Thanks to Paul Franson, over at NapaLife for some insights and looking into what is happening at the Napa Register. We couldn’t agree more! So much happens on our local level at Town meetings and through elections, we all need to make sure we have the information needed to be informed citizens. Check out Paul’s thoughts below and also what I believe in for The Yountvillian.
From Paul Franson’s NapaLife:
Those who’ve lived here a while (25 years in my case) and are passionate about local news are very saddened by what has happened to the Napa Valley Register. Its staff is gutted, print circulation way down (from maybe 30,000 subscribers to under 6,000) (but digital is now millions per month) and its out-of-town big corporate owners are pursuing a strategy that I think is doomed.
It’s not unique. Even before the pandemic hit, newspaper throughout America were devastated by the Internet, with display advertisers switching to the Internet and the loss of classified advertising, once the most lucrative part of the paper. While online readers may continue to grow, the ads still create less revenue than print.
Many papers simply closed. leaving their communities to newsrooms in other cities or no local daily coverage at all. Many areas far larger than Napa no longer have daily papers. Frankly, it’s amazing we do.
On top of that, more than 70 newsrooms in the U.S. closed during the pandemic.
Newspapers have laid off staff almost everywhere and the Register wasn’t immune. It’s down dramatically from what it once was. It doesn’t even own a printing press (that was destroyed in the 2014 earthquake) but depends on the Santa Rosa Press Democrat plant in Rohnert Park, which compromises deadlines.
One root cause of the problem was the fad for larger papers and investment companies to acquire local newspapers and squeeze assets (real estate) and profits out of them by reducing staff, sharing content and resources, and selling plants and land, with a feeble argument of promoting corporate ad deals.
It hasn’t worked. Most people read a local newspaper for local news and content. At NapaLife we cover “lifestyle” content – food, wine, entertainment and music and the other arts – but don’t report on politics, health, education, land use, crime, the environment, local sports and other issues important, even vital to local readers.
If the local paper doesn’t cover these subjects, who does? Who attends city council meetings or digs into mischief that bureaucrats try to hide? Who holds public officials (and private organizations) accountable? Who reports on environmental miscreants?
Radio can help (I think KVON does a good job) but it doesn’t reach all citizens and you’d have to listen to it almost continuously to get the news a paper delivers in a relatively short time.
Unfortunately, services that have sprung up on the internet like Patch to provide local content have mostly been disappointing, generally lacking resources too.
The key is local owners. Their strong presence in the community is vital.
One interesting trend is that Gannett has sold about 25 of its smaller papers to local owners, admitting that may be a better strategy for them. The newspaper giant publishes USA Today, which tries to be all things to all people, and also more than 100 daily publications in 34 states and many more weeklies,
Now, back to the Register. Its reporters do some great reporting but it is dreadfully understaffed. Its owner, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises (lee.net) also owns the St. Helena Star and Weekly Calistogan, each with only one staff member. (By the way, both the independent Yountville Sun and Calistoga Tribune do a great job of covering their communities.)
Lee Enterprises owns 350 weekly and specialty publications serving 77 markets in 26 states. It is now insisting that its papers publish generic material that is sometimes interesting, but I don’t think many people buy the Register to read that. Lee forces the Register to publish this Parade-style fluff and innumerable lists, but limits local content, including excellent local lifestyle features – food, wine, garden and arts coverage, written by freelancers since feature editor Sasha Paulsen has no reporters left. She once had four.
I asked editor Sean Scully about it and his answer was short: “We have exactly 11 people left in editorial where I had 30 seven years ago, which is part of the reason, but it is also a corporate mandate” [to use the shared content].
I should note that a few newspapers have done very well by being contrarian. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post focus on national and international news and have prospered with growing print sales, rising online subscriptions and greater advertising by becoming national and even international. The New York Times recently passed 8 million subscribers, many digital.
That only works for a few papers with vast resources, however, but you can get a digital subscription to any of the three at reasonable cost ($29 sometimes for the Post!). If you can read the Washington Post cheaply, why look to the local paper for national news or even advice on how to deal with your in-laws?
It also helps that Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, space traveler and devil incarnate to some people, bought the Post and provided it with vast resources – while keeping hands off.
What can we do about to save local news?
The first is to continue to support the Register for the good coverage and keep it viable for the future – and present. You can get a digital subscription for very little.
You might consider writing a letter, though the publisher, who once used to oversee some other California papers Lee has jettisoned, recently left. You can email Sean Scully but he doesn’t have much say.
I must admit that some people think the owners will only respond to dropping subscriptions (and advertising).
In some areas, nonprofit groups have sprung up to publish local papers. There are enlightened local owners, too. Sonoma Media Investments, which owns the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, Sonoma Index-Tribune, Petaluma Argus-Courier, North Bay Business Journal, Sonoma County Gazette, Sonoma Magazine and La Prensa Sonoma, seems committed to the community and might be a benevolent owner of the Register.
All in all, however, I believe that the best thing that could happen to our local community is for a local, well-off, enlightened person or group to buy the paper and add resources to beef up local coverage – and keep their fingers off its editorial content.
You wouldn’t have to be Jeff Bezos to do that. The Register is Lee’s only paper left in California and far from its biggest overall. Though the Register unquestionably lends some prestige to the chain because it’s in Napa, Lee refuses to build on and take advantage of Napa Valley’s reputation and cache.
A local owner could and likely would.