El Tecolote Newspaper

History

Tecolote newspaper began as a project in a La Raza Studies class at San Francisco State. Prof. Juan Gonzales created the class as a way to channel Latino students into journalism careers. Latinos and other people of color were virtually invisible in the major newsrooms at the time. As a final project, the class produced a bilingual newspaper called El Tecolote, which hit the streets on August 24, 1970. The newspaper soon moved to the community and became a training ground for the community to learn advocacy journalism. El Tecolote began as a volunteer effort and continues in that vein with approximately 90 percent of the staff dedicated volunteers. It is the longest running Spanish/English bilingual newspaper serving the Bay Area. The newspaper has played an important advocacy role in the community, taking up vital community issues often ignored by the mainstream news media.

Specialties

A community based newspaper, biweekly (2 times per month), bilingual (Eng-Spa), free for the readers, distributed in the Mission, Noe Valley, Potrero Hill, Bernal Heights, Excelsior and downtown San Francisco; Oakland's Frutivale district and downtown Berkeley. 10,000 copies drop off in selected public spaces, mostly frequented by Latinos. Zip code coverage: SF - 94102, 94107, 94112, 94110, 94114 / Oak - 94601, 94606 / Berkeley - 94609, 94704, 94705, 94706