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. In 2019, the Berkeleyside founders, together with Tasneem Raja, created Cityside, a nonprofit, civic journalism organization that publishes both Berkeleyside and The Oaklandside.

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. As well as being our ears and eyes on the street, and engaging with us on the issues that matter to them in the community, our readers help fund our work: More than 4,500 Berkeleyside readers are Berkeleyside members, making regular donations to support our journalism.

Berkeleyside’s nonprofit newsroom is committed to serving its readers with in-depth local reporting and resources to keep our community informed and better able to engage in the civic life of our incredible city. If you find our work valuable we hope you will support us, and keep our journalism free for all, by making a donation or becoming a monthly member.

Berkeleyside is part of Cityside, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit news organization (EIN 84-3448887) so 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.

Read our full Comments Policy.

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.)