What up, Long Beach?!
Welcome to the future of local sports coverage, brought to you by the people who know the city, its schools, and its athletes the best.
Four weeks ago today, Long Beach’s daily newspaper laid off its entire local sports staff. That has left a proud community without a reliable, comprehensive outlet to follow its favorite teams and players.
Today, we launch the562.org, a new way of covering our community that’s locally owned and controlled, with no worry about East Coast ownership or corporate cuts.
The562 is a non-profit, community-funded outlet: It’s sports coverage by Long Beach, for Long Beach. If we all work together—all of us, including you—we can guarantee our city will have quality local journalism for generations to come. What you see today is a very simple first draft of what we’re hoping to grow this website into–we wanted to get it up and running immediately so that teams in the playoffs right now wouldn’t miss out.
The562 is everything you love about our coverage: videos, articles, photo galleries, podcasts, and more. It will be more than that, though. One of the missions of this new venture is to connect with the community on a deeper level. We’ll be connecting with the local campuses as well, spending time in the classroom working the next generation of journalists, writers, and videographers.
So that’s what we’re going to be doing. Here’s what we need from you, if it’s going to work:
- We need subscribers. Click the “SUBSCRIBE” button at the top of the page to sign up as a monthly subscriber helping to support local sports coverage.
- We need some up-front support in order to pay for the cost of building the full version of this website, as well as getting equipment. Click the “DONATE” button at the top of the page to provide a one-time gift.
- If you’re interested in making a substantial donation that would include permanent recognition as part of the 562 100 Club, contact us via email.
To be clear: all of the coverage will be free on the website and in print, so that everyone can see it. What we’re asking for is support of a public service, in the same way that PBS or public radio does. If you’re as dedicated to keeping sports coverage in Long Beach around as we are, please click the buttons above and sign on.
Come back throughout the day—and every day after—for coverage of the schools, teams, and athletes that you care about. You can also visit our Facebook, our Twitter, and our Instagram to stay connected to the city’s best coverage.
Thank you for everything, Long Beach—we’ll see you at the game!
