What Is the Santa Monica Daily Press (smdp.com)?

Updated

smdp.com is the website of the Santa Monica Daily Press, a local news outlet covering Santa Monica and the Westside of Los Angeles. It describes itself as award-winning local journalism serving Santa Monica, Venice, Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and Marina del Rey, and says it has been trusted by Westside readers since 2001. If you live in or follow those communities and want city-level reporting rather than national coverage, this is the kind of site to check.

What it covers

The homepage organizes coverage into clear sections:

  • Business
  • Crime
  • Opinion
  • Government & Politics
  • Podcasts
  • Sports

Recent stories shown on the page illustrate the mix: a Starbucks closure affecting two Santa Monica stores, a City Council vote to upzone 89 Pico-area lots near the Expo/Bundy transit station, a downtown pedestrian crash, a two-month closure of the Moomat Ahiko Way ramps to and from Pacific Coast Highway, and the unveiling of Venice triathlon courses for the LA28 Games.

The through-line is local impact — store closures, council votes, traffic changes, public safety, and regional events — rather than broad national or international news.

Who it's for

The site is most useful if you:

  • Live or work in Santa Monica, Venice, Pacific Palisades, Malibu, or Marina del Rey
  • Want to track local government decisions, development, and transit changes
  • Prefer community-level business and crime reporting over aggregated national headlines
  • Are interested in local sports and event coverage tied to the LA28 Olympics

Formats available

Beyond written articles, the site offers:

  • Podcasts — an audio option alongside text reporting
  • Print edition — a digital version of the daily print paper is available to read

Access and cost

The site shows a "subscribe" signal and uses Stripe as a payment platform, which indicates some form of paid subscription exists. The available page information does not specify prices, what a subscription includes, or whether any content is free versus paywalled, so check the site directly for current terms before subscribing.

The short version

smdp.com is a long-running local news source for Santa Monica and neighboring Westside communities, with sections spanning business, crime, opinion, government, sports, and podcasts, plus a print edition and a subscription option. Use it when you need reporting on decisions and events that affect those specific areas.