Richmond News and Events

Nextdoor now has over 4,737 members in Point Richmond (where I live and where I subscribe to Nextdoor) and “13 surrounding neighborhoods,” including:

• Garrard Boulevard
• Regatta Marina Bay
• Santa Fe
• Iron Triangle
• Atchison Village
• Coronado
• Artisan Cove
• City Center
• Marina Bay
• Anchorage at Marina Bay
• Cotez-Stege
• Belding Woods
• Richmore Village

Nextdoor will only let you subscribe where you live, so I am limited to those 13 neighborhoods plus my own. I can imagine that if you add in the rest of Richmond, there could be 20,000 or more Nextdoor subscribers in Richmond.

People use Nextdoor for a lot of things, including lost and found pets, events, stuff for sale (or for free), housing (available or requested), restaurant reviews and complaints about almost anything. And for those things, it works really well.

But they also use it for news and political commentary, and based on what I see, that doesn’t always work so well. Sometimes I see good information about breaking events, but I also see the birth and perpetuation of urban myths, inaccurate information and bad advice.

It is clear, however, that people are hungry for local news, and the traditional sources for that no longer exist.

Nextdoor is a lot of things, but it’s not necessarily the best source for news, especially detailed and accurate information. For that, I suggest the following:

• During the school year, follow and subscribe to Richmond Confidential, an on-line news source featuring a wide variety of articles by students at the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Subscribe at http://richmondconfidential.org/.
• The Richmond City Manager’s Weekly Report, an illustrated compendium of information compiled from every City department with both news and upcoming events.You can sign up to receive the City Manager’s weekly report and other information from the City of Richmond by visiting: www.ci.richmond.ca.us/list.aspx
  
  
• The TOM BUTT E-FORUM, an email newsletter from the mayor distributed several times a week to several times a day that includes breaking news, upcoming events and political commentary. Subscribe by emailing tom.butt@intres.com, and writing “subscribe.”

The way we get our news and information is changing. Don’t become part of the uninformed.