Manchester could benefit from terminal development
by Brooke Williams | inewsource
The Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal, a sprawling industrial dock downtown, has been the target of developers for more than a decade. Its cranes and cargo containers are within walking distance of the convention center, hotels and San Diego’s bustling nightlife.
Now two businessmen determined to build a football stadium on the terminal have taken over the county’s largest newspapers and are positioning themselves politically to push their development plans forward.
Little more than a month after hotel developer Douglas Manchester and his business partner John Lynch took over the executive offices of U-T San Diego’s Mission Valley headquarters last December, they declared on the front page that the newspaper’s top priority was to persuade the powers that be, and the public, to build an entertainment complex on the terminal, with parkland, a beach and a football stadium.
Lynch, who used to own a sports radio station and was drafted into the NFL, has been pushing this vision for years. He and Manchester also have long been supporting and building relationships with mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio and county Supervisor Ron Roberts, who could be valuable allies.
Why do Lynch and Manchester want this so badly? Neither would agree to be interviewed for this story until after the election in November.
Publically, they contend their idea is best for the city.
U-T SanDiego owner Doug Manchester and his CEO John Lynch have spent years cultivating political connections, while eyeing the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal for development. Follow the journey here.
“We believe this is the natural location and it would be a great vision for San Diego down the road,” Lynch said recently. “Economically, I defy someone to come up with a plan that’s any better.”
The development also could be good for Manchester.
Although he sold the hotels he built just up the street from the terminal, federal records show that as part of the sale, Manchester received hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stock in the hotel conglomerate that bought them. He still holds interest in that company.
****
When Jerry Shipman, who has worked on the terminal for most of his adult life, gazes over the bay and hears the clanging of ships unloading, he sees generations of good-paying jobs.
“To have a stadium built, have a super bowl brought here…are you kidding?” he said. “You guys are all foreigners as far as I’m concerned.”
Shipman, president of the local chapter of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, is fed up with fighting off developers.
“Every election year we have to go through this,” he said.
Back at least to the 1990’s, people have wrestled over the use of the terminal. In 1998, it was envisioned as a deck for a baseball stadium. In 2004, it was a football stadium. And in 2008, it was a voter referendum to amend the master plan for the Port so developers could build the stadium on a deck.
Former Port Commissioner Peter Q. Davis said it was “like a bloodbath” in 2004 after he proposed building a stadium on the terminal, so when he read the U-T editorial, “I was surprised that Doug felt that strong about it — strong enough that he’d make it a key part of the newspaper’s philosophy.”
Lynch has said the vision really is his.
John Lynch, CEO of U-T San Diego, appears on KPBS Evening Edition.
“It’s my vision more than his, but he has supported me completely in it,” Lynch told a gathering of the Harvard Business School Club of San Diego recently.
In a 2009 editorial on XX Sports Radio, the station he founded, Lynch said, “The Tenth Avenue Marine terminal remains the most underutilized, desired, and developable property in America.”
He was even more blunt before the business crowd, saying, “I think the Port is one of the greatest scandals of our lifetime.”
inewsource and KPBS interviewed a variety of people who think the Manchester-Lynch plan is unlikely to happen, including Port officials, labor and business representatives and politicians.
Three weeks after the U-T published the editorial, the Port voted unanimously to reconfirm — for the third time in 14 years — that the terminal cannot be developed.
Even if that vote were to change, Michelle Ganon, the Port’s director of marketing and communications, estimated that 23 government agencies could need to weigh in on a proposal to repurpose the terminal. Although relatively small, Tenth Avenue is a rare deep water port that can accommodate large cargo ships.
The Port’s recent approval of a 24.5-year lease with the Dole Fresh Fruit Company for operations on the terminal appeared to have killed the vision for development.
But from the ashes ….
Lynch fired off a demanding email on Aug. 9 to port commissioner — and congressional candidate — Scott Peters days before the lease was approved.
Read the email exchange between John Lynch and Port Commissioner Scott Peters.
“Do you intend to vote for the extension at [sic] the Dole lease?” Lynch asked. “There should be a provision that the PORT of [sic] successor (if PORT is disbanded) should be able to move Dole to National City.”
