About us.
City Desk ABQ is an independent nonprofit newsroom serving and supported by readers and institutions working together to become more informed and better engaged residents of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County.
We are a project of Citizen Media Group, a 501(c)3 organization.
Read more about bringing newspaper competition back to ABQ or scroll down to learn more about our mission and our team.
Our principles…
Impactful.
We are platform for readers to understand their civic role and a forum for readers to connect our reporting with public decisions across Albuquerque.
Journalist-led.
Journalists are the best guardians of open, free and truthful information.
Nonprofit.
News should make a public difference, not serve a corporate or personal profit. We abstain from endorsements and advocacy.
What we do…
We inform and engage by reporting on the civic process and providing a forum to help readers participate in local decisions at a neighborhood, city and county level, especially for communities underrepresented in the civic process.
We are a professional journalism organization with an obligation to provide accurate, truthful and in-depth understanding of our community’s experiences at the neighborhood, city and county levels.
We seek to be the must-read, primary daily online publication for intelligent, solutions-focussed journalism in the Albuquerque community. City Desk reports on critical news, holds political, business and community leaders accountable, and provides our readers with ways to connect to those decision makers in authentic and productive ways.
City desk was founded to rebuild local reporting on local government through a team of respected, informed reporters focused on the civic process and local news. There are lots of great local journalists around New Mexico and we are proud to refer you to them for topics we don’t cover.
How is City Desk different?
We strive to cover our beats – the traditional Metro section of your daily newspaper – better than any other news source in Albuquerque – and we support other local journalists striving to cover the rest.
A newsroom with a mission.
We’re hyper focussed on being a watchdog on local government and providing readers with a better understanding of the issues and solutions for Albuquerque’s unique challenges.
What we cover.
Albuquerque City Hall and Bernalillo County government.
Watchdog and in-depth reporting on the programs and policies of our civic institutions.
Policing, courts and justice.
Accountability journalism on the agencies and officers charged with serving and protecting our community.
Our local economy.
Covering the economic condition and opportunities for local business and workers who power them.
What others cover better.
Sports.
Check out the Albuquerque Journal and local tv outlets for the latest scores.
Business-to-Business.
Subscribe to the Albuquerque Business First for the B2B coverage.
News outside of our area.
Local newspapers cover local news best because they live and work in their community. Support your local newspaper, wherever you are.
What is a “City Desk”?
City Desk is old school journalism jargon used to describe the round-the-clock team of journalists who covered all aspects of city hall for their daily paper. Newspapers used to have a team of reporters assigned to cover city hall and they often knew as much or more about what was happening than the politicians and workers they covered. Today, local newsrooms have lost almost 2/3 of their reporters and often have just 1 reporter covering an entire city beat, on top of writing restaurant reviews and online click-bait features.
FAQs
Learn more about our policies and news model.
Who leads and supports City Desk?
City Desk ABQ is a collaboration between The Citizen Media Group, a New Mexico-based 501(c)3 non-profit, and Ctrl+P Publishing based in Albuquerque.
The Citizen Media Group fundraises and provides overall project direction for City Desk ABQ. They are led by a board of directors. Ctrl+P Publishing is a New Mexico-based small news publisher responsible for managing the day-to-day activities of City Desk ABQ.
As a non-profit newsroom, City Desk ABQ makes all of our content free to read online and by email subscription. Our work is supported by reader donations and sponsors who support our mission. We disclose the names of all supporters who provide more than $5000 per year in support. Read more about our firewall between donors and content below.
Meet our staff below.
Are you a real news outlet?
Yep. Unlike some blogs or bots, our journalists are required to meet strict professional standards including having graduated from an accredited college or university journalism program, membership in a professional journalist association such as the Society of Professional Journalists and they must have published work in other respected, legitimate news sources in their career. Our journalists have served and won local, state and national awards for their coverage of local news across New Mexico.
Our newsroom and journalists follow the professional standards established by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics. That means we have strict standards for fact-checking and a corrections policy to publicly disclose when we make a mistake (see Corrections Policy below).
Student journalists working in our newsroom are paired with senior reporters and must meet the same standards.
What if I think a story needs clarification or correction?
We recognize that, despite our best efforts, sometimes we get it wrong or could have said it better.
If you think something we say isn’t accurate, contact our editor (editor@newmexico.news) and we’ll take a look. If we are wrong, we will run a correction and be sure to tell our readers. In most cases, we strive to correct errors in the same format in which the original story appeared.
What is your student journalism program?
We believe building the next generation of journalists is critical to sustaining local news.
Each semester, we pair a journalism student from a New Mexico college or university journalism program with a mentor journalists in our newsroom to cover a beat together.
Student journalists are paid a living wage and are responsible for sourcing, researching and writing their own stories in their beat, supported by an experienced mentor.