MEET THE MEDIA! TUESDAY IN EL CAJON

You're invited to East County Magazine's first "media meet-up" in the community!

Tues., Feb. 3 at 6 p.m. at Downtown Café, 182 East Main St., El Cajon

If you believe community reporting is important in your neighborhood, or that wildfire reporting is important to sustain, please join us and share this invitation with your friends!   

Tell us what news matters most to you - and help our nonprofit award-winning media outlet cover the stories that you believe are important! We're your community media - because East County matters to us all.

Our friends and fans know how hard we've worked to become San Diego County's most-read independent online news magazine - and we've done so on a shoestring budget, without the major funding or army of reporters that corporate-owned newspapers have. Often we're the only media reporting on wildfires, local boards and commissions and major community events in some East County communities. 

Our stories are making a positive difference - thanks to citizen journalists we've trained, sponsors and donors in the community. We've expanded into radio, in addition to our online news site, in the past year. We also provide free wildfire alerts to people across East County. Plus we've won 80 journalism awards - including awards won by our interns and community volunteers, as well as journalism professionals! (View our awards for last year: http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/hottest-topics-year-2014 )

Now with small-town newspapers folding across our region, readers are asking us to fill more gaps than we have resources to do!  We've had some challenges as expenses for rent, insurance etc. have risen. So we are reaching out to people in every community seeking to build a broad network of volunteers and support. 

Come meet your neighbors and help build a team in  your community dedicated to news that matters! You can help by getting involved. We need more writers, researchers, volunteers, paid freelance journalists (yes, we can train talented writers) and donors. If just 1,000 people would donate $10 a month, we'd have a budget to cover all the news our readers and listeners want us to cover! We want to spend our time reporting-not fundraising endlessly. (You can also donate online here and choose East County Magazine off our publisher's list of options.)

It takes a combination of dedicated volunteers, people who want to learn journalism and broadcast skills, photographers, researchers, office help, event planners and event volunteers, and people to help us outreach into communities across East County.

Come learn how you can "be the media" in your community-and help our people-powered media outlet grow to the next level because we believe that East County matters!

The owner of Downtown Cafe and Por Favor (location will depend on size of crowd that RSVPs) has generously offered to extend happy hour pricing on items like their fabulous fish tacos and other appetizers for just a couple of dollars and drink specials. The event itself is free, though we encourage guests to try the restaurant's yummy food.

Join us Tuesday at 6 p.m. and please RSVP to Leon Thompson, leon@eastcountymagazine.org or 619-241-6873 or Miriam Raftery, editor@eastcountymagazine.org, 619-212-3651.

Thanks to the many wonderful people across East County who have helped make us the most widely read news source in East County. We look forward to welcoming newcomers this Tuesday at 6 p.m.!