Dear edhat readers,
I’m very excited to share a round of changes and upgrades designed to make edhat faster, more reliable, and more sustainable. These improvements will strengthen our coverage while keeping our community focus at the center—and, most importantly, they’ll help ensure Edhat is here for the long haul. Plus, we have a big announcement.
I’ll get the personal stuff out of the way: Since the pandemic, I’ve been running edhat solo. It’s been meaningful but, honestly, unsustainable. Too many 3:00 a.m. mornings trying to learn code and diagnose system errors then rushing to get a breaking news story posted while fighting for a parking space at preschool drop off. Along with the pandemic came a massive drop in revenue that never recovered. It came to a point of either closing edhat for good or learning how to adapt to changes in these rapidly evolving technical times.
I recently decided to switch to a new tech company that specializes in media platforms so we can deliver a faster, more reliable website and expand on local coverage. No more waiting for the site to load or hoping it doesn’t crash during a local emergency, hooray! (knocks on wood). With this upgrade, I can lean on professionals to fix glitches quickly. I’ll have the bandwidth to focus on more of the items you care about, while also getting a full night’s sleep, spending time with my kids, and breathing fresh air away from a computer screen.
Here’s what’s changing and what’s not:
What’s changing:
- Modernizing our platform to reduce crashes and slow load times. You may have noticed the recent design facelift that has helped streamline our tech. Now when issues pop up, I can call a developer who jumps on it ASAP.
- Some of this new tech includes adding tools so I can better understand what you like reading and want more of. These are basic tech resources larger publications have used for a while, and now edhat is able to utilize as well.
- Commenting: We’re gonna get a little stricter on the comment moderation. I know this has been a frustration for some readers and Google is increasingly tightening their restrictions on what they like and don’t like on the internet so we’ve had to adjust on our end. You’ve likely noticed we’ve put up filters for specific words and phrases (mainly the bad ones) that will automatically send the comment into moderation. We also will only keep comments in the deleted section for a short period of time, an hour or so, before it’s removed fully.
- Bringing on help with limited articles so edhat can share more local stories and not be restricted to how many cups of coffee I drank that day. Some of these writers aren’t local—despite real efforts and many attempts, it wasn’t financially viable—so I chose what keeps edhat open and focused on the community, with me still overseeing and contributing. The majority of edhat’s content will continue to come from the community, our readers, contributors, public agencies, nonprofits, and local businesses.
Wait, what’s the Big Announcement?
- I am thrilled to announce that edhat’s Ventura and San Luis Obispo pages will be reopening once again to fully serve the Central Coast as it used to do before the traumatizing site crash of 2017. An exact timeline and specific details of this will be announced soon, but it will mostly be what it was like before. This has always been the goal, to restore edhat to the service area it used to have and now I have the tech help to make it happen.
What’s not changing:
- Frankly, almost everything is staying the same. Edhat will continue to be a collaborative model of stories, photos, comments, public announcements, events, and more. I will still be writing, curating, and overseeing everything—now with support so the coverage is more frequent and timelier. Plus, we’ll continue our content-sharing partnerships with publications that do what we don’t, investigative and long-form journalism.
Offering a platform for local readers, nonprofits, freelancers, businesses, and more is the collaborative fabric edhat was built on. Your tips, photos, stories, and conversations remain at the heart of what we do.
No secret: this is a tough business. Across the industry, subscriptions, circulation, and overall revenue has plummeted, and publications are closing every day. Edhat has always been grassroots—no deep pockets or trust funds here—sustained by local support, caffeinated late nights, and sometimes a paper clip and chewing gum like MacGyver. These upgrades are a practical way to keep Edhat open and focused on what it does best: community-powered local stories and conversation.
Sue Foley, wife of late edhat founder Peter Sklar, recently said, “edhat has always been the scrappy underdog. The idea for edhat was based on a love for our beautiful close-knit community. Peter’s dream was for edhat to be ‘the conversation neighbors have when they’re out front picking up their mail’. I am so proud of all the hard work that’s been put into edhat and how Peter’s dream is still being honored. edhat is growing and improving with the times, and continuing to honor Santa Barbara.”
We’ve been sharing sunset photos, opinion letters about cracked sidewalks, reminiscing of bygone restaurants, and a comment section that either makes you laugh or cringe, since 2003. I’ve been with edhat since 2012 and I’m continuously grateful for your readership, your contributions, and your patience during various tech issues and transitions. Thank you for believing in edhat for more than 20 years. Here’s to the next 20!
With appreciation,
Lauren Bray
Publisher of edhat.com
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Thank YOU Lauren for this candid update and for keeping Edhat alive and thriving. what can we do to help?
Lauren, thank you for continuing the legacy of Edhat. Your tenacity and dedication are beyond appreciated. These upgrades sound fantastic, and I’m thrilled to see the site growing while staying true to its community roots. Thank you for keeping this local gem going.
Thanks for the honest update Lauren. Heres to a healthy Edhat long into the future.
Thank you for all your hard work and keeping Edhat around.
Thank you so much for all you have done and continue to do, Lauren! You and your team’s hard work is much appreciated, at least by most of us.
A suggestion for writers, I know at least DP High has a great journalism program and perhaps some young folks might be interested in an unpaid internship or periodic contributions? Just a thought!
Thanks again and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Wow, congrats Lauren! So happy to see that our beloved Ed will live on. 😀
Thank you for all you’ve done to keep the flame alive.
I’m sad to have been so inactive and even let my paid subscription lapse, and your update post got me moving on that.
Excited to see posts dated today now, even though I’ve been appreciating the mostly “yesterday” dated posts recently. Quite a massive long-term project this has been for you – and presumably still much work to be done. Kudos!
Long live Edhat!