About

The Southlander is the only dedicated investigative news cooperative serving Greater Los Angeles. We are a worker-led nonprofit newsroom focused on bringing a critical eye to the region’s slumlords, polluters, politicians, cops, and corporate crooks. Our powerhouse collective of reporters, editors, photographers, and data experts is based in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Orange County.

The Southlander launched in 2025 as a result of a merger between FORTHE, Long Beach’s longest-running independent media outlet, and former Knock LA journalists, who were locked out of their newsroom for demanding editorial independence.

The Southlander is a proud member of Report for America’s Newsroom Accelerator program.

Mission

Unlike traditional local newsrooms, our team spends months on high-impact investigative projects, allowing us to peel back bureaucracy, follow the money to its source, and map out power and influence. We prioritize using data and documents, rather than access, while centering the voices and art of people impacted by injustice. We are committed to partnering with hyper-local outlets that serve communities throughout the Southland to help bolster their investigative reporting capacity. 

Here are some of the other things we believe in:

• Collective Editing: Our newsroom runs on democratic principles and does not have a top-down structure. The same goes for editing. Pitches and drafts are discussed by the entire newsroom and each team member has an opportunity to review articles prior to publishing. We find that this allows for more well-rounded and accurate journalism.
• Reporter’s View: We approach journalism with the belief that there is no such thing as objectivity, but rather fairness, accuracy, and transparency. For that reason, at the end of each article you’ll find a section where the reporter explains why they wrote the story and why they framed it the way they did.
• Open-Source Data and Transparency Tools: Our investigative projects will contribute to building novel databases and tools that will allow the public and our regional media partners to better track money, power, and bad actors.
• Art Not Ads (coming soon): Where many other news sites display advertisements, our website will feature a constantly rotating selection of art from local artists. Readers will be able to purchase prints and other merchandise from the artist in our online store. A small part of the proceeds will go toward supporting The Southlander.

Why is this needed?

Local investigative journalism in the Southland is on the brink of extinction. Once the cornerstone of metro newspapers and scrappy weeklies, this time-consuming work is now seen as more of a “luxury,” often worked on by reporters in spare time between regular assignments.

But a region where political corruption, bloated police budgets, and abusive landlords constantly steal the headlines can’t afford to consider investigative reporting a luxury. Fewer reporters scanning through real estate records, campaign finance disclosures, legal filings, and city budgets means more corruption, waste, air pollution, and corporate crime. 

In early 2024, the Los Angeles Times laid off 23% of its newsroom, with another 17 reporters taking buyouts the following year. The Long Beach Post jettisoned most of its 26 staff members. Many other reporters and photojournalists in the region are overworked and underpaid. While digital news upstarts have begun to fill the gap left by withered newspapers, none of the twelve digital outlets covering the Los Angeles region are dedicated to investigative reporting.

Our Funding

We are currently funded solely by individual donations and seeking additional funding opportunities.

To preserve our independence, we do not accept donations from government entities, political parties, party-affiliated organizations, elected officials, candidates actively seeking public office, businesses, business associations, or labor groups. We also do not accept anonymous donations.

We publicly disclose all donors who give $1,000 or more per year. We also plan to publicly disclose our financial records every quarter, including how every penny of our funding was spent.

Report for America serves as our fiscal sponsor, which is a fancy way of saying that we operate under RFA's nonprofit status and are able to accept tax-deductible donations and grants through them.

A complete editorial independence policy is forthcoming and will be made public.

How can I participate?

If you are a freelancer, we want to work with you. Contact us! We are a freelancer hub dedicated to providing access to toolkits and training to strengthen your investigative techniques. We are committed to always sharing and never gatekeeping.

Publishing stories is only a part of what we want to accomplish. We also want to empower our audience, celebrate local artists, and help train the next generation of journalists. Keep a lookout for events or workshops we’ll be hosting by signing up for The Southlander.

Where did the name come from?

The Southlander was originally a mighty but short-lived journal launched by the late great LA author Mike Davis and a team of academics and artists. It published two editions between 2005 and 2006 with the mission of being home to “new and contrary perspectives to that provided by traditional greater Los Angeles County media.” We're relaunching The Southlander in 2025 with the blessings of its surviving editorial team.