title: San Diego Reader
text: The San Diego Reader is an alternative press newspaper in the county of San Diego. Published weekly since October 1972, the Reader is distributed free on Wednesday and Thursday via street boxes and cooperating retail outlets.
  
  History 
  Founder Jim Holman, a navy veteran, worked for the Chicago Reader before starting up in San Diego. The initial press run of the San Diego Reader was 20,000 copies. In 1989, it was printing 131,000 copies a week and in 2011, the circulation was 51,000. In 1988, the Reader moved into a former restaurant in Little Italy and moved to offices in Golden Hill in 2012.
  
  Despite the Reader's image as a liberal, "off-the-wall" alternative weekly with sexually explicit features and strong language, Holman is guided by a conservative philosophy. He refuses to publish advertisements promoting abortion services. In 1985, he refused to accept personal advertisements seeking homosexual relationships, but after receiving complaints from gay activists, the ban included all sexual relationships. He also runs the anti-abortion California Catholic Daily website from the same offices.
  
  Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, 30 employees agreed to take pay cuts equivalent to half of their pay. 
  
  In 2023, reporter Catherine Cranston's press pass was revoked by the San Diego Police Department after she used a false name - the pseudonym Eva Knott - to fill out court documents for the Reader seeking permission to record and take photographs of a criminal conspiracy case against members of Antifa who fought with Trump supporters and white supremacists at a protest in Pacific Beach in the days after the January 6th United States capitol attack.
  
  References
  
  External links
  
  The San Diego Reader website
  "Overheard in San Diego" comic strip gallery
  "Famous Former Neighbors" San Diego celebrities comic strip gallery
   "Obermeyer’s Cut" political comic strip gallery
  
  Weekly newspapers published in California
  Newspapers published in San Diego
  Alternative weekly newspapers published in the United States
  Companies based in San Diego