- By Keith Menconi | Examiner staff writer
- Jul 14, 2025 Updated Jul 15, 2025 (SFExaminer.com)
Frustrated with the state of local news coverage in the Bay Area, a group of seasoned journalists — many of whom are likely familiar names to San Francisco news junkies — have banded together to create a newsroom that will operate on their own terms.
“What journalist has not wanted to launch their own newsroom?” said Nuala Bishari, one of the 11 founding members of Coyote Media Collective, which was first announced June 16 and is expected to begin publication later this summer.
“It is really that pipe dream that people want to do, but then will anyone ever actually do it?” she said.
Setting the publication apart from other Bay Area media outlets, the group bills itself as the region’s “first journalist-owned digital newsroom.” Under the worker-owner structure, all founding members will share equal stakes in the company and will be compensated for their work at the same rate, according to the group.
Coyote’s launch also marks an attempt to revive the subversive style of the Bay Area’s alternative weekly newspapers, known for offering irreverent perspectives, wry commentary, and thorough arts and culture coverage.
Once a prominent feature in the region’s local media landscape, alt-weekly publications struggled to make the transition into the online news era. Many, including the Bay Guardian and SF Weekly — the latter of which is owned by The Examiner’s parent company, Clint Reilly Communications — have either scaled back operations or closed their doors entirely.
Given the void these publications have left behind, “I do think that there is that real need for an alt-weekly-style voice in the Bay Area,” said Bishari, who formerly worked at SF Weekly herself.
Bishari, a longtime San Francisco journalist whose resume also includes a stint at The Examiner, wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle as an opinion columnist until recently. She said Coyote was born out of conversations with former Chronicle food critic Soleil Ho — her colleague at the paper — and their mutual desire to create a newsroom more aligned with their values.
In April, they both left the Chronicle and began working on the new project full time.
Over the course of several months, the pair held conversations with other like-minded local journalists, Bishari said, and found that many shared their desire for a different kind of newsroom — one in which “our voices are centered, where it’s not top-heavy corporate control, where we are able to pursue the stories that we think are really important and valuable in this moment.”
These conversations drew in the nine other founding members of Coyote, a motley crew that together carry a wide-ranging skill set, including reporting, podcasting, filmmaking and, even, novel writing. Collectively, they have worked at just about every publication in the Bay Area, according to a press release from the group.
The name Coyote is a wily nod to the animal, a Bay Area native, and its frequent appearances in local history. In particular, the group says, they are referencing the sex-workers rights-advocacy organization COYOTE — which serves as an acronym for “Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics” — founded in the 1970s San Francisco, as well as the Coyote trickster deity from the mythology of Native American peoples indigenous to Northern California.
According to the news outlet, their coverage will extend to the entire nine-county Bay Area, with offerings that will include news analysis, culture and arts writing, as well as narrative and investigative features.
Coyote also plans to maintain a curated Bay Area events calendar, a “missed connections” board, and to produce live events — all part of the publication’s effort to provide offerings that balance “journalistic rigor and straight-up fun.”
As currently envisioned, most of Coyote’s articles will be free, but the site will also have paid subscription tiers, each of which will unlock additional content and perks.
Already, their funding efforts are off to an encouraging start. The group managed to surpass an $80,000 donation target just one week after the launch of a crowdfunding campaign that accompanied the initial announcement of the organization in June. As of Monday, the total donation haul stood at over $120,000.
“The response has just been incredible,” Bishari said.
Still, ramping up operations will take time. To begin with, Bishari said, none of Coyote’s workers will have a full-time paid position.
The worker-owner newsroom model has been gaining traction elsewhere in the country as well in recent years. 2024 alone saw the launch of six such outlets, according to a report from the Poynter Institute journalism nonprofit.
Bishari argues this structure isn’t just more equitable than the corporate ownership model, it also produces better coverage by empowering journalists to take a greater role in making editorial decisions.
“Having worker owners who are rooted here, who are experienced journalists in the Bay Area, who have our boots on the ground and are listening to our neighbors and our friends every single day about what they care about and what they’re interested in, feels like a really important value for us,” Bishari said.
