The Los Angeles Star covers the city of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County and the state of California. Our reporting concentrates on the machinery of public life: budgets, contracts, transit, water, land use, and the meetings where those decisions are made.

We are independent and reader-supported. The newsroom takes no payment for coverage, and opinion pieces are kept clearly separate from reporting. Every story carries a byline, a publication date, and — where a story changes after publication — a visible correction note.

What we cover

Six standing desks: Los Angeles, California, City Hall, Business, Culture and Opinion. The City Hall desk follows the council, the mayor and the county board. The California desk works the state's water, power and policy. Business covers the small firms and the freight economy that the region's payrolls depend on. Culture documents the built city — its signage, streets, food and memory.

The history

The Los Angeles Star is not a new name. Southern California's first newspaper, it was founded on May 17, 1851, and for its first years each number was printed half in English and half in Spanish. It became a daily in 1870 and closed in 1879.

The masthead returned to press in 2026 as an independent digital paper, carrying the same ambition as the original: a plain account of how Los Angeles and California are actually governed, and who pays for it.

How we work

Reporting on this site is edited, bylined and corrected in public. Wire headlines are the work of the partner newsrooms that published them; they are labeled as wire copy and link straight to the outlet, and this newsroom does not rewrite them.