People on a panel speak as attendees listen at the CalMatters studio in Sacramento.

In summary

Our tenth year will take CalMatters’ journalism to the next level: informing and impacting even more Californians, making the state a better place to live.

CalMatters is hitting a milestone as we enter our 10th year of advancing California through free, independent and impactful journalism.

In 2015, not enough journalists were keeping a watchful eye on our elected leaders.

That’s why co-founders Simone Coxe and Chris Boskin set out to build a new model for California news. It’s working. Today, CalMatters’ independent and unbiased news holds the powerful to account, provides millions of Californians with trusted information, and inspires transformational impact.

“I am proud of what CalMatters’ journalism has already done: informing 1 in 5 voters in an election, calling out the truth in hard-hitting investigations, and engaging the community every day on core quality-of-life issues,” said CalMatters CEO Neil Chase.

And CalMatters is not slowing down. Here are just some of our plans for this milestone year:

  • Our second-ever Ideas Festival will gather politicians, authors, creative thinkers, advocates, and community members for an in-person event even bigger than last year’s.  Save the dates: May 7 and 8, 2025. 
  • Expanded accountability journalism that speaks truth to power, made possible by our increasing bench of investigative journalists, expert beat reporters, data journalists and journalism engineers. 
  • More impactful CalMatters news now that we’ve joined with The Markup. Our combined force will lead to even sharper journalism that combines the power of digging into data and technology to tell powerful human-centered stories on critical quality-of-life issues.
  • Using AI for good and government transparency.  Digital Democracy, our AI-powered, searchable database, gives journalists, civic leaders and all Californians a new superpower: The ability to peel back layers of government. It enables unprecedented insights that have already led to change in the legislature.

“We arrive at our 10-year milestone at a time when we’re doing more than ever to craft and distribute hard-hitting journalism that the community uses for transformational change. I’m so excited to see what we make happen in our next 10 years,” said CalMatters’ new Chief Impact Officer Sisi Wei.

CalMatters is a Sacramento-based nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism venture committed to explaining how California's state Capitol works and why it matters. It works with more than 130 media partners throughout the state that have long, deep relationships with their local audiences, including Embarcadero Media.

Leave a comment