Type | Alternative weekly |
---|---|
Format | Tabloid |
Owner(s) | Jim Holman |
Publisher | Jim Holman |
Editor | Jim Holman |
Founded | October, 1972 |
Headquarters | San Diego, California, U.S. |
Circulation | 51,000 weekly [1] |
Website | SanDiegoReader.com |
The San Diego Reader is an alternative press newspaper in the county of San Diego. Published weekly since October 1972, the Reader is distributed free on Wednesday and Thursday via street boxes and cooperating retail outlets.[2]
Founder Jim Holman, a navy veteran, worked for the Chicago Reader before starting up in San Diego. The initial press run of the San Diego Reader was 20,000 copies. In 1989, it was printing 131,000 copies a week and in 2011, the circulation was 51,000.[2][3] In 1988, the Reader moved into a former restaurant in Little Italy and moved to offices in Golden Hill in 2012.[4][5]
Despite the Reader's image[citation needed] as a liberal, "off-the-wall" alternative weekly with sexually explicit features[citation needed] and strong language, Holman is guided by a conservative philosophy. He refuses to publish advertisements promoting abortion services. In 1985, he refused to accept personal advertisements seeking homosexual relationships, but after receiving complaints from gay activists, the ban included all sexual relationships.[3] He also runs the anti-abortion California Catholic Daily website from the same offices.[6][7][8]
Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, 30 employees agreed to take pay cuts equivalent to half of their pay.[9]
In 2023, reporter Catherine Cranston's press pass was revoked by the San Diego Police Department after she used a false name - the pseudonym Eva Knott - to fill out court documents for the Reader seeking permission to record and take photographs of a criminal conspiracy case against members of antifa who attacked Trump supporters and other beachgoers in Pacific Beach on January 9, 2021. All 12 Antifa affiliated defendants have been convicted of violent felonies for their roles in those attacks. [10]