May the Fourth
Today, Pinellas County beaches reopen amidst a pandemic. Tonight, the city commission will meet virtually to discuss, amongst other things, how to best support shuttered local businesses as they also begin to reopen under new guidelines. And here at the Safety Harbor Sun, we are taking a moment to reflect.
The Safety Harbor Sun launched as a hyperlocal, digital news site one year ago today. Started as a graduate school project exploring new models of hyperlocal journalism, our goals remain the same: to be a community-led, community-supported sustainable local news and information source, to be a forum for productive community dialogue and to provide opportunities for residents to participate in journalism and journalism education.
The coronavirus pandemic reinforces for us that, in this era of dwindling local news coverage, “fake news” and questionable sources, bot-driven social media discussions and deep partisanship, trustworthy local news is needed more than ever.
The Safety Harbor Sun‘s first year was self-funded (as part of that graduate school project) and we are fortunate to report that the very basic expenses of our next year have been covered through donations to our GoFundMe campaign. We look forward to the next year and hope you will continue to support us: as readers, as contributors of writing or photography, through financial support and by sharing our content with your neighbors, families and friends.
Like you, we love Safety Harbor. We are glad to be here.
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