 | |
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 praised for its coverage of local issues but criticized for its lack of coverage of stories that are negative toward Chevron.
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. [1]
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. [2] [3]
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. [4]
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. [1] 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. [5]
The site is operated by the public relations firm Singer Associates. [1] [6] 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. [7]
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.
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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.
Irma Louise Anderson was an American politician who was the elected mayor of the city of Richmond, California, serving between 2001 and 2006. She ran for re-election as the incumbent Democrat in the 2006 mayoral race and lost to Green Party challenger councilperson Gayle McLaughlin by 192 votes.
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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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Harpreet Singh Sandhu is an Indian American politician and community activist from Richmond, California and one of the most prominent ones of the Sikh religion. He was the first Asian and the first Sikh city councilman in Richmond, and one of only a few Sikhs to hold office in the United States.
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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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