In his response, Peters avoided disclosing how he would vote, but said the lease could be undone. He also addressed the U-T’s proposal.
“Nevertheless, should the community and the Port decide that the U-T’s vision is possible and desirable, and assuming it could clear the enormous public opposition and permitting hurdles,” he wrote, “there is nothing in the Dole lease or any of the other leases at 10th Avenue that would prevent that from happening.”
On the same day, Lynch also drilled Roberts about the Dole lease: “Ron, This is scandalous and not on [sic] the best interests of the city what can we do to stop it?”
Roberts did not respond, according to records his office provided.
Pressing on since then, Lynch called the Dole lease the “Chiquita Banana Caper.”
****
City leaders, including the two candidates for mayor, say they want to keep the Chargers in San Diego and the Chargers have made it clear they need a stadium to replace Qualcomm, which was built in 1967. There is still no consensus on where to put it or how to fund it.
Mayor Jerry Sanders has been trying to finalize a plan to put a new stadium in East Village, but that might not happen before he leaves office at the end of the year.
San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio is the Republican candidate for mayor.
Councilman DeMaio — a Republican who is heavily endorsed by Manchester and Lynch — said his staff is focusing on financing options for a new stadium rather than a potential location. Both he and his mayoral opponent Bob Filner have said they oppose funding a stadium with public dollars.
Although the U-T editorial presented a detailed vision and an artist’s rendering of the terminal’s remake, Manchester’s team did not present a formal proposal to the port, according to results of an inewsource request for public information.
Nevertheless, the city’s downtown machine hummed with politicians, activists, reporters and others who wanted to weigh in on the idea.
“It generated a lot of buzz, over a topic that always generates a lot of buzz–a stadium,” said Mark Cafferty, president of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. “We’ve needed a stadium for a long time.”
Cafferty speculated that there is likely more going on behind the scenes.
Lynch acknowledged as much in his speech to the business group this month. A recording of the meeting was provided to inewsource by Bruce Bigelow, who covers local technology and biotech startups for the website Xconomy.
Lynch told the group they’ve been working behind the scenes having “concrete meetings” with “hopefully the right people,” but they’ve “tried to keep it down low.”
Manchester and Lynch have been using their powerful megaphone to advance their agenda. They own U-T San Diego and are acquiring The North County Times. They have a robust Internet news site and mobile applications. They also launched a TV station. Lynch boasts about his new status.
“In the radio business, I would ask to meet with the mayor, but they would blow me off, and I’d get with some junior staffer three months later,” Lynch told the business group. “I’ve been in about about six meetings with the mayor(s), and they’ve all been in my office — it’s an entirely different experience.”
(Lynch’s reference to one mayor or more than one is unclear on the recording of the meeting. In an email seeking clarification, Lynch wrote, “The point was simply illustrative. Mayors and staff members … not a big deal…” )
Manchester and Lynch have attempted to assure the public that they won’t personally benefit from the proposal.
Doug Manchester, owner of U-T San Diego.
Lynch told the business group, “The bad guy they talk about him profiting from this thing down there. Of course, he sold all his hotels down there. He’s 70 years old. I don’t think he’s going to be building any more hotels there anyway.”
The newspaper published an editor’s note at the end of the front-page editorial proposing the entertainment complex, saying Manchester “has no interest in any hotels or other components proposed in this editorial.”
inewsource examined property holdings, business relationships and corporate records, and found no evidence that Manchester owns property near the terminal. However, filings with the Security and Exchange Commission show he sold two hotels in part for shares in Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc., the hotel conglomerate that bought them.
Manchester acknowledged last week in an email that he still owns shares, but he did not reply to an inewsource followup, asking for details.
However, Host’s prospectus shows he owned a total 12,065,067 shares in May 2008, the year he sold the Marriott Hotel and Marina. They were worth approximately $210 million that day, according the closing rates of the stock exchange. An additional $6 million worth of operating partnership units, which can be converted into stock, were acquired in the company in March 2011 when he sold the Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego, according to SEC records.
If Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc. benefits from a stadium development, so would its shareholders.
*******
Even before Manchester and Lynch began to dominate the local media scene, they were financial supporters of Carl DeMaio. They endorsed his bid for mayor in an editorial that wrapped the front page. They’re also friends of Roberts, whose district includes the terminal.
