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Author Archives: Lila LaHood

Lila LaHood is executive director of the San Francisco Public Press. She has worked as a nonprofit consultant, and as a freelance writer and editor. She was previously a business writer at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where she covered retail and real estate. Lila has an M.S. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. in international relations from Stanford University. She is a current member and past-president of the board of directors of the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Posted in“Civic” Podcast, From the Newsroom, Government & Politics, Media

Audience Trust Essential Amid Attacks on Media, DEI and Democracy, PBS Public Editor Says

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The San Francisco Public Press on April 30, 2025, hosted a fireside chat with Ricardo Sandoval-Palos, the public editor at PBS, and Lila LaHood, executive director of the Public Press, about recent attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, and threats to democracy and the media.

Sandoval-Palos and LaHood talked about what might happen if the federal government were to cut funding to PBS and NPR, which receive a portion of their budgets from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The next day, President Donald Trump signed an executive order attempting to do just that.

Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Elections, Law & Justice

Election Money Pours in for San Francisco Judges’ Seats That Used to Go Uncontested

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In California, the governor appoints superior court judges to fill seats across 58 counties. Terms are typically six years, and judges keep their positions unless they’re recalled, which happens rarely, or someone decides to run against them in a local election. Usually, judges don’t face challengers.

But a pair of San Francisco judges are running to stay on the bench in the upcoming March 5 election. The last time sitting judges faced such challenges here was in the June 2018 primary election, and the challengers lost.

Voters might be wondering why they’re being asked to make this decision.

Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Elections

What You Might Find on Your San Francisco Ballot: Party County Central Committees

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If you vote in California and you’re registered with the Peace and Freedom, Green, Republican or Democratic parties, you’ll get to make some extra choices in the March 5 election that only come around once every four years — the representatives who run your party at the local level. 

In San Francisco, voters registered with those four parties received ballots that included candidates for their party’s presidential primary and also candidates for their respective county central committee, which the Green Party refers to as its county council. These are the people who officially run those parties in San Francisco. They decide which measures and candidates the party will endorse, and they support the formation of local political clubs. They also coordinate in various ways with their parties at the state and national levels.

For this “Civic” episode, we talked with representatives from the four parties that run county committees in San Francisco, and with Theo Ellington, vice president of Northern California for Strategies 360, a political strategy firm, to give a more general overview of the system.

Posted inCity Hall, Economy & Business, Elections, Housing, Land use, San Francisco March 2024 Election Guide

Proposition C — Real Estate Transfer Tax Exemption and Office Space Allocation

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Proposition C would change San Francisco’s tax policy to allow a one-time transfer tax exemption for owners of properties converted from commercial to residential use the first time they are sold following conversion, as long as the change of use is approved before Jan. 1, 2030.

Posted inFrom the Newsroom

San Francisco Public Press Selected to Host California Local News Fellow

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We’re delighted to announce that we are adding a full-time reporter to our staff through the California Local News Fellowship program, a multi-year, state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting in California, with a focus on underserved communities. 

Zhe Wu, a 2023 graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, will join the San Francisco Public Press in early September. We look forward to introducing her to you!

Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Media

PBS Public Editor Says Complaints Can Spark Community Conversations

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With the proliferation of social media channels, misinformation and disinformation now spread as fast as the click of a trackpad. Even for a trusted outlet like PBS — nationally recognized for its family friendly programming and sober, nonpartisan news coverage — this era has brought a flood of digital rumors to quell.

As the public editor at PBS, Ricardo Sandoval-Palos fields complaints for the organization and uses community feedback to cultivate conversations between viewers and PBS’s creative teams.

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