About Berkeleyside

Berkeleyside is a pioneering nonprofit digital news platform in Berkeley, California, reporting on Berkeley and the East Bay. It was founded in October 2009 by journalists Frances Dinkelspiel, Tracey Taylor and Lance Knobel.

Berkeleyside has a loyal and engaged community of readers who visit our site, read our newsletters and follow us on social media. They contribute in myriad ways to help us deliver on our mission of “breaking news and building community.” Berkeleyside averages 1.2 million page views and 380,000 unique visitors a month. Our core audience is people who live or work in Berkeley, but it also extends into neighboring cities, in particular for Nosh, our popular East Bay-wide food coverage.

Berkeleyside’s nonprofit newsroom relies on reader support to do its work. Donations from readers make up approximately one-quarter of Berkeleyside’s annual budget. More than 4,600 Berkeleyside readers are Berkeleyside members, making regular donations to support our community-centered journalism. If you find our work valuable we hope you will join them — and help keep our journalism free for all — by making a donation.

Cityside Journalism Initiative

In 2019, the founders of Berkeleyside, which was previously a for-profit company, together with Tasneem Raja, created Cityside Journalism Initiative, a nonprofit, civic journalism organization that publishes both Berkeleyside and The Oaklandside. Cityside is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit news organization (EIN 84-3448887). All donations are tax-deductible.

We want Berkeleyside to reflect the passionate, diverse voices of Berkeley, but we also want it to remain a place of civility and respect for other people. Guidelines for comments are simple: Be relevant, be courteous and argue with issues not people. See our comments policy.

Do you want to contribute to Berkeleyside as a freelancer? We’ve put together a primer that clearly spells out our pay structure and gives details on what you should know before you send in your pitch. Learn more about contributing to Berkeleyside.

Berkeleyside retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of contributors or their products, services or opinions.

We accept contributions, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities, but our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of that support.

Our organization may consider contributions to support the coverage of particular topics, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content.

Our organization will make public all donors who give a total of $5,000 or more per year. We will accept anonymous contributions for general support only if it is clear that sufficient safeguards have been put into place that the expenditure of that donation is made independently by our organization.

Read more about our policies at Cityside.

We receive frequent requests from other publishers, organizations, and individuals to reuse our photos. Here are answers to some frequently asked questions, and instructions:

Do I need permission to use Berkeleyside’s images?

Yes. The Berkeleyside’s images and historical archive images require copyright permission. 

Personal use is not re-publication in any media format. When used, images must be correctly credited. Fees vary.

Only staff material from Cityside publications is potentially available for republication. If you are interested in the use of an image credited to anyone other our staff (see above), you will need to seek permission directly from the accredited photographer.

Are Berkeleyside photos copyrighted?

Yes, Berkeleyside’s photos are copyrighted and cannot be distributed, reproduced, displayed, or broadcasted without prior written permission and a copyright license from Cityside. 

How do I make a request?

Contact our team by completing this form to request a photo license to reuse images and graphics. (We reserve the right, at our discretion, to deny requests for photo licensing.)