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View Winners → About Jun 10, 2021
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“News is changing,” he says, to no one in particular.
Three words, simultaneously evergreen and a reflection on the concept of “evergreen.” Uttered in a newsroom born in a local paper boom and attempting to thrive and survive in a local paper bust.
For 25 years, Beacon Media News has persisted, and, for much of its history, excelled in local news coverage in the Southland. In January of 2020, the company made its first attempt at a chemical change. Testing its wings in the digital space, in earnest, Beacon Media News jumped from the comfort of just producing 22 local papers and attempted to redefine itself in flight as HeySoCal.com.
2020, if you would guess, didn’t end up lending itself to ideal flight conditions for a fledgling digital news operation. HeySoCal.com hit some branches on the way down. Bing, bang, boom, but the scrapes and bruises broke what, otherwise, would have been a catastrophic impact on the forest floor.
So, now, here we stand. We’ve clambered higher this time. And HeySoCal.com is prepared to soar to loftier heights while keeping in mind the forest floor and roots below it. Those roots of local news coverage that have allowed each one of those papers to flourish over two decades.
Our DNA remains the same. Our investigations, our reporting, our unceasing drive toward telling the truth for our community informs every step we take forward. That same drive that dug deep when Pasadena was robbed blind by someone sworn to safeguard and improve life in the city. That same drive that told the story of a lone activist who would not step down from the vitriolic volleys poured on by a hostile crowd. That same drive that lent a voice to residents begging for answers as an inferno consumed their backyards and threatened their very ways of life.
HeySoCal.com is here. It is new, and it is not. It is both seasoned and refreshing (kind of like a Michelada). It’s your neighborhood.
Metaphor and simile paint something vibrant, but the work speaks for itself. If you, our reader, take away anything from this front page, know the work will not pause. The work will not rest. We will work every day to change the way you engage with local news. News may be changing, news may always be changing, but the work will never stop. This community deserves nothing less.
