California based IVN.us and Washington, D.C. based TheFulcrum.us are the nation’s leading nonpartisan news and information publications focused primarily on political reform and related public policy.

To launch IVN San Diego, we did something that might seem unusual: We surveyed San Diegans to find out what they thought about the news industry and how they’d like us to improve it.

Modern news consumption is frustrating. 

Newsrooms have been decimated. Media outlets continue to disappear. Opinion is pawned off as news. Polarized echo chambers may entertain certain factions, but they don’t serve to educate or inform. 

Are we entering End Days for news?

I took that question to Point Loma Nazarene University professor Dean Nelson. An institution unto himself, he’s knowledgeable, thoughtful and blunt about the journalism industry.

He doesn’t think the industry is broken beyond repair.

There was a line out the door in January when Savy and Tam Huynh opened Pho on the Go, a restaurant steps away from the Otay Mesa Port of Entry. With 17 million people crossing the border each year, 3.4 million on foot, the couple saw potential in the often-forgotten part of San Diego County.  

The first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is scheduled for Tuesday, September 29, at 9 pm (Eastern). Plenty of commentators, though, have questioned whether either candidate should debate the other from a campaign strategy standpoint.

Others have wondered if a substantive debate on the nation’s most pressing issues is even possible in the current political climate.