''Lookout Santa Cruz'' is a digital newspaper launched in November 2020 based in Santa Cruz, California. It was created by Ken Doctor, a media analyst who had studied the decline of local newspapers in the United States. Its parent company is Lookout Local. ''Lookout Santa Cruz'' receives philanthropic support, advertising revenue, and online subscription revenue. ''Lookout'' won a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting in 2024 for its coverage of the

2022–2023 California floods Periods of heavy rainfall caused by multiple atmospheric rivers in California between December 31, 2022 and March 25, 2023 resulted in floods that affected parts of Southern California, the California Central Coast, Northern California and Neva ...

History and operations

''Lookout Santa Cruz'' launched in October 2020 with about $2.5 million raised from philanthropy from organizations including the

Knight Foundation The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, also known as the Knight Foundation, is an American non-profit foundation that provides grants for journalism, communities, and the arts. The organization was founded as the Knight Memorial Education ...

, the Google News Innovation Challenge, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. During its first year, it suffered from high turnover. Its three top editors and chief revenue officer left to work in other cities, and in February 2023, only two original staff members remained from the organization's October 2020 start. In April 2022, Doctor wrote that ''Lookout'' had a team of 13 people, ten in the newsroom and three in business. Most employees are paid $65,000 to $70,000 per year. The editorial staff at ''Lookout'' outnumbers that of the '' Santa Cruz Sentinel'', which had seven in early 2023, a decline from the 40 newsroom employees it had in the early 2000s. Ken Doctor, the newspaper's founder, frequently writes about the operations of ''Lookout Santa Cruz'' in his column for ''Nieman Journalism Lab''. In early 2023, Doctor said the company was on track to make a profit in 2023 and had 8500 paid subscribers. Doctor attended University of California, Santa Cruz in the 1970s, and after a career in journalism that included an alternative weekly paper in Oregon and the defunct

Knight Ridder Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by McClatchy on June 27, 2006, it was the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspaper brand ...

media company, he returned to Santa Cruz in the early 2010s. ''Lookout Santa Cruz'' won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for its community-focused coverage of the

that destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses.

References

{{PulitzerPrize BreakingNews 2001–2025 Mass media in Santa Cruz County, California Newspapers established in 2020 2020 establishments in California Newspapers published in California

History and operations

See also

References