A stealthy new local media company has popped up in San Francisco and seems to be preparing for a launch, but details about its funding and plans have proven elusive.
The mysterious new site, called Gazetteer, has been on a hiring spree for at least a couple of months, with job postings popping up for roles including a managing editor and reporters to cover local news, business, politics and food and drinks.
It's unclear whether Gazetteer is bootstrapped or if it has outside financial backing.
A placeholder website at gazetteer.co simply reads "Coming Soon."
Gazetteer's LinkedIn page describes the publication as a site that "revitalizes local news in American cities by distributing must-read stories direct to subscribers, bypassing social media and search engines."
According to a business document filed with the state of Delaware, there's a business entity based in San Francisco called Gazetteer Inc. that was founded in 2022. The only person named on the filing is Byron Perry, who is listed as the entity's incorporator.
Perry seems to be the founder of another digital news site that was launched more than twelve years ago called Coconuts Media Limited. It published English-language local news in Southeast Asia until it ceased operations on Dec. 31, according to a post penned by Perry in December.
"From our humble founding in Bangkok in 2011, we grew the Coconuts audience to millions of unique visitors per month, with dozens of journalists covering eight cities at our peak," Perry wrote, "but these editorial and audience achievements have not converted into commercial success for the publication. Like many other independent news publishers, we have found financial sustainability to be incredibly elusive despite our best efforts."
Perry had been living in Singapore until late 2022 when he moved back to the U.S., according to a report in early 2023 announcing his transition to the role of chairman of Coconuts Media. And he's now based in San Francisco, according to LinkedIn.
Perry was the chair of the Society of Publishers in Asia for a couple of years until late 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. Earlier that year, he appeared on Bloomberg TV as part of a panel about the news media industry in Asia and its challenges and opportunities, which included misinformation, generating subscription revenue and looking for ways to innovate.
Perry responded to a request for comment but did not offer responses to questions about Gazetteer by publication time.
Gazetteer is entering a competitive local news market in San Francisco, though not one with an encouraging history for startups focused on local news.
One startup, Hoodline, raised $10 million in 2018 after merging with another startup, Ripple News. It was then sold twice for undisclosed amounts, first to Nextdoor and then to Impress3 Media, which also acquired local news site SFist.
Another local media upstart, the San Francisco Standard, was co-founded by Kanishka Cheng and Griffin Gaffney in 2021 as Here/Say Media. It converted from nonprofit to for-profit status that year, raising $10 million from journalist turned venture capitalist Michael Moritz, a longtime partner at Sequoia Capital, and his wife, Harriet Heyman.
The news media industry is notoriously difficult to operate in profitably, but changes in consumer behavior suggest opportunity for digitally focused publications.
More than 80% of adults in the U.S. get at least some of their news from online sources via a smartphone, computer or tablet, according to a recent report from Pew Research.
And 58% of adults prefer to get news from digital sources, a figure that has increased over the past three years. Over the same period, television has declined in popularity as a preferred source from 36% of adults in 2021 to 27% in 2023 while print and radio has remained relatively flat at around 5% and 6%, respectively.
