Voice of San Diego

Thanks for having me.

[upbeat music] Thanks for listening to The Voice of San Diego podcast, recorded in the Alice and Doug Diamond Studio.

We are the most famous and most popular, most important public affairs podcast that went along with a news organization that produced the no BS guide to local elections.

You can find that at voice sandsiego.org. We're the most popular public affairs podcast that did that.

I'm Jakob McWhinney.

I am a reporter at Voice of San Diego, and I'm also a host, co-host of the podcast, which we are sharing now.

You're going to hear that podcast in just a minute.

But first, something completely different.

It really is delightful.

[Instrumental music] You can see Jacob's full list, complete with a map of his picks, on thefinestsd.org.

When Jacob isn't exploring the city's remaining dive bars, you can find him on The Voice of San Diego podcast.

Tell us about Voice of San Diego in general and also The Voice of San Diego podcast.

I'm Mackenzie Elmer.

I'm Voice of San Diego's environment reporter.

I'm hosting, uh, this great panel we have for you today.

Welcome to Politifest 2026, The Election Showdown.

It's great to have everyone.

In case you're not familiar with us, Voice of San Diego is a nonprofit investigative news organization committed to holding public officials accountable and giving you, the public, the information you need to be advocates for good government.

As a nonprofit, we depend on members, donors, and sponsors like you to make our work possible.

Thank you for your support.

... permeating through all these little elections.

Thanks for listening to the Voice of San Diego podcast recorded in the Alice and Doug Diamond Studio downtown, the only podcast, the most popular podcast, in fact, that had a political festival at the University of San Diego.

The most popular public affairs podcast that did that festival at the University of San Diego.

I'm Scott Lewis on behalf of Andreas Sanchez Villafana, Bella Ross, Jakob McWhinney, and the producer of this show, Matt Scaravelli.

Visitors could finally find her name rather than an anonymous patch of ground.

But then, according to a reporting for Voice of San Diego, May went further and claimed Kate was his great-great-grandmother.

Uh, well, her only documented child died at two days old, so I don't know, seems unlikely that he fathered a child of his own in that time.

I don't doubt that her story got to him, but it feels like maybe Mr.

What's happening over there? What's the 411? Should we do this? This is a good time to make it known.

The Voice of San Diego is going to launch an East County beat in about...

What, six weeks? Look at that.

I'm

If you're an audio listener, don't worry.

We're still going to have a version for you, of course.

But if you want to watch us, search Voice of San Diego on YouTube and make sure you subscribe.

Again, 50 people or 30 people at $50 meets our $1,500 match.

And I think we should find more ways to collaborate to be able to improve our coverage on both sides of the border, because we have the same problem from Mexican outlets when they try to cover the Hispanic community or the U.S. in general.

You know, you mentioned this binational region, and I know you've collaborated with a number of journalists in San Diego, including Voice of San Diego's Mackenzie Elmer.

Can you tell me more about that partnership between the two of you?

Well, that was a very generous collaboration in the sense that first people in Voice of San Diego was looking for ways to help the media in Tijuana.

And from that, we come out with some ideas.

This began from the days of the pandemic and the COVID-19, but ended up being frustrated for that reason, exactly.

The water crisis is present in both sides, but has been approached in very different ways.

And this is something that I've been finding commonly here.

I don't know what's going on.

Voice of San Diego created a chart that you can see at thecollegeinvestor.com of San Diego high schools that shows the percentage of students passing the class versus the percentage of students meeting state standards.

That gap is the whole issue.

About 36% of UC San Diego's incoming freshmen are first-generation college students, according to the campus's Triton Firsts program.