The pair are being honored by the First Amendment Coalition with its Free Speech and Open Government Award for their reporting last year on the lead crisis in Oakland public schools.
With a twin $1.56 million each from the American Journalism Project (as part of its first grantees) and the Google News Initiative, 10-year-old independent news site Berkeleyside is growing from “seven people in one room” to a nonprofit network of local news sites in the Bay Area.
The pair are being honored by the First Amendment Coalition with its Free Speech and Open Government Award for their reporting last year on the lead crisis in Oakland public schools.
The newsroom earned the James Madison Freedom of Information award for exposing systematic violations of open records laws by city officials and challenging Alameda County’s sideshow spectator ban.
The Berkeley Public Library Foundation has selected Cityside — the nonprofit publisher of Berkeleyside and its sister sites, The Oaklandside and Richmondside — as the recipient of its 2026 Fred & Pat Cody Award, in recognition of its “outstanding work illuminating our literary and civic landscape.”