• by Tony Silber , Staff Writer, March 31, 2022

Axios reported on Tuesday that it has acquired the SF Minute, a daily Monday-through-Friday Substack newsletter covering local news in San Francisco.

The acquisition is notable because it continues Axios’ ambitious and fast-moving plans to build a network of local news organizations, called Axios Local, based on daily newsletters. The SF Minute will officially relaunch as Axios San Francisco in the next few months, SF Minute EditorNick Bastone said in a post on Tuesday. He also said he’ll be hiring an additional reporter, and that the newsletter is currently read by thousands, with hundreds of paying members.

Earlier this month, Axios, the six-year-old online media company that specializes in politics and policy news delivered in a terse, bulleted style, hired the veteran journalist Jamie Stockwell as executive editor of Axios Local.

Axios Local launched at the end of 2020 with the acquisition of the Charlotte Agenda. Last year it started with 14 markets, and it expects to expand to 25 cities total this year. It has nearly 400,000 subscribers across the 14 cities where it’s currently operating.

Along with Stockwell -- who is a veteran of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the San Antonio Express-News -- Axios announced the hiring of two other editors. Michael Graff has been named Southern bureau chief overseeing Charlotte, Atlanta, Nashville and Raleigh. In February, Kristen Hinman joined  as Axios Local Mid-Atlantic bureau chief, overseeing Washington D.C., Richmond and Baltimore.

The rebranded SF Minute will curate local reporting, explore local trends, and be produced in the familiar Axios “Smart Brevity” style. Bastone, who launched the Minute last year, will stay on as co-author. Prior to that, he was a reporter at The Information and Business Insider.