed by a city investigation.

The project on Mission Street – and the data tool – has given residents an ongoing tool to explore. It was just one element of a project that brought Mission Local reporters closer to residents and those homeless residents in need.