The news Tucson needs, needs your help: All donations doubled!

TucsonSentinel.com's award-winning, in-depth reporting provides details and context — donate now and your investment in authentically local news will be DOUBLED! Help us bring Tucson even more fearless independent journalism.

Subscribe and stretch your donation over time:

$10/mo. Cub Reporter
$15/mo. Printer's Devil
$20/mo. Stringer
$40/mo. Correspondent
$50/mo. Senior Correspondent
Enter your own monthly amount (number only)

Or give a secure one-time gift with PayPal or your credit card:

$5,000 Newshound
$2,500 Trusted Source
$1,000 Copy Desk Chief
$500 Correspondent
$250 Stringer
$100 Printer's Devil
$50 Cub reporter
$25 Informed Source
$10 Dear Reader
Enter your own amount (below)

That's right: each dollar you give to support truly local independent journalism about Tucson will be matched. And even better, if you sign up right now to give monthly, each dollar you give through all of 2020 will be matched. Pitch in just $20 per month to back our experienced local reporters, and NewsMatch will give $240 to TucsonSentinel.com's work.

We've been around for almost a decade (10 years!) — yes, our tenth birthday will be in January. And we want to grow, and bring you and the rest of Tucson and Pima County even more deep-digging, bone-gnawing watchdog journalism. This year, we were among three finalists for Publisher of the Year among small local news websites across the country. And we were up for a Technology Innovation award sponsored by Facebook, and a national Breaking News award from LION Publishers. And it's with your help that Sentinel senior reporter Paul Ingram was named the Community Journalist of the Year by the Arizona Press Club, and we swept our division in the state's Breaking News awards! This month, TucsonSentinel.com's in-depth reporting on Pima County's controversial decision to set up a shelter for migrants was included in a national list of the best local journalism that's "reshaping the news."

And we've got even bigger plans — there are so many other untold stories we'd dig into if we had even more reporters. Help us grow!

This is the type of journalism that just cannot wait. If we don't tell these stories, who will?

Right now, we're near to our year-end fundraising goal, with just days left to go — but we still need to raise more than $5,000 before Dec. 31, just to make the most of this amazing NewsMatch opportunity.

Your donation before the end of the year will power more investigative reporting, more deeply researched examinations of border and immigration issues, more watchdog journalism about our local officials, and more context about the unique character and culture of our borderlands.

Sentinel part of good news about crisis in local news

You may have heard: journalism across the country is in serious trouble. Newspapers are struggling to survive, and legacy chain-owned news outlets are facing severe cuts. That's happened over and over again, across the country and right here in Tucson. There are fewer than half the number of newspaper reporters compared to a decade ago.

The good news: authentically local news organizations like TucsonSentinel.com are picking up the slack. Local independent online news publishers, with their talented and dedicated journalists, are helping fill gaps left by bare-bones "zombie newspapers" and growing "news deserts" across America.

The Sentinel is growing, steadily and with focus, and become a national leader in a movement to rebuild local journalism.

But we can't do this alone. TucsonSentinel.com relies on local small business sponsors and supporting members to publish hard-hitting and meaningful original journalism from local reporters working for a truly local news organization.

National kudos for Sentinel's local reporting

Our work this summer "exposed the behind-the-scenes maneuvering involved in creating an Arizona shelter for asylum-seekers newly released by immigration authorities. The reporting resulted in a more open process, including a special Board of Supervisors meeting," wrote Joshua Stearns, the director of the Democracy Fund's Public Square Program, in an assessment of how local nonprofit news organizations like TucsonSentinel.com are "working to rebuild journalism that serves the public interest."

Stearns picked "24 amazing stories" reported by some of the top nonprofit news organizations in the country, highlighting the Sentinel among them as he detailed the impact and importance of supporting local news. The Democracy Fund is one of the backers of the NewsMatch program, which is DOUBLING every donation to TucsonSentinel.com through the end of December.

The Sentinel's probing reporting on the topic was also included in "The Best of Nonprofit News" for 2019 by the Institute for Nonprofit News.

TucsonSentinel.com carried out a month-long investigation into Pima County's approval of converting a vacant juvenile detention center into a shelter for migrant families legally seeking asylum.

