Since its inception, the nonprofit Fresnoland digital news operation has staked out high moral ground with papal-like authority.

“We make policy public and amplify our culture through fact-based journalism,” its mission statement proclaims.

That might well be, but when it comes to transparency, Fresnoland is as clear as San Joaquin River mud.

In fact, its mission statement should be: “We aim to back all of the public policies — past and present — of former Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin with the stories we choose to cover and how we report them. We also go the extra mile to protect our funders.”

Fresnoland a Strand in Dark Money Spider Web

That protection includes never revealing in stories that Fresnoland shares funding ties to many of the activist nonprofits it covers, such as Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, and Fresno Building Healthy Communities.

All have received funding from the Central Valley Community Foundation, whose president and CEO is Swearengin. And all are funded by richly endowed, out-of-town nonprofits such as California Endowment, Kresge Foundation, and California Wellness Foundation.

This makes Fresnoland part of a spider-web of progressive mutual cooperation that can be hard to discern because nonprofits don’t have to reveal their funders. Interestingly, Building Healthy Communities and Leadership Counsel gained tax-exempt status in 2017, the year after Swearengin termed out as Fresno mayor.

Not coincidentally, whenever Leadership Counsel has a complaint about land-use policies or potential environmental impacts, Fresnoland provides full amplification.

And despite its wall-to-wall coverage of Leadership Counsel and Building Health Communities, Fresnoland has never presented a deep scrub of their effectiveness.

Nor has the news site told the public what their respective CEOs, Veronica Garibay ($190,556) and Sandra Celedon ($199,556), make annually in salary and benefits.

That puts them in the highest bracket of wage earners in a community, where per capita income averages $32,519, average household income is $70,991, and one in five people live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census.

The Arambula Connection

Thanks to the San Joaquin Valley Sun, we also know Fresnoland mentioned Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula 81 times in stories and newsletters without once revealing Arambula family members served on its board.

Nor did Fresnoland acknowledge in those stories receiving donations from the Arambula family, as well as the Rappaport Family Foundation founded by Arambula’s maternal grandfather.

The irony of Fresnoland taking Rappaport money is richer than Boston cream pie. Boston is where Jerome Rappaport made his many millions as a developer.

“During his life, he made large donations to hospitals, colleges, and museums. He also razed an entire neighborhood to the ground and fought fervently to degrade tenant rights,” wrote Occidental College politics professor Peter Dreier in 2022.

Fresnoland an Advocate of Swearengin Policy

Chew on that the next time Fresnoland reports on attempts by local developers to overcome the hurdles of the failed general plan of the Swearengin era and includes quotes from union leaders on how developers are ruining the inner city.

Now jump into Fresnoland’s coverage of the Measure C renewal battle, which has overwhelmingly favored the proposal backed by Swearengin, Building Healthy Communities, and Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability.

Talk about a coordinated power play. It’s little wonder that Joe Mathews, who writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square, declared Swearengin “the unofficial governor” of the San Joaquin Valley.

You might also ask, why is Fresnoland’s coverage of failing Fresno Unified School District softer than cashmere?

Especially when the argument can be made that more families flee Fresno Unified because of district underperformance than what happens on a given night at the planning commission.

People with sharp memories will note that as Fresno Unified became mired in scandal during the Mike Hanson era, Swearengin never once used her bully pulpit to advocate for change. Nor did she shine a light on how vital turning the district around was to rebuilding Fresno’s urban core.

GV Wire, SJV Sun Backers No Mystery. Fresnoland? Less So

The essence of Fresnoland is that the Swearengin-favored form of development cures most all ills. However, making Fresno better is more complicated than drawing lines on a map and rounding up four votes.

Creating more prosperity requires capital, a commitment to doing better for everyone, and political muscle and expertise to execute that vision.

It also requires honesty and transparency.

GV Wire is owned and published by Fresno developer Darius Assemi. That connection is disclosed in every GV Wire story involving Granville Homes, as well as the AMOR nonprofit and the Assemi-family-owned, for-profit California Health Sciences University. GV Wire also discloses Assemi donations to political candidates in campaign coverage and election stories.

You can like or hate our coverage, but however you feel about GV Wire, its ownership isn’t a mystery.

The nonprofit San Joaquin Valley Sun is managed by political consultant Alex Tavlian. It slants coverage to favor conservative and Republican candidates. But it also, at times, produces top-notch investigative journalism. Its readers accept the Sun for what it is, and sort through the propaganda to get to the news.

Fresnoland also does good work on occasion and has reporters who produce fair, balanced stories. The Central Valley Community Foundation, Leadership Counsel, and Building Healthy Communities are vital to helping and representing Fresno’s underserved communities.

But it’s long past time for Fresnoland to get real with its readers with full disclosure of their ties to the folks they cover and their shared funding sources.