Roberts said he has known Manchester since their days at San Diego State. He and Lynch have talked over the years about sports and possible sites to build a new football stadium. Roberts said he has long supported alternative uses for the terminal.
Roberts’ calendar shows he was scheduled to meet with Lynch four times from January through June, at least three to specifically to discuss “the vision.” One meeting was a few days before the editorial ran.
San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts represents the fourth district, which includes the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal.
Roberts said he played no role in the development of the U-T proposal. But once he heard about it, he thought it deserved to be discussed.
“That property is so prime that we should be considering it for other uses,” he told inewsource.
Lynch talked admirably about Roberts in his speech before the business club.
“There are not a lot of courageous politicians,” he said. “I told Ron Roberts we would cover his back,” he said. “I said, what a great legacy for you…put your $200 million in there, and let’s deal with this as business project, not as a political project, that’s how we’ll get a stadium built.”
Last week, Roberts said he is an advocate of a new stadium but stressed that the U-T’s plan is just one option. “I have never agreed that I was going to jump in front of his vision,” Roberts said.
Lynch also has touted “significant progress” in promoting his plan with “one of the Mayoral candidates.”
DeMaio, the U-T’s choice for mayor, told KPBS he is not the candidate Lynch is referring to, and he is adamant that he does not support the plan.
Lynch briefed him early on about the project, DeMaio said, and since then, his position has been clear.
“I believe that there are plenty of opportunities to make that terminal a powerful economic force in San Diego,” he said. “You can put a stadium anywhere; you can’t put a deepwater terminal anywhere.”
Congressman Bob Filner, the other mayoral candidate, has made Port expansion a major part of his campaign. When told Lynch said he’s making “progress” for his development plan with a mayoral candidate, Filner said, “I don’t think its me, so they’ve never talked to me. As I like to say, by the way ,Carl DeMaio says reform in every other word that he uses. Reform means Real Estate For Manchester.”
***
Although DeMaio does not appear to be on the same page with Manchester and Lynch about the Tenth Avenue Terminal, they have other issues and a history in common.
DeMaio said he first met Manchester in 2003 — a year after he arrived in San Diego from Washington, D.C. — when he was reaching out to business leaders about the city’s financial crisis. He said he just picked up the phone and called Manchester.
“We had a great conversation,” DeMaio said.
They bonded against a movement to raise hotel taxes in 2004. “Doug and others stepped forward and said ‘we believe that tax increases are not the solution; we want to support your reform agenda’,” DeMaio said.
As part of that strategy, DeMaio set up a tax-exempt political advocacy group known as a “527” called San Diego Citizens for Accountable Government. At that time, the only donors to the group were Manchester, Lynch, their companies and DeMaio’s company, according to forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service.
In 2004 and 2005, Manchester and his companies gave DeMaio’s group $150,000 and Lynch donated $38,400 of free airtime.
DeMaio used contributions for ads against the hotel room tax rate and political flyers favoring Roberts, who was running for mayor of San Diego. One flyer had a scorecard with green check marks under Roberts and red Xs under his opponent.
Manchester also supported DeMaio’s race for city council, hosting a fundraiser for him in 2007.
So far in this election, Manchester has given at least a total of $90,000 to the Republican Party of San Diego and the DeMaio-crafted Proposition B, Comprehensive Pension Reform for San Diego. The Republican Party of San Diego has endorsed DeMaio and so far has directed $130,000 to his mayoral campaign.
In addition, Lynch has donated $1,000 to DeMaio’s campaign, and Richard Gibbons, president of Manchester Financial Group, has given $500. An individual can give a maximum of $500 to a candidate in San Diego in each of the primary and general elections.
Asked how he can assure the public that if elected he won’t be influenced by media kingpins Manchester and Lynch, DeMaio told KPBS, “It’s certainly, I think, easy to tell because it’s not my agenda. Their proposal is something certainly that’s creative but its not something that I support.”.
Brian Adams, professor of political science at San Diego State University, believes the U-T vision is unlikely to happen, especially because the downtown business establishment is divided on it and financing is a problem.
