Who We Are

When local news media disappears, the accountability that is a cornerstone of democracy and civil society is lost. To explore how libraries can fill this void, the Coronado Public Library has worked with leading national and local journalists from the San Diego area, as well as the School of Journalism at San Diego State University, to create a model for other libraries and communities that may not have access to the resources that we do.

This project started as a question posed by Coronado Public Library Director, Shaun Briley. As a former magazine and provincial newspaper journalist, Briley wondered if there was a role libraries could play in solving the news desert problem. The question became a conversation with friend and journalism instructor at San Diego State University, Martin Kruming. A former Associated Press reporter and past editor of the Daily Transcript, Kruming found interns from several journalism programs to work with librarians and see what they could come up with. During a snapshot of time in 2021, the group produced a library-based local news webpage for Coronado, which can be found on this site. Much was learned along the way about what a library could and could not do in this field. The FACTLY project is an effort to share the lessons of that experience with other libraries.