Dear Readers,

It is with great pleasure and excitement that my staff and I present our inaugural issue of San Diego Uptown News. We moved into our Hillcrest office only four weeks ago, and have been working tirelessly to offer San Diego’s uptown communities a resource for local news and information. I thank my staff for their hard work and congratulate them for producing what we hope will grow into the most well-read publication in Uptown. Thank you also to the many residents, businesses and local community associations who have welcomed us so warmly. We hope to set a new standard, a new vision for what a community newspaper ought to be.

I am fortunate to have found such an astoundingly talented team of professional editors, reporters, contributors, graphics/page designers, and advertising consultants, many of them newspaper veterans with years of experience. You will enjoy the efforts of my editor in chief Ron James and editor Leslie Wolf Branscomb on the pages you read, the layout and design of the paper by Ken Pagano, and the advertisers’ participation by our advertising consultants Cindy Kojis and Sean Eshelman. I appreciate their contributions and dedication in the launch of the newspaper.

No doubt you have read the many articles regarding the status of the daily metropolitan newspaper industry and the reports of the slow demise of newspapers. With the declining number of subscribers and advertisers, competition for readers from other information sources like the Web, cable news channels and other electronic services, not to mention the state of our depressed economy, daily papers have been forced to reinvent themselves and find new ways to survive.

Fortunately, this is not the case for local community newspapers. Residents and businesses are hungry for local content and seek a vehicle to carry their messages. This is the void our local community newspaper hopes to fill.

We hope we can offer you a newspaper you can be proud of, a community forum in which to express your opinions and ideas about how to make our community a better place to live. Young or old, male or female, gay or straight, resident or business owner, we hope to cover what is relevant to you and issues that impact your lives. A strong community needs a strong newspaper. We promise to strive for accuracy in our reporting and to express the views of the community fairly. We will do our best to convey the messages of both sides of controversial issues. We ask that you not hesitate to let us know how you feel about our community paper and the job we are doing. Let us know what you think we are doing well (and not so well) and what you would like to see included on our pages to keep you reading. We also ask that you patronize the advertisers on these pages since, without their support, there would be no paper.

San Diego Uptown News will begin with a print run of over 21,000 copies biweekly and will be distributed door-to-door to nearly 10,000 homes and over 350 drops throughout Uptown. Our coverage area is from Mission Hills, Bankers Hill and Hillcrest on the west, and east through North Park, South Park, and the Heights, to Kensington.

I dedicate the launch of San Diego Uptown News to my wonderful mother who passed away only a short five months ago. Originally from back east, she was a resident of Hillcrest for over 20 years. She felt this was home and appreciated all her community had to offer. Uptown is a special part of San Diego. The urban, metropolitan feel and the eclectic diversity of the area make it truly unique. We hope to expose the character of Uptown on our pages every other Friday. You can reach us at (619)519-7775 or stop by and visit us at 3737 Fifth Ave., suite 201 (above California Bank & Trust) in Hillcrest.

Thank you for reading.

David Mannis
Editor