“I’m not sure controlling the local newspaper is enough to push through a project like this. It’s clearly not enough by itself,” he said.
So why put so much effort into this particular plan?
“One theory could be that they have some sort of financial interest,” Adams said. “Another theory is that they want a big project, they want something for their trophy case.”
Brooke Williams is an inewsource correspondent in Washington, D.C. KPBS investigative producer Joanne Faryon contributed to this report.
inewsource is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to improving lives in the San Diego region and beyond through impactful, data-based investigative and accountability journalism.
Our Vision
Betrayals of the public trust are revealed and rectified, wrongdoing is deterred, and inequities are illuminated thanks to inewsource’s deep, dogged, fact-based reporting.
Our Values
Truth: Above all else, we value the importance of a free and credible press. Truth is the cornerstone of democracy and the core value for inewsource.
Transparency: We build trust with our readers by adhering to the highest standards and ethics, and to reporting with facts, precision and context.
Collaboration: Our newsroom prioritizes collaboration over competition. We regularly partner with media outlets on reporting projects and to share content.
Community: Our reporting serves the San Diego region, and we strive to build relationships with our audience by getting out into the community to listen and engage.
Ethics Policy
inewsource will conduct its business with the highest standards of decency, fairness and accuracy. These standards shall apply equally to inewsource employees, freelancers and all others engaged in gathering information on behalf of inewsource. All receive a copy of these ethical standards.
In the course of our reporting, we will consistently:
● Identify our organization and ourselves fully and avoid false representations of any kind to any source.
● Obtain consent from all parties before electronically recording any interview or conversation except in extraordinary cases authorized by the Managing Editor and Editor. If a source refuses to be taped, that must be honored; no recordings are to be made without consent.
● Respect the individual’s right to privacy. inewsource will never manipulate or barter private, personal, health, financial or other extraneous information in the course of preparing its reports.
● Any source we describe or write about in any significant manner must be contacted. The employee should document all efforts to contact the source, and if unsuccessful, should summarize these efforts at contact in the body of his/her writing.
In addition, inewsource follows the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists. The latest version, revised in 2014, can be found here.
Our organization retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. We will maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services or opinions.
We accept gifts, 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 donor support. Our organization also may consider donations 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 $1,000 or more. We will accept anonymous donations 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 and in compliance with INN’s Membership Standards.
Diversity
Diverse Voices
Inclusiveness is at the heart of thinking and acting as journalists, and it supports the educational mandate of inewsource. Race, class, generation, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and geography all affect point of view. inewsource believes that reflecting societal differences in reporting leads to better, more nuanced stories and a better-informed community.
inewsource is committed to employment equity and diversity.
Diverse Staffing Report
Below is a breakdown of staffing data at inewsource. We determine the composition of our staff by asking them to self-identify. It is based on a newsroom of 11 and a total staff of 15 as of August 2020. Percentages are based on 15 total survey responses. The numbers include full-time and part-time staff, full-time fellows and full-time and part-time interns.
All Staff Percentages are based on 15 total survey responses. The numbers include full-time and part-time staff, full-time fellows and full-time and part-time interns.
Newsroom Percentages are based on 15 completed survey responses to this question.
Business Percentages are based on 15 completed survey responses to this question.
Gender Identity
Gender Identity
Gender Identity
Women
80%
Women
82%
Women
75%
Men
20%
Men
18%
Men
25%
Sexual Orientation
Sexual Orientation
Sexual Orientation
Straight
87%
Straight
82%
Straight
100%
LGBTQ-identifying
7%
LGBTQ-identifying
7%
Not specified
7%
Not specified
7%
Speak a language beyond English at home
33%
Speak a language beyond English at home
18%
Speak a language beyond English at home
75%
Race/Ethnicity
Race/Ethnicity
Race/Ethnicity
White
67%
White
73%
White
50%
Hispanic or Latinx
20%
Two or more races
18%
Hispanic or Latinx
50%
Two or more races
13%
Hispanic or Latinx
9%
Age
Age
Age
20-29
40%
20-29
45%
20-29
25%
30-39
47%
30-39
45%
30-39
50%
60 or older
13%
60 or older
9%
60 or older
25%
* The percentages in the charts have been rounded and may not add up to 100.
