To our Lost Coast Communications audience and clients,

It’s been a sad time in our local media world lately, as Humboldt State University let go nearly all of KHSU’s employees and volunteers. Our thoughts and wishes go out to those radio programmers and staffers and to the listeners, and it is our hope that local community radio will return to KHSU.

The decline in locally produced media is not a regional phenomenon, but rather is part of a long-term national trend that is affecting our country as a whole. The Knight Foundation has recently declared the decline in local media as a crisis that will affect our very democracy. The role of local news and information is essential to keeping an informed electorate, and to building a cohesive sense of community.

Here at Lost Coast Communications, we have always embraced being local as part of our mission, both in our content and ownership. This has not always been an easy path to take. The economics of the media business make it much more cost-effective to play syndicated programming, to run national wire service stories, to use television stories that are the same across many markets, and to employ less experienced, lower-paid journalists to cover increasingly complex stories.

The only way we have been able to be the local media company with the largest audiences in Humboldt County is because of your support. Without you, we would not survive. We thank you with all of our heart and we look forward to being here for decades to come. We appreciate that, you, our listeners, our readers and our advertisers have a choice of where to spend time and money, and that you choose to do it with this locally owned media business. We promise to continue to work hard on your behalf and on behalf of our community, every day.

Thank you for your support!

Patrick Cleary
President
Lost Coast Communications, Inc.