Berkeleyside is proud to announce that Nico Savidge, an award-winning reporter, has joined the newsroom as a senior reporter covering City Hall.
Savidge comes to Berkeleyside from the Mercury News, where he covered more than two dozen transportation agencies. He was most recently involved in the coverage of the mass shooting at the Valley Transportation Authority rail yard in San Jose.
In 2020, Savidge was part of a team that won California News Publishers Association’s first-place prize for coverage of local government in a series titled, “Who polices the police?”
Savidge is no stranger to Berkeley. He was born and raised in the city and is a 2008 Berkeley High grad. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He started his journalism career as a high school student at Youth Radio. After graduating college, he worked at the Janesville Gazette in Wisconsin, where he was a crime and courts reporter. He later worked at the Wisconsin State Journal, where he was a higher education reporter, before returning to California, where he worked for EdSource, an online site covering K-12 and higher education.
“I’m very excited to return to my hometown and join the exceptional team of journalists at Berkeleyside. I look forward to exploring how local government affects the lives of Berkeley residents, the ways this city is confronting the Bay Area’s biggest challenges and what decisions today will mean for the future of our community.”
Savidge started work on Monday, July 26.
Savidge will take over coverage of City Hall from Senior Editor of News, Emilie Raguso, who was Berkeleyside’s first-ever reporting hire and who has covered city government for about a decade.
Rest assured, Raguso isn’t going anywhere: She will continue to cover policing, public safety and breaking news while also having more bandwidth for larger projects involving data and deep-dive reporting.
Raguso will also continue to cover development projects, such as the overhaul of the Berkeley Marina and the infill housing planned for Berkeley BART stations, and will continue her superb work ensuring that everything at Berkeleyside runs smoothly behind the scenes.
“I am happy to welcome Nico to our small but dedicated team of journalists covering Berkeley,” said Berkeleyside Editor-in-Chief Pamela Turntine. “I worked with him at the Mercury News and know he is a first-rate reporter and will be a great addition to our staff. I am also excited about Emilie, who will expand her crime and safety coverage by writing more investigative stories. With these changes, we will be able to expand our bandwidth within the city.”