In his piece, published by Buzzfeed, Stearns wrote:

The growing impact of nonprofit news is critical because around the country at least 1,300 communities have lost their local commercial newspapers, and many more are served by newsrooms half the size they once were. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics newsrooms are shrinking faster that coal mining, fishing and steel production. When communities lose local news they lose access to critical local information, they lose a watchdog that holds local leaders accountable, and they lose a forum for civil debate and discussion.

In 2019, local reporting and investigative journalism by nonprofit newsrooms has saved lives, revealed corruption, and sparked meaningful change. The Institute of Nonprofit News has collected more than 100 examples of powerful reporting that addresses urgent issues facing our communities and our nation. I highlight 24 of them below, with descriptions lightly edited for length and clarity.

This kind of reporting is urgent. It serves communities and changes lives, and now more than ever we all have a role to play in its future. That's why I work with NewsMatch.org, which helps readers find and support the non-profit newsrooms covering the issues and communities they care about.

A decade of commitment

Since we began publishing full-time in the winter of 2010, TucsonSentinel.com has brought local readers more than 25,000 news stories that are directly relevant to life in Southern Arizona.

We don't re-post clickbait weird news stories from Florida and New Jersey, and don't heedlessly copy and paste press releases without asking questions. What we do is real reporting, with facts that are checked and stories carefully edited — that's why so many readers have grown to trust our work, and support it. And that's why insiders with hot news tips know they can trust us to tell the story right.

But we can only do our work with your help.

We're very thankful for the support of recent donors like Edna Gray, Susan Carmody, Sally Sumner, Brian Bickel, Mark Napier, Judy Wood, David Coombs, Linda Seberger, Herschella Horton, Bill Risner, Trudy Wilner Stack, Laurie Jurs, Betsy Bolding, Kristel Foster, Anne Gomez, Christine Whitley, Mary Freeman, Bryn Bailer, Susan Dodd, David Safier, William Kendall, John Glaspey, Jim Tucker, Laurel Cooper, Nancy Donnelly, Sylvia Lee, Johnny Dearmore, Eric Wieduwilt, Barbara Bancroft, Linda Seberger, JD Wallace, as well as Renee Downing, Steve Seigel, Michele Manos, Dan Sorenson, Byron Howard, Jean-Paul Bierny, Tom Tronsdal, Claire Wudowsky, John Laitner, Tony Davis, Jill Bishop and so many others!

Please join them today — the deadline to have your gift DOUBLED by NewsMatch is Dec. 31!

Your gift doubled!

Real reporting from TucsonSentinel.com is the antidote for fake news — and right now, your gift to support nonprofit independent local journalism will be matched, dollar-for-dollar!

Give your tax-deductible gift today — and through the end of the year, every donation (up to $1,000 per individual) will be doubled by NewsMatch, an important initiative to strengthen selected nonprofit newsrooms funded a group of national foundations. This is a great opportunity to help us produce more of the award-winning accountability journalism you have come to expect from TucsonSentinel.com.

Subscribe and stretch your donation over time:

$10/mo. Cub Reporter
$15/mo. Printer's Devil
$20/mo. Stringer
$40/mo. Correspondent
$50/mo. Senior Correspondent
Enter your own monthly amount (number only)

Or give a secure one-time gift with PayPal or your credit card:

$5,000 Newshound
$2,500 Trusted Source
$1,000 Copy Desk Chief
$500 Correspondent
$250 Stringer
$100 Printer's Devil
$50 Cub reporter
$25 Informed Source
$10 Dear Reader
Enter your own amount (below)

For a small newsroom like ours, NewsMatch is a game-changer. These funds not only sustain our current reporting efforts, but will allow us to add reporters and expand our coverage—at a time when legacy news chains controlled by hedge funds and conglomerates are slashing staff at an alarming rate (and are poised to cut even more).

Funds raised from this campaign go toward supporting journalism which strengthens our democracy. Every day, journalists in nonprofit newsrooms like TucsonSentinel.com dig deeper into the raw news of the day to deliver in-depth and investigative reporting that engages communities, advances solutions, and demands accountability. Our journalism informs. Our journalism matters. And our journalism is worth supporting.

This news can’t wait. So why would you?

Give today and NewsMatch will double the impact of your donation.