Cali Godley
The Bay City News Inc. regional wire service has been acquired for an undisclosed sum by veteran San Francisco Bay Area journalist Katherine A. Rowlands, MarketWatch has learned.
BCN, which was founded in 1979, provides news feeds to about 100 radio stations, TV newsrooms and newspapers around the Bay Area, and is the only business that provides such a service in the region. Rowlands confirmed the purchase Thursday and said she plans to continue the company’s tradition of just-the-facts journalism, as well as establish a nonprofit arm to attract philanthropic support for the company’s public service mission.
“[That mission is ] to fill the growing gaps in news coverage around the region by covering topics and communities that deserve more attention,” Rowlands said by telephone Thursday afternoon. “I believe that residents in this area and beyond are distressed by what they see as a growing gap in coverage and want to be able to do something about it. What I’m proposing is a way to make progress.”
Rowlands began her career as a college intern at BCN in 1987, which led to a 30-year career in Bay Area journalism, including a stint as managing editor at BCN from 2000 to 2002. Most recently, she served as editor-in-chief of Diablo Magazine after completing a JSK Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University, where she studied sustainable business models for local journalism and ways to get women into leadership roles.
“I have felt for my entire career that it’s important for there to be more diversity in staffing and management and ownership of media companies, so it’s exciting to be a woman-owned company in this space at this time,” she said.
Current BCN manager Wayne Futak told MarketWatch there were no immediate changes to operations planned, but declined to comment further. Rowlands said the deal closed at the end of March and an official announcement was planned for Friday.
BCN currently covers the nine-county Bay Area and has eight bureaus located in county seats across the region, with more than a dozen reporters and editors. The company moved its headquarters of 25 years from San Francisco to Oakland in 2014 after its rent became onerous as a result of the tech boom, according to a San Francisco Examiner report.
Kat Anderson, administrative officer of Pacific Media Workers Guild, which represents the journalists employed by BCN, said that she had not yet heard from any new executives but is “assuming I will get a phone call once the ink dries.”
Disclaimer: MarketWatch staff writer Jeremy C. Owens, who previously worked with Rowlands at Bay Area News Group, contributed to this article.