The San Antonio Current is community.
Call me old school, but the first thing I do when arriving in a new city is to pick up a paper copy of the local equivalent of the Current. That’s because alternative newspapers are the pulse of a city, and I love to thumb through the pages, reading about what’s relevant in the news and where the must-see action is. I even like looking at the ads, because they speak to the uniqueness of a place. Since they are independent, alternative papers have the freedom to report local news and politics with a perspective not available from the ever-dwindling daily papers. (Where else but here would you find the headline “Assclown Alert?”)
San Antonio is a town where there’s always something happening, and the Current is where I go first to list my events and find out what’s going on that I shouldn’t miss. This is writing that makes you want to read it; there is never a doubt that the team behind the publication understands what they are talking about and gets this city. This level of professionalism isn’t cheap. Each individual paper costs $2 to produce, yet — when not on shutdown — we can pick it up at over 1,000 locations each week for free.
When I realized the San Antonio Current was struggling with revenue in the face of COVID-19, I was surprised. It’s not that I didn’t know most of us are adversely impacted, but like the option to drink a cold beer while listening to live music with friends, I took the Current for granted, as something that would always be here.
In today’s gig economy, plenty of us have a side hustle that lets us fund the work we love. To support their award-winning journalism, the Current relies on events to supplement their ad revenue. These aren't just any events, though. These are some of the coolest in town: San Antonio Flavor, Cocktail: The Event, the San Antonio Beer Festival and Dulce. Unfortunately, in the new normal we can’t gather, so most events will be put on hold or radically diminished in size for some time.
Because of this crisis, we risk losing a lot of the small businesses that make San Antonio the special place it is. We don’t know what the city is going to look like when this is over, but we need the San Antonio Current to still be here. The Current needs us, so please support local journalism by joining the SA Current Press Club today.
Stay on top of San Antonio news and views. Sign up for our Weekly Headlines Newsletter.
