San Diego is a Southern California city with a population of over 1.4 million; the San Diego metropolitan area has over 3.3 million residents. It has a daily newspaper and other print and online publications, and multiple TV and radio stations. As the city is adjacent to the Mexico–United States border, its residents are also able to receive media from Tijuana, Mexico.
Print
Newspapers
The San Diego Union-Tribune is the city's primary newspaper, published daily. The Union-Tribune was formed in 1992 through a merger of the San Diego Union (established 1868) and the San Diego Evening Tribune (established 1881). The newspapers had been under common ownership since 1901. The Evening-Tribune was the evening paper, while the Union was the morning paper; the Union-Tribune is a morning paper. As of 2015, the Union-Tribune had won four Pulitzer Prizes and was the oldest company in continuous operation in San Diego. In 2015, Tribune Publishing, which operates the Los Angeles Times and other major U.S. daily newspapers, purchased the newspaper in an $85 million deal. The purchase ended 146 years of private local ownership for the paper.
Other papers and news outlets published in the city include:
Patch National network of local news sites, with operations in San Diego
San Diego Story Arts review website
The Times of San Diego Web-based news outlet founded in 2014 that publishes daily local news for San Diego and the surrounding area. According to its own reports, the site had an average of nearly 600,000 monthly unique users in 2022. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, the site reported 1.53 million unique users. Unlike some other local media startups, Times of San Diego provides full daily coverage of a large metropolitan area rather than only periodic in-depth articles. Its contributing editors have appeared on local radio programs and conducted training sessions for local journalists. From 2016 to 2019, the site was named "best news site" four consecutive years by the San Diego Press Club, and its editors won multiple other awards. The site received a grant from Google in June 2020 to expand coverage of the local impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2024, Times of San Diego was acquired by the nonprofit journalism organization NEWSWELL, based at Arizona State University, as part of an initiative to support local news organizations. (The group also acquired the Santa Barbara News-Press and the Stockton-based news site Stocktonia.) Following the acquisition, Times of San Diego editor and general manager Chris Jennewein said the newsroom expanded its staff and increased output to as many as 30 articles per day. In May 2025, the site incorporated sections from the San Diego Community Newspaper Group, bringing coverage from seven weekly and biweekly community newspapers into its website and related newsletters. This expanded its hyperlocal reporting within the region. In September 2025, veteran journalist Andrew Keatts was appointed editor and general manager, succeeding Jennewein, who remained with the site in a community partnerships role. Keatts indicated plans to broaden coverage with additional features and investigative reporting.
Voice of San Diego (Voiceofsandiego.org) Non-profit news outlet in San Diego that reports on the city. A Web-only local outlet, Voice of San Diego was founded in 2005, one of a number of such publications that emerged around that time in responsive to cutbacks in traditional local print newspapers. The site is known for both its news coverage and local investigative reporting. The website is partially funded by grants, but is financed primarily on a paid membership model. In 2016, Voice of San Diego launched the News Revenue Hub, a pilot project aimed at helping other nonprofit news organizations adopt its model. Members of the pilot includeHonolulu Civil Beat, InsideClimate News, The Lens, and New Jersey Spotlight. It has won a variety of local journalism awards from the San Diego chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (for reports exposing corruption at San Diego Unified School District) and from the San Diego Press Club.
Vanguard Culture Nonprofit arts and culture website
San Diego is a principal city of the San Diego radio market. In its Fall 2013 ranking of radio markets by population, Arbitron ranked the San Diego market 17th in the United States. The market only covers San Diego County.
The following is a list of radio stations which broadcast from and/or are licensed to San Diego:
↑Stewart, Joshua (November 18, 2016). "That time when Gingrich ridiculed Trump in San Diego". The San Diego Union-Tribune. The Union-Tribune covered his speech and The Times of San Diego posted a recording of the event online.
