Others are mixing community building with professional standards of reporting. Oakland Local, a community site founded by Web entrepreneur Susan Mernit and funded through both a startup grant and advertising, is one example of such an experiment. It covers topics like the environment, food, development and education for its local community and in a recent month had 65,000 page views, 40,000 visits and 25,000 unique visitors."

This is super recognition for a new site, and I am feeling very honored--and proud of the team of people who so such great work on OL to make this happen.

The impetus for starting Oakland Local was the murder of Oscar Grant. I'd always thought many people in Oakland lacked a media outlet--blog or news site--that reflected who they were and what they cared about--but I'd always felt like starting one myself was more than I wanted to take on.  Did I have the focus to get it going? The commitment to social justice it would require to continue?

But then, as the information about Oscar Grant's death unfolded, and people reacted to the killing of a hand-cuffed young man on a train platform, and to the failure of BART to be immediately accountable, and to conditions that made some people not want to acknowledge Grant's death as the outrageous event it truly was, it became clear, in those days following the killing, that a lot of voices were being left out of the media conversation.

Problem was, to my eyes, that the coverage was unbalanced--there were accounts of merchants' whose shop windows were broken as a demonstration turned violent, but no accounts of people of color whose voices went unheard by mainstream media, or whose grief was treated as colorful and exotic. And then there was the question of police accountability--and responsibility--in this death.

As the New Years' week went on, and events unfolded, the coverage improved a bit--but not really enough.

Why weren't there more local people of color voices being heard? Why did so much of the media degrade into us and them? And why weren't more perspectives on Oscar's death, the BART police, and what passed for justice able to be accessed?

"There has to be a way to have a more diverse range of voices be heard in Oakland, " I told my friends and my partner. "This is just not balanced, not rounded in any way."

Those feelings gelled into the idea of a new site for Oakland after I met Kwan Booth, now our senior producer (and an OL principal), who simultaneously corrected some of my misconceptions ("People are talking," he said, "But not on blogs and social media sites where you can see it,") and agreed with some of my arguments ("Yes, the blogosphere and the media are pretty siloed here.")

We started to talk about the idea of building something for Oakland that would be more open than what we saw in January 2009--a news & community hub that would be a platform for multiple voices, a place where people with diverse experiences and views could all share and be heard.

And here it is, a year later, and we're into the third month of operating Oakland Local. 

Thanks to a grant from J-Lab's New Voices program and hard work by a lot of people, Oakland Local is up and running. Judging by our growth over the past two months, jumping from 10,000 to 19,000 unique visitors a month, there seems to be a genuine need for a site that is diverse, community-focused, and speaks to a wider audience. Our blend of reported news and community voices also seems to have hit a mark, with some member-written stories getting over 1,000 page views apiece.

Interestingly, while the spark for Oakland Local started with Oscar Grant's death, a lot of what we have done to carry it forward speaks to his life.

The OL coverage of this one-year anniversary of his death--with his killer not yet tried--honors the vibrancy and humanity of a life lost way too young. It reflects our commitment to highlight the opinions and views of people who too often feel pushed outside of the mainstream, made into the Other, and our promise to ourselves to speak truth to power.

Oakland is a city where moving forward to solve our problems means talking clearly with one another, then making things happen, We can say "We are all Oscar Grant," but what makes the statement meaningful is how we listen to one another, how we get out of our silos.

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After this revelation my productivity dwindled to just above nonexistent, as just about every moment was spent with my nose between the pages of one of these wordy journals. Luckily I was surrounded by other booksluts who shared my addiction. I mean, these were books we were talking about-serious business! Plus PW came out like every week and I didn't pick up my 1st copy until I was like 19, I had a lot to catch up on."

--Kwan Booth, Boothism, describing his inner life as a book review fanatic

Last night, after an hour waiting for the sonogram to be completed, I got the news--my dog has cancer. Winston, the big, genial American Bulldog I've had for almost 11 years--now has a fast-growing, malignant tumor on his heart that will kill him in a few months.

"Because of the way it wraps around the heart, it's inoperable, it can't be sectioned," the vet explained as I sobbed into a wad of crumpled tissues. "All you can do is make him comfortable at this point."

Winston has been in my life for 11 years. He wasn't meant to be my dog--when we bought him, I was living in the New Jersey suburbs with my husband and 13-year-old son, both of whom thought having a giant bulldog would be fun. But somehow, I was the person the dog ended up loving most, and when my ex-husband and I split in 2005, he was insistent that the dog (and the cat) go with me. In the 5 years since then, Winston's been my constant companion through three moves, an equal number of relationships, and a complete re-thinking of what I want and who I am. Always good-natured, always ready for a walk (or a pat), Winston's been one of those loving animal friends who keep humans' blood pressure down and hold depression at bay.

Sadly, though, it's these giant breeds--Rotties, bulldogs, Great Dances in particular--that can get these malignant tumors as they age--on the spleen, the liver, or the heart.  Manifested through weakness, vomiting, swollen tummies, and general malaise, these fast-growing cancers cause internal bleeding that manifests as anemia (pink, pale gum) and malaise, and ends up as weakness, heart attacks, internal bleeding and, yes, death.

It is so hard to look at my dog--begging for bits of toast in the kitchen this morning, then snoring at my feet as I type, and recognize that, three months from now, he will probably be feeling quite different--sick, weak, frightened and in pain.  That thought keeps making me cry.

How can I protect and care for this pet I love without cutting him time short too early? How can I make sure this cancer doesn't steal away his life?

I can't.

No matter what I do, Winston is going to sicken and die. I can be witness to it, I can be owner and supporter, but a process has started I do not have the power to unwind.

And so, I cry.

I cry for my dog, for the years we spent together, for the affection and good humor he has given me. I cry for the future, for the pain and suffering he can't see, but that I imagine is to come. And I cry for the end of life, the death we will come to together, that moment--natural or imposed--when Winston will die and cross that rainbow bridge, leaving me to remember the best, most-loved pet I've ever had.

Buddy, I love you. And I cry for that.