Ownership Structure, Funding and Grants
inewsource is a nonprofit organization, whose legal name is Investigative Newsource. It does business as inewsource. The business was incorporated on Aug. 4, 2009 in the state of California. Tax-exempt status as a 501c3 was granted by the IRS on Sept. 15, 2010. inewsource is funded primarily by individual contributions and foundation grants. We are guided by a board of directors.
Editorial independence: Journalists employed by inewsource take no editorial direction from donors whose contributions may support the organization. inewsource will not hesitate to report on its donors when events warrant. Our Editorial Independence Policy details the firewall between journalism and revenue.
To be transparent with the public, inewsourcelists its donors on its website. In cases where a donor is the subject of an inewsource story, additional disclosure will be made.
Financial Documents
We do our due diligence to earn your trust in our reporting, as well as in our governance and financial sustainability. All of our financial documents are made available to view so that our supporters can trust we are sound stewards of your philanthropy. Review our IRS Form 990s, audited financial statements and annual reports:
Transparency is one of our core values. Today, there is a need to build trust with our audience because new media and ways of communicating spread lies and slanted news faster than “real” news. At the same time, this era of new technologies makes it easier than ever for news organizations to be transparent. People don’t just have to believe us, they can investigate our investigations with our source materials.
Transparency is key to building credibility.
inewsource reporters have primary responsibility for reporting, writing, and fact-checking their stories. But before a story is published, the reporter reviews all facts and sources with an editor or another reporter. Facts must be traced to a primary source.
In addition, we “transparify” certain investigative stories. This process involves publishing a version of the web story with hyperlinks to all the story’s facts. This is proof that all facts have been documented with primary evidence. We do this to build trust with our readers and to be as transparent as we hope the public figures and institutions that we hold accountable will be.
Unnamed Sources
Not all sources are created equal. Some sources cannot speak authoritatively, provide proper analysis or speak specifically to every inquiry placed before them. To maintain the integrity of our reporting, inewsource reporters must select sources who can speak with validity to the topic at hand, and avoid presenting unqualified or underqualified sources as experts.
If an interviewed source has a conflict of interest, or whose qualifications may be tangential or limited, reporters will note that within the context of the story.
It is incumbent upon reporters to fully background their sources to uncover conflicts of interest or slant prior to using them in a story.
Unless discussed prior to an interview, all subjects talking to inewsource journalists are on the record. Specifically, the source is identified by name and title, and their exact or paraphrased words are attributed to them for publication. If journalists speak with sources who are not politicians, public figures or those not commonly interviewed by journalists, staff should explain clearly that information discussed will be on the record and for publication.
There are times, however, when information may be critical for a story but cannot be found or verified by other means. For example, a source may be able to confirm specific information about a series of events they may have witnessed, but have legitimate concerns about using their name or title. The repercussions to the source could be legal, job-related retribution or personal safety. The source and journalist must discuss these potential dangers and terms of use should be agreed upon by both parties.
If inewsource publishes information from an anonymous source, inewsource will explain to readers, in as much detail as possible, why we agreed to anonymity.
Corrections and Clarifications
inewsource strives for accuracy in everything we do, which is why we are committed to fact checking our content. But sometimes we make errors. When that happens, we correct them. We also clarify stories when something we’ve written is confusing or could be misinterpreted.
We endeavor to always be transparent about our commitment to correcting errors and clarifying misperceptions. When staffers see, hear or read about a possible issue with the accuracy of any inewsource content, they are expected to bring it to the attention of an editor and the web producer so it can be evaluated to determine how to proceed.
Including the web producer is key because inewsource is a multimedia news organization and shares its content with multiple partners on multiple platforms. The web producer must alert these partners about corrections and clarifications.
Corrections and clarifications should be included at the bottom of stories and dated.
Actionable Feedback and Newsroom Contacts
Our audiences know the region we cover and have a stake in maintaining and improving the quality of life in San Diego and Imperial counties. We know your knowledge and insights can help shape what we cover and how we cover it. We invite your comments and complaints on news stories, suggestions for issues to cover or sources to consult. We rely on you to tell us when we get it right and when we need to keep pushing.
