A look back at our first week… and what comes next.

Commentary: This piece is provided as commentary by Pat Davis, co-founder and publisher of City Desk. Have an opinion? Add your comments below or send your letter to the editor to editor@citydesk.org

Pat Davis
Co-founder, Publisher
City Desk ABQ

Have you noticed that our morning newspaper looks a little thinner lately? You’re not wrong. Last summer, the Journal laid off some of their most senior reporters and they haven’t replaced many others who left. Decades of experience covering the state legislature and city hall is gone – and it shows.

Coverage of local government has been steadily shrinking since the loss of the city’s afternoon paper, The ABQ Tribune (RIP), years ago.

From inside city hall, it became clear that fewer people were showing up for our biggest conversations (or, worse, being mad after because they didn’t know the meeting happened at all).

I began wondering if ABQ was ready for a different news option to bring back some of the real, in-depth, solutions-based journalism our city needs. This past week we launched CityDesk ABQ as our answer to that problem.

To be effective, we knew it needed to be nonprofit (meaning it can’t take part in partisan political endorsements or fights) and had to be led by journalists readers would trust. Judging by the response we’ve received this week, ABQ has been waiting for just this type of newsroom.

If you missed this past week’s afternoon issues, I’ve included them all below so you can catch up with our new team and their biggest stories driving conversations this week.

Our favorite questions about City Desk…

As we kicked off our first week, we got a lot of feedback. Here’s what readers really wanted to know:

City Desk is a nonprofit so you give your news away for free and can’t accept traditional advertising. So how you pay for it?

Like public television and radio, nonprofit news outlets rely on support from readers and businesses who support our mission. It also allows us to give news away for free to readers who can use it to become more engaged in local decisions.

What good is news about an upcoming council meeting if you can’t afford the subscription to read it? If you, like me, think we need some newspaper competition in ABQ again, I’m asking you to help do it right. While our subscriptions are free, we are asking supporters who can to provide meaningful one-time startup donations or smaller monthly contributions. If you help to lead a local business or nonprofit, let’s talk about underwriting and sponsorships to help. Start your donation here.

How is City Desk different than the Journal?

City Desk isn’t trying to take the place of the Journal or Business First or the great statewide investigative newsrooms. In a city as big and complex as ours, there is lots of news to cover. Think of City Desk as the best-reported Metro section from a time when ABQ had real newspaper competition between the Journal and Tribune — newsrooms focused on city hall competing for the best stories holding public officials accountable and highlighting our city’s brightest opportunities.

We don’t just report what already happened. We’re looking for stories to inform readers about how and why our community works, and give them the knowledge and tools to engage in solutions.

To launch City Desk, we turned our newsroom of 7 journalists (and 2 student journalists!) loose to find stories that make a difference. In just our first week, Damon Scott dug into the rising costs and delays in the mayor’s Gateway project which, he found, has now ballooned to more than $70 million and, to date, has few beds to show for it. Rodd Cayton, Elise Kaplan and Damon dug into three downtown projects touted as solutions to Downtown’s dismal reputation. Elise found that despite a press conference last May and new signs promising tough federal time for committing gun crimes Downtown, no one has faced federal charges. Rodd talked to two city councilors about their plan to fund a $100,000 poop patrol program to clean up human waste in public places and on private lots.

They found some good news, too. Take a look at a new program rehabbing vacant properties in the city for affordable housing. We also interviewed the city’s first African-American elected councilor about her vision and what it her path from the International District to City Hall means for the future of the city. And… Allsup’s has new chips that taste just like their famous beef and bean burritos.

Those are all stories Burqueños need to know to understand how and why our city works – and how they can meaningfully participate in making our city better. That’s how City Desk is different.

Now what?

If you, like me, think we need some newspaper competition in ABQ again, I’m asking you to help us do it right.

While our subscriptions are free, we are asking supporters who can to provide startup donations or smaller monthly contributions. If you help to lead a local business or nonprofit, let’s talk about underwriting and sponsorships to help.

108 new donors stepped up in our first week with a startup donation – help us get to our goal of 1,000 engaged readers who care about ABQ. Thank you and watch your mailbox our our special thank you message.

Here are two big ways you can help:

Share this post with a friend via text or email. Ask them to subscribe using the form below or at https://citydesk.org/subscribe/ (It’s free!)

Help us get started with a meaningful one-time startup donation or by becoming a monthly sustaining supporter with your donation. Donations to are tax-deductible (read more).

Give a one-time donation

Start a monthly donation.

We know there are lots of worthy local causes needing support. Nonprofit journalism supports them all by raising the alarm, holding officials accountable for solutions and highlighting the organizations and people doing the best work in their space. Help us launch City Desk right.

Scroll down to read all of last week’s issues online.