City Desk ABQ launched today with a newsroom of seven journalists with years of experience in Albuquerque and New Mexico. City Desk will publish every weekday afternoon and Sundays online and will focus on the traditional “Metro section” of a daily newspaper: City Hall, county government, education, crime and courts, and our local economy. There will also be in-depth and investigative reporting.
City Desk also includes two student journalists. Sara Antencio-Gonzales (UNM, ’24) and Elizabeth McCall (NMSU, ’24).
Unlike legacy newspaper models, the new nonprofit City Desk makes its reporting available for free online to anyone seeking to understand and engage in the decisions that impact our city and residents. Much like public radio or television, readers who can are encouraged to support it with monthly donations supplemented by grants and underwriting from local businesses. All sustaining supporters are disclosed.
“The old model of privately-owned newspapers no longer works,” says Pat Davis, a co-founder and publisher of City Desk. “Many of us remember when our city had two daily papers and they competed for sources and the best stories. Today our last remaining paper charges $240 a year to read news online – that’s too much for working families whose voices need to be heard in local democracy and the lack of civic engagement shows.”
“Local television does a great job of covering breaking news and we have great business-to-business and sports reporting from our other papers,” adds Davis. “We’re bringing focused resources to the metro section so that residents know what local officials are doing and how they can engage in decisions that impact them and their neighborhoods.”
About
City Desk ABQ is a project of Citizen Media Group, a New Mexico-based 501(c)3 whose mission includes encouraging civic engagement through local print and digital media, in partnership with Ctrl+P Publishing, a local newspaper publishing group owned by Davis, founder of the state’s first daily nonprofit publication in 2015, the New Mexico Political Report. Ctrl+P was listed as one of the city’s Top 10 LGBTQ+-owned firms by the Albuquerque Business First in 2023.
City Desk was launched with founding donations from Davis, a former Democratic city councilor, and Darren White, a former Republican sheriff, political appointee and local TV news reporter.
“While we may not always agree on the solutions, we both remember when we could all agree on the facts,” says White. “This is our attempt at getting back to robust news competition in the city we both served.”
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