Emilie Raguso honored as Daily Cal 'Friend of the Year'

Last month, the Daily Californian honored Berkeley Scanner founder Emilie Raguso with its "Friend of the Year" award as part of its annual Hall of Fame event. Introducing Raguso, Anna Armstrong described her as a role model for students, "showing the value of and leading boots on the ground journalism."

In her acceptance speech, Raguso shared reflections on reporting on Berkeley, after graduating from UC Berkeley's journalism school 20 years earlier, and her approach to building community trust at The Scanner.

Listen to their speeches below. Apologies: The audio quality is limited. A transcription of Raguso's remarks, with minor edits, appears below.

When I learned about this honor, I was really proud to be described as a role model. I was also described as a "sometimes friendly competitor," and I wasn't sure if that meant that we sometimes competed, or that I was only friendly sometimes. I'm here, so I guess it all worked out. 

It is great to be here in the j-school. I graduated 20 years ago, which is hard to believe. I wasn't planning to devote my whole career to Berkeley news, but it worked out. I own my own site, The Berkeley Scanner (with a second site coming, Albany Scanner, so stay tuned).

I'll say reporting on Berkeley can be lonely. Berkeley, it does make headlines, but there are many Berkeley stories that no one else is picking up, and there were many meetings where I was the only reporter there. But inevitably, you know, I'd look around, see who else was furiously scribbling in a notebook, and if there was anyone else covering it, it was the Daily Cal.

And actually, I often looked on in envy, because there would be a whole crew, like six people from the Daily Cal, when I was about to cover an eight hour meeting by myself. It's amazing to see the Daily Cal put such a high value on that coverage, and I really am inspired by that.

In some years past, I have been known to drive Daily Cal reporters home, when it got very late. I once had to borrow a charger from a Daily Cal reporter when my computer was about to die, so that was clutch.

I do enjoy often being the only reporter on a story, but I also think having healthy competition makes us all better. 

That was very true this past week when both of our newsrooms had difficult stories to cover about two different deaths related to campus, and a student who was arrested on suspicion of a violent felony. These are tough stories to be thinking about.

I was working to get my stories done quickly and accurately, but then as soon as I did, I would go to the Daily Cal and see: Do they have theirs up yet? What do they have that I don't have? It's great to have a kind of pacesetter like that. And I think we were neck and neck. 

I did want to close with some advice. In general, we hear a lot about plummeting trust in the media. And this is not new. I've been hearing it for decades in my own career. But it is a big topic right now. So I have worked very hard and been fortunate to build a loyal audience and a sustainable news business by keeping two bedrock principles in mind.

One of them is: We have to listen to our readers. My motto at The Scanner is: Your questions drive our coverage. I think keeping readers at the heart of our work not only builds trust, but is what inspires people to financially support what we're doing. And we can't do it without them. 

The other advice I have is to be responsive. Reporting and writing is only part of our job. We have to communicate with readers. We have to answer their questions even when it's not a story. Fix errors when they point them out, thank them when their tips do inspire coverage.

I think right now, letting people know that they are playing a vital role in shaping our coverage is really important to our industry. So I regularly tell people: This is you. This story could not have happened without you. 

Also working here for 20 years helps. I know not everybody wants to keep it local but, as I mentioned, I'm growing The Berkeley Scanner this year. I'm launching Albany Scanner, so for those of you reporters who do want to stay, please keep an eye out. The job postings are coming soon. And I look forward to hearing from you.

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