This June (2025) marked my first two years of writing on the Substack platform. Substack continues to provide a highly valued digital home for a thousand and more writers and journalists like myself. I think it provides a very good “reader friendly” experience with no advertising, no invasion of privacy and no sinister algorithms. Substack is a “neutral” publisher for independent writers and has no rules or obstacles and has never limited anything I have chosen to write and post.
I want to thank my hundred-plus paying subscribers and all my other regular readers for your ongoing support. Your backing of my lone efforts to publish my fact-based analysis and commentaries is a small step toward preserving the practice of conscientious journalism that is fundamental to our truth-loving, law-based society and democracy. Without independent journalism, democracy dies. We all know that, right?
Increased urgency to save Local News
But, as grateful as I am for your support, I must alert everyone that this is just a very small step to what is needed to keep as many journalism voices alive as possible.
The struggle to keep local journalism alive keeps getting tougher and tougher. Since I retired from newspaper publishing in 2022, the closure of local newspapers across America continues to mount. Today, even more hundreds of local communities face the threat of losing their newspaper. Last year, another 124 newspapers closed, joining more than 2,000 that have shuttered since 2005.
Many other newspapers have been swooped up in mergers and acquisitions that leave behind what are being called “ghost newspapers.” That is when local journalism jobs get axed to bare minimums for quick, one-time profits by bottom-feeding private equity funds. (This is set to happen where I live in Sonoma County, California with the recent sale of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. More details below.)
Almost half (1,563) of all the counties in the U.S. do not have a local newspaper “of record” to cover their county governments, school boards, city halls and law enforcement agencies. A total of 7,000 newspaper jobs have been lost in just the last two years.
A thousand independent journalism voices on Substack are making small differences in many places, but the existential threat to local news sources requires a much larger response to save the “Free Press” first imagined by our Founding Fathers in the U.S. Constitution.
Be a Local News Hero
I do not believe this is an impossible task. I still believe in the future of a vital and robust independent press and the profession of journalism. As an owner and publisher of four legacy newspapers prior to my abrupt retirement just three years ago, I was part of the front lines in the fight to keep local newspapers alive. We put up a mighty fight and trail-blazed many innovations and we gained some national attention for our efforts. But, alas, in our case, the social shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic and a chronic shortage of operating capital cut our path short.
Your support is needed in many places right now and, again, I want to thank you for including me and my Substack jottings about “Moral Dilemmas” and other troubling topics. I am grateful and humbled by all the recent annual renewals I have received and I want to encourage others to join my cause.
“There’s no magic cure to the ailments of the local news industry,” a statement from a recent industry survey from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University reported. “Aggressive cost cutting hasn’t solved the problem and is likely making it worse. Policymakers in Washington and in statehouses have so far failed to advance solutions. Philanthropic institutions have stepped up, but there aren’t enough charitable dollars to spare an entire industry.”
To preserve local news and support the necessary innovations and startups these challenging times require, many industry insiders (and battle-tested publishers like myself) are now endorsing an “all of the above” campaign. This must be led by local paid readership and donations. Without such grassroots support any survival plan is a nonstarter. But supplemental grants, other philanthropy and some level of public (government) support also will be required.
Continued innovations on how to gather and deliver the news must continue as well. Sharp responses must be mounted against the “dumbing down” and plagiarism of the behemoth social media platforms and “attention grabbing” channels like YouTube, TikTok and others.
There are dozens of feisty startups (almost entirely digital-only) providing various forms of community news and accountability journalism across America these days. These efforts are being run on high-emotion and low-cash reserves which is not a sustainable business model. But, wherever these local news outlets are found to be blossoming, they deserve the support of their local audience and community. (See below for the local example of The Sebastopol Times, another Substack journalism voice.)
A News Desert called ‘Sonoma?’
Fortunately, or unfortunately, my home base in Sonoma County may soon become a prime testing ground for this set of strategies as mentioned above with the recent sale of the Press Democrat newspaper group to Alden Global Capital. This hedge fund has been called to be a “vulture capitalist,” “bottom feeder” and “destroyer of newspapers” by several industry analysts.
I have been watching Alden Global Capital for a long time and nothing I have witnessed in Alden Capital’s acquisitions and operations of its newspapers leads me to disagree with any of these harsh descriptions.
I am in absolute fear for the future well being of the Press Democrat and its remaining journalism jobs. Alden dismissed the local publisher on day one of its acquisition without notice and has offered “buy-outs” to almost the entire news staff. It has set a goal of cutting overall expenses by 40 percent, we have been told.
Alden, operating as one of its subsidiaries, MediaNews Group, tried to eliminate the job of the local newspaper guild president. And, after 15 weeks of operation they have yet to offer the community any “welcoming” or introductory remarks or overtures. (Can anyone say, “absentee owner?”)
The Press Democrat is 128 years old and is the recent winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. It has contributed vital community leadership through all those changing decades and has been a trusted forum for the region’s public discourse, decision-making and community leadership. It has reliably provided government accountability, local business support, a resource for local arts and culture and a chronicler of the lives, accomplishments, challenges and complexities of a region with more than 600,000 people.
Is this an unavoidable death?
It’s hard to imagine that a community as affluent, progressive and socially engaged as Sonoma County might become a “news desert” in the near future. But there are many signals that are pointing in that direction unless some proactive actions are taken by concerned readers and the local business community.
Alden Global Capital is a hedge fund founded in 2007. It jumped into the newspaper industry in 2010 when it purchased MediaNews Group out of bankruptcy. In 2021 Alden bought The Tribune Company, owners of the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, New York Daily News and many smaller newspapers. Today, Alden is the second largest newspaper company in the United States, behind only Gannett, owner of USA Today.
In a cover story in The Atlantic magazine in 2022, journalist McKay Coppins reported that “Alden has been criticized for its acquisitions of newspapers followed by major staff cuts.” She described Alden’s founders, Heath Freeman and Randall D. Smith, as “no one has been more mercenary or less interested in pretending to care about their publications’ long-term health.”
Why would Alden want to own the Press Democrat? Freeman’s strategy has been to buy “stressed” properties at a low price and sell-off any real estate and cut operations to bare minimums to reap one-time profits. The Press Democrat was not a “stressed” property, but its previous owners, Sonoma Media Investments (SMI), led by Darius Anderson, proved desperate to find a buyer and get out of the newspaper business. The reported sales price was $10 million, less than one-third the price the New York Times paid when it bought the newspaper in 1986 from the Evert Person family. (SMI has owned the newspaper since 2012.)
The Santa Rosa acquisition makes good business sense for Alden and its MediaNews Group because they already own almost all of the newspapers from Monterey to the Oregon border along the California coast, including the San Jose Mercury News, East Bay Times (former Oakland Tribune), Marin Independent Journal, Ukiah Daily News, Lake County Record-Bee and Eureