‘News Relay Network’ Tests A New Model For Journalism in the Tenderloin

By Kalyxa Roman

Laura Wenus, Daphne Magnawa, and Noah Arroyo are seasoned journalists with experience at major publications, including the San Francisco Public Press and the San Francisco Chronicle. It was their shared frustration at the lack of meaningful, community-driven reporting that drove them to launch a new media model focused on the Tenderloin neighborhood: the News Relay Network. It joins the ranks of other neighborhood newspapers like the bygone Tenderloin Times and the Central City Extra – but it’s doing things a bit unconventionally.

It’s a well-known fact that mainstream media is often sensationalist, with stories about crime and corruption serving as easy bait for readership. The Tenderloin neighborhood is a prime example of this. It’s often made a spectacle for its streets crowded with people openly using drugs, experiencing mental health crises, or struggling with homelessness.

“Most of the mainstream publications will admit that they don't have the staffing to really dedicate someone whose beat is the Mission, for example. So as a result, what you'll get is a story that's more, ‘if it bleeds, it leads,’” shared Juan Gonzales, founder of the Mission District-based newspaper, El Tecolote, and Department Chair of Journalism at City College of San Francisco.

When I spoke to Noah Arroyo on the phone, he spoke passionately and academically about all the ways journalism can better serve the people. He shared his thoughts about objectivity in journalism and how it does not have to be opposite to fairness, which is often sacrificed out of fear of getting “too close” to a subject.

The team at News Relay Network wants to get very close to their subjects. Arroyo and his two co-founders, Wenus and Magnawa, started News Relay Network as a space to paint a more accurate picture of the Tenderloin.

“You see a lot of stories, especially during the pandemic, you saw a lot of stories from right-wing outlets and national publications,” said Arroyo. He cited the notorious Atlantic article that painted a picture of San Francisco as a failed city, partially because of its drug users and homeless population. “They got something fundamental and important wrong. And that hurts the people who are in the Tenderloin.”

News Relay Network aims to flip the script on traditional journalism by consulting directly with the neighborhood’s denizens to uncover what stories they feel need to be told.

“What if instead of us making, let's say, informed decisions about where to put our coverage, what if we just shared that power, shared that control with our audience, and we said, what do you want us to report on?” Arroyo told me.

This consultation process includes off-the-record, one-on-one conversations and formal listening sessions. In addition to being in constant communication with the community, Arroyo hopes that News Relay Network can train residents who may have no formal journalistic experience but are passionate about sharing their neighborhood’s stories.

For the team at News Relay Network, this means a lot of time talking to community members and less time writing. The website is currently sparse in published pieces. But for Arroyo, this is a natural and necessary part of the process for establishing a community-centered publication.

“That's a whole lot of work that a newsroom that needs to feed the beast and cultivate a large, widespread audience is not going to take their time with,” Arroyo said.

Erika Carlos, the editor-in-chief of El Tecolote – which itself is a community-centered publication – agrees that neighborhood newspapers offer something unique and important. “I think the goal of smaller newsrooms is really to build solidarity, either at the neighborhood or community level to … foster understanding amongst each other and then create these narratives that are really meant to be serving and uplifting the areas of coverage.”

For El Tecolote, the relationships built with the Latino community in San Francisco have paid off – it’s how they have been able to survive for over five decades.

“The community has never let the newspaper go,” Carlos said. In times where the newspaper has been in crisis, there was always “some community member feeling like the work was so important that they helped out in some critical way, whether it was like, allowing the newsroom to have a space in an office for free, or having the community come together to do a fundraiser for it.”

For News Relay Network, the community ties are still hazy. Arthur Covington, a 25-year resident of the Tenderloin and community organizer, had not heard anything about the News Relay Network until I asked him about it. In his eyes, there is a lack of solutions-oriented storytelling around the Tenderloin.

“Sometimes you get articles in the (San Francisco) Chronicle that talk about the conditions and SROs (Single Room Occupancies), and it's revealing and positive, but it doesn't give any solutions. It's like one-day media coverage, and the whole problem just sits there and festers.” He admitted that he doesn’t read much news about the Tenderloin because it offers nothing he “can’t see for himself.”

Aref Elgaali, owner of the Z Zoul Cafe, a Sudanese restaurant at the corner of Eddy and Taylor Streets, does not read much news either. He said he feels jaded by the negative media coverage of the neighborhood. “That leads by default to people not to come to the Tenderloin, don't feel safe … You see now, this is lunchtime.”

Elgaali and I met around 1 p.m. at his restaurant, which was completely empty. Only one person came in during our chat, and they ordered a coffee. “We are losing a lot of business because of those news,” Elgaali told me. Like Covington, he also hadn’t heard of the News Relay Network.

News Relay Network held its first listening session with residents and prominent community groups, including Faithful Fools and the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, on October 2nd. They received some confirmation of their core mission: Tenderloin residents want their stories told differently. But not just that – they want to be the ones telling the stories; they want to be more in control of their narrative.

The News Relay Network team is currently assembling a community calendar and working on ways to bring residents into the newsroom. They will soon launch their first zine, The Tenderloin Voice.

In terms of its financial sustainability, the project plans to register as a 501(c) (3) nonprofit newspaper and is currently sponsored by the Tiny News Collective.

Hardly into its first eight months of operation, it’s still a question whether News Relay Network will go down the same path as El Tecolote, or meet the fate of its predecessors, the Tenderloin Times and the Central City Extra (both of which had a 17-year run). For Arroyo, this project is an important experiment, regardless of its success. He left our conversation on this note: “I'm hopeful for many reasons, but I can't tell the future.”