 | |
Type of site | News website |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Headquarters | |
| Owner | Chevron Corporation |
| Editor | Mike Aldax |
| URL | richmondstandard |
The Richmond Standard is a news site for Richmond, California that functions as the city's only local news outlet. Opened in 2014, It is funded by the Chevron Corporation, which owns the Chevron Richmond Refinery. The site has been criticized for its lack of coverage of stories that are negative toward Chevron. [1]
The Chevron Corporation has framed its funding of The Richmond Standard as community investment because The Independent, a Richmond-focused paper founded in 1910, had been folded into The Berkeley Gazette in 1978, only for the combined newspaper to shut down in 1984, leaving the area without local reporting. [2]
In 2014, Jay Barmann of SFist praised the site's coverage of Richmond mayor Gayle McLaughlin failing to report that her September 2013 trip to Ecuador had been funded by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. [3] [4]
In September 2022, the United States House Committee on Natural Resources' report The Role of Public Relations Firms in Preventing Action on Climate Change found that The Richmond Standard had been created to quell public backlash in the wake of the Chevron Richmond Refinery's 2012 fire that resulted in approximately 15,000 residents seeking treatment at local hospitals and 19 occupational injuries. [5]
In 2024, David Folkenflik of NPR and Miranda Green of Floodlight criticized the site for failing to report on a February 2021 pipeline rupture and November 2023 refinery flare that had polluted the air and water of the San Francisco Bay Area. They argued that Chevron's funding had biased its editorial stance against informing local residents of the health risks posed by this pollution. [2] Edward Wasserman, the former dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, has likened the site's corporate funding to media ownership structures during the Gilded Age, claiming that it is unethical for Chevron to control public opinion in a town where it is the largest employer. [6]
The site is operated by the public relations firm Singer Associates. [2] [7] Its three-person news team consists of editor Mike Aldax, a former San Francisco Examiner journalist; community and lifestyle reporter Zach Chouteau; and business reporter Mike Kinney. [8]
Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation predominantly specializing in oil and gas. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California, it is headquartered in San Ramon, California, and active in more than 180 countries. Within oil and gas, Chevron is vertically integrated and is involved in hydrocarbon exploration, production, refining, marketing and transport, chemicals manufacturing and sales, and power generation.
The Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) is a community/political group in Richmond, western Contra Costa County, California, United States. Its mission is to unite the left regardless of political party and was founded by Gayle McLaughlin and Marilyn Langlois.
Gayle McLaughlin is an American politician from Richmond, California. She was first elected to the Richmond City Council in 2004 when she was a member of the Green Party of California. She won two consecutive four-year terms as the city's mayor in 2006 and 2010. After reaching the mayoral term limit, she was reelected to the City Council in 2014. In June 2017, she announced her candidacy for lieutenant governor of California in the 2018 election.
EP Petroecuador is the national oil company of Ecuador. Ecuador who is a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and, although it is the smallest member, the country produced 531,000 barrels of crude oil per day in 2019. The oil corporation is a significant part of the Ecuadorian economy. The petroleum industry has expanded to the production of refined commodities such as gasoline, liquefied petroleum, and jet fuel. The government of Ecuador is highly dependent on the revenues from the energy sector to support its budget and finance state projects.
Jim Rogers is an American politician. He served on the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors in the 1990s, and was a city council member for the city of Richmond, California for three terms. He was first elected to the city council in 2002, and his final term expired in January 2015. He is a Democrat, considered a moderate, and has also been referred to as a progressive. He was called the San Francisco Bay Area's most famous lawyer because of television ads in which he dubbed himself as "The People's Lawyer".
Atchison Village is a community in Richmond, California which was originally built as housing for defense workers from the Kaiser Shipyards. It lies at an elevation of 13 feet. Constructed by the Richmond Housing Authority in 1941 as Richmond's first public defense housing project, it is one of the only projects funded by the Community Facilities Act of 1940 that still exists in Richmond and one of the few in the nation not destroyed after the war. It is one of 20 public housing projects built in Richmond before and during World War II. The Village was sold by the government to its residents for $1,512,00.00 February 28, 1957, remaining mutual housing to this day under the ownership of the Atchison Village Mutual Homes Corporation. Many think it would be covered under Proposition 13 as a single unsold parcel, thus limiting tax increases to 2%, but the Tax Assessor does not treat it that way.
The Richmond City Council is the governing body for the city of Richmond, California. The council consists of the Mayor of Richmond and six other city council members, one designated Vice Mayor. The council members are all elected from the whole city; no members are elected by district or ward. The council members are elected to four-year terms, as opposed to the previous six-year terms. They are not all elected at once. The council members meet every first and third Tuesday of the month and, if necessary, hold special meetings on the remaining Tuesdays. Presently the entire city council is Democratic.
The Richmond, California 2006 city election decided the mayor, four council members, and one measure submitted to the voters of Richmond, California on November 7, 2007. The election also elected the first Green Party mayor of this city, and made Richmond the largest city in the United States to have a Green mayor. Furthermore, it unseated an incumbent mayor from a major political party by one from a minor third party.
John E. Márquez is an American politician and activist who has held various positions in Richmond, California city government. For eighteen years, Márquez served as a city councilman. He was the first Latino to serve on the Richmond City Council. Originally he was an appointee to the council in 1985 and won an election to that seat in 1987; he subsequently lost his second bid in 1991. He was elected again in 1993 and twice more in 1997 and 2004. In 1990 and 1998, he served as vice mayor. Márquez was defeated for re-election in 2008, and lost a mayoral bid in 2001 to Gayle McLaughlin. In addition to his elected offices in the city of Richmond, he has held various other positions in Contra Costa County, California on various commissions.
Thomas King Butt is an American politician and architect and the former mayor of Richmond, California. He was vice-mayor in 2002 and 2012 and a member of the Richmond City Council for over 20 years before being elected mayor. He is the longest continuously serving council member in Richmond's history.
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The Chevron Richmond Refinery is a 2,900-acre (1,200 ha) petroleum refinery in Richmond, California, on San Francisco Bay. It is owned and operated by Chevron Corporation and employs more than 1,200 workers, making it the city's largest employer. The refinery processes approximately 240,000 barrels (38,000 m3) of crude oil a day in the manufacture of petroleum products and other chemicals. The refinery's primary products are motor gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel and lubricants.
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