Your comments, questions and suggestions can be sent to the team as a whole at contact@inewsource.org or you can contact a specific member of our staff.
Lorie Hearn is the chief executive officer, editor and founder of inewsource. She founded inewsource in the summer of 2009, following a successful reporting and editing career in newspapers. She retired from The San Diego Union-Tribune, where she had been a reporter, Metro Editor and finally the senior editor for Metro and Watchdog Journalism. In addition to department oversight, Hearn personally managed a four-person watchdog team, composed of two data specialists and two investigative reporters. Hearn was a Nieman Foundation fellow at Harvard University in 1994-95. She focused on juvenile justice and drug control policy, a natural course to follow her years as a courts and legal affairs reporter at the San Diego Union and then the Union-Tribune.
Hearn became Metro Editor in 1999 and oversaw regional and city news coverage, which included the city of San Diego’s financial debacle and near bankruptcy. Reporters and editors on Metro during her tenure were part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories that exposed Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham and led to his imprisonment.
Hearn began her journalism career as a reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times, a small daily outside of Philadelphia, shortly after graduating from the University of Delaware. During the decades following, she moved through countless beats at five newspapers on both coasts.
High-profile coverage included the historic state Supreme Court election in 1986, when three sitting justices were ousted from the bench, and the 1992 execution of Robert Alton Harris. That gas chamber execution was the first time the death penalty was carried out in California in 25 years.
In her nine years as Metro Editor at the Union-Tribune, Hearn made watchdog reporting a priority. Her reporters produced award-winning investigations covering large and small local governments. The depth and breadth of their public service work was most evident in coverage of the wildfires of 2003 and then 2007, when more than half a million people were evacuated from their homes.
Laura Wingard is the managing editor at inewsource. She has been an editor in San Diego since 2002, working at The San Diego Union-Tribune, KPBS and now inewsource. At the Union-Tribune, she served in a variety of roles including as enterprise editor, government editor, public safety and legal affairs editor, and metro editor. She directed the newspaper’s award-winning coverage of the October 2007 wildfires and the 2010 disappearance of Poway teenager Chelsea King. She also oversaw reporting on San Diego’s pension crisis.
For two years, Wingard was news and digital editor at KPBS, overseeing a team of four multimedia reporters and two web producers. She also was the KPBS liaison with inewsource and collaborated with inewsource chief executive officer and editor Lorie Hearn on investigative work by both news organizations.
Wingard also worked at the Las Vegas Review-Journal as the city editor and as an award-winning reporter covering the environment and politics. She also was the assistant managing editor for metro at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside. She earned her bachelor’s degree at California State University, Fullerton, with a double major in communications/journalism and political science.
Brad Racino is the assistant editor and a senior reporter at inewsource. He has produced investigations for print, radio and TV on topics including political corruption, transportation, health, maritime, education and nonprofits.
His cross-platform reporting for inewsource has earned more than 50 awards since 2012, including back-to-back national medals from Investigative Reporters and Editors, two national Edward R. Murrow awards, a Meyer “Mike” Berger award from New York City’s Columbia Journalism School, the Sol Price Award for Responsible Journalism, San Diego SPJ’s First Amendment Award, and a national Emmy nomination.
In 2017, Racino was selected by the Institute for Nonprofit News as one of 10 “Emerging Leaders” in U.S. nonprofit journalism.
Racino has worked as a reporter and database analyst for News21; as a photographer, videographer and reporter for the Columbia Missourian; as a project coordinator for the National Freedom of Information Coalition and as a videographer and editor for Verizon Fios1 TV in New York. He received his master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 2012.
Byline Policy
Most of our articles carry a byline to identify the author. In some cases, inewsource will use a brand byline such as “Staff” or “inewsource” for internal or editorial information about the newsroom. In these instances, inewsource‘s Editor and Managing Editor are responsible for content that uses a brand byline.
The Trust Project
inewsource is proud to be a member of The Trust Project and support efforts to increase transparency in journalism by displaying the 8 Trust Indicators on our stories. We launched the Trust Indicators on Sep. 16, 2020.
Privacy Policy
inewsource has prepared this Privacy Policy to explain how we collect, use, protect, and share information when you use our inewsource.org website (the “Site“) or when you use any of our services (the “Services“).
