Pressure of Truth
Exposing the spin on all sides of the news.
Outlet profile

SFist

U.S. center-left

Owned byImpress3 Media, Inc., a small local-news company led by CEO Zachary Chen (which also owns Hoodline); SFist was previously part of the Gothamist network and briefly owned by billionaire Joe Ricketts before being shut down and relaunched under current ownership in 2019
FundingOnline advertising and sponsored content on a small, independently run local-news site; no major corporate parent, subscription paywall, or public funding
On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

SFist launched in 2004, founded by Eve Batey, Rita Hao, and Jackson West, as the San Francisco entry in the Gothamist network of city blogs (alongside Gothamist, LAist, DCist, and Chicagoist), which Jake Dobkin and Jen Chung had started in New York in 2003. In 2017, the network was bought by Joe Ricketts, the billionaire Republican founder of TD Ameritrade, through his DNAinfo company; days after SFist's and the other sites' newsroom staff voted to unionize, Ricketts abruptly shut all of them down, a move widely criticized as retaliatory. New York Public Radio subsequently acquired Gothamist, LAist, and DCist in 2018, while SFist remained dark until Impress3 Media bought its assets and relaunched the site in February 2019 with returning editor Jay Barmann. Under Impress3, SFist operates as a small, independent local outlet covering San Francisco and Bay Area news, food, real estate, and city politics with a casual, often opinionated voice. It has no major corporate ownership or institutional political affiliation, but its editorial tone and audience skew toward the mainstream left-of-center politics typical of San Francisco. Media Bias/Fact Check and similar monitors generally characterize it as left-leaning in tone with high factual reporting standards for a local outlet.

Sources

  1. Gothamist — Wikipedia
  2. SFist network shut down by anti-union billionaire owner - 48 hills
  3. SFist shut down by new billionaire Republican owner - SF Examiner
  4. SFist.com Relaunches With Former Editor Jay Barmann & New Owner After Extended Hiatus
  5. SFist relaunches under new owners, brings back two former writers - SFGate
  6. SFist - Bias and Credibility - Media Bias/Fact Check
  7. SFist Staff page

Profile compiled 2026-10-02; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

← Back to track record