About all of us 2024

ChicoSol’s mission: To provide cross-cultural feature writing and bold investigative reporting in the Chico area of the Northern Sacramento Valley.

ChicoSol is a not-for-profit news organization covering issues overlooked by traditional media that are starved for resources and unable to provide the in-depth coverage investigative reporting produces. We provide a digital platform and partner with other outlets to distribute our work. Our stories span cultural borders, including those related to race, ethnicity, immigration status, language and class, and examine how power and policy affect Spanish-speaking and other vulnerable communities.

We follow the stories that often get dropped by print newspapers as we seek those who are accountable and those who can help find ways to address the community’s most vexing problems. In short, we believe that fact-based journalism nourishes democracy, that truth is sunlight. We distribute a new issue the first week of each month with a short newsletter to all who have joined our subscription list, and the project is sustained by donating readers and small fellowships.

Our objectives:
  • To provide in-depth features that encourage and enlarge community discourse;
  • Provide investigative reporting in the community’s interest;
  • Mentor student journalists and provide a publication outlet for young writers.

If you wish to support this work, we welcome you into the ChicoSol membership community. Join our subscription list with a request to our chicosolnews@gmail address. Donate to our NVCF fund here. ChicoSol is able to accept tax-deductible donations as a fund under the North Valley Community Foundation (NVCF) umbrella. We thank all who have made generous contributions to this enterprise.

ChicoSol Editorial & Advisory Group:

Leslie Layton, editor: Leslie is a bilingual freelance journalist who has worked extensively in both Mexico and California. Her writing has been published in Business Week, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Sacramento Bee, and other major and local newspapers and magazines. She has a Master’s degree in communication from Stanford University and spoke in 2017 as a presenting panel member at the Investigative Reporters & Editors’ annual conference in Phoenix, AZ.

Lindajoy Fenley is an editorial adviser and account manager for ChicoSol. Lindajoy is a bilingual writer and teacher who worked on several California newspapers and as a financial journalist in Mexico City. She holds Master’s degrees in international journalism and Spanish.

Natalie Hanson, an Oakland-based journalist, is a contributing editor to ChicoSol. Natalie has a political science degree with a focus on international relations from Chico State University. She has been honored with awards from the California News Publishers’ Association, including with first places in reporting on local government and on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Forrest Hartman is ChicoSol’s university liaison. Forrest is a full-time lecturer at California State University, Chico, and adviser to The Orion, the university’s independent, student-run news organization. He is also chief film critic for Highbrow Magazine, a general interest, online publication specializing in news, politics, media, arts, entertainment, food and travel.

Contributors:
Dave Waddell, our former news director, contributes investigative reporting. Karen Laslo, an experienced freelance photojournalist and local blogger, contributes photography.

Editorial policy

Our organization retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services or opinions.

Our organization may consider donations to support the coverage of particular topics, but ChicoSol maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content.

Past & future

ChicoSol was launched in 2007 by Henri Flores and Leslie Layton, initially serving as a bilingual classroom teaching tool. Leslie was an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Journalism at California State University, Chico, and a freelance writer. It rapidly evolved into a bridge between the campus and community and soon began publishing professional writers as well as student journalists on a digital platform.

We developed a readership in the community through a free subscription system and published stories in both English and Spanish, establishing ourselves as a leader in the non-profit digital news field. ChicoSol works closely with Ethnic Media Services (EMS) because we believe that delivering information to minority audiences is crucial in a state as diverse as California.

Dozens of ChicoSol stories have been reprinted by or published in partnership with the Chico News & Review, and many of our stories have reached a broader audience after being reprinted by New America Media (NAM), EMS and other media outlets.

We worked for several years as a media partner with ProPublica on its important Documenting Hate database and reporting project, and later became a media partner of KIXE, helping promote the station’s “Third Thursday Film & Discussion” series.

In March 2016, we co-sponsored an immigration information fair with Orland Unified School District, OneJustice, Legal Services of Northern California and other nonprofit organizations.

To learn more about ChicoSol’s membership community, go here. To read media stories about ChicoSol and learn about ways that our work has been recognized, click here.

Follow us on Facebook at: ChicoSol.org – Facebook and on Twitter at: @ChicoSolNews.