By using the Site or Services you consent to this Privacy Policy.
Log Data
Like many site operators, we collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our site (“Log Data”).
This Log Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, browser version, the pages of our site that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages and other statistics.
Cookies
Cookies are files with small amount of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a web site and stored on your computer or mobile device.
Like many sites, we use “cookies” to collect information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our site.
Certain pages on our site may set other third party cookies. For example, we may embed content, such as videos, from another site that sets a cookie. While we try to minimize these third party cookies, we can’t always control what cookies this third party content sets.
Additionally, we may use third party services — such as those that provide social media conveniences, measure traffic, send newsletters and facilitate donations — that may place cookies on your computer. We don’t have any way of knowing how such services handle the resulting data internally. inewsource makes no claim, nor takes liability for the insecure submission of information via these applications.
Here are the services whose cookies you can find on inewsource.org:
Sharing buttons for Facebook and Twitter. These use the standard scripts provided by each company.
Google Analytics, which we use to measure site traffic. Google Analytics gathers certain non-personally identifying information over time, such as your IP address, browser type, internet service provider, referring and exit pages, time stamp, and similar data. We also use Facebook Pixel to measure, optimize and build audiences for advertising campaigns served on Facebook. In particular it enables us to see how our users move between devices when accessing our website and Facebook, to ensure that our Facebook advertising is seen by our users most likely to be interested in such advertising by analyzing which content a user has viewed and interacted with on our website.
Stripe, which allows us to accept donations through our website.
Salesforce to manage newsletter subscriber, donor, and other identifiable user data.
Mailchimp, to manage newsletter distributions. We collect your email address if you choose to subscribe to one of our email newsletters or email news alerts. Other optional information that you enter when subscribing – such as your first and last names or city are simply so that we can deliver more personalized email newsletters. We DO NOT sell, rent or market your information to any other parties. We retain your information only as long as necessary to provide your service. When we send emails, it collects some data about which users open the emails and which links are clicked. We use this information to optimize our email newsletters and, as aggregate information, to explain what percentage of our users open and interact with our newsletters.
Personal Data
We only collect personally identifiable information such as your name and email address when you sign up for a newsletter, donate to our organization, or otherwise submit it to us voluntarily. We do not share your personal data with any third parties other than some common service providers, whose products use your information to help us improve our site, deliver newsletters, or allow us to offer donation opportunities.
inewsource limits access to all user data for the purposes of newsletter, fundraising, and customer service only. User data is not sold to or otherwise shared with anyone not working with or for the inewsource.
You may unsubscribe or opt-out of our email and mail communications at any time by hitting the “unsubscribe” button in any email you receive from inewsource, or by emailing us at contact@inewsource.org or calling us at 619-594-5100.
Donor Information
The identities of all donors will be listed on our website. inewsource does not share, trade, sell, or otherwise release donors’ personal information to any third parties.
Refunds
If you encounter errors when donating on the website, please contact us at members@inewsource.org. For example, if you submit a donation for an incorrect amount or make a duplicate transaction please email us immediately so we can reverse the charges.
Cancellation of Recurring Donations
You can cancel your monthly recurring donations free of charge by notifying us at members@inewsource.org.
Links to Other Websites
Our site may contain links to documents, resources or other websites that we think may be of interest to you. We have no control over these other sites or their content. You should be aware when you leave our site for another, and remember that other sites are governed by their own user agreements and privacy policies, which should be available to you to read.
Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability
Although we take reasonable steps to prevent the introduction of viruses, worms, “Trojan Horses” or other destructive materials to our site, we do not guarantee or warrant that our site or materials that may be downloaded from our site are free from such destructive features. We are not liable for any damages or harm attributable to such features. We are not liable for any claim, loss or injust based on errors, omissions, interruptions or other inaccuracies on our site, nor for any claim, loss or injust that results from your use of this site or your breach of any provision of this User Agreement.
Contact Us
If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy, please contact us at contact@inewsource.org or call us at 619-594-5100.
To contact the newsroom, email contact@inewsource.org. To contact a specific reporter, see our Staff page. Visit our Byline Policy for more information.
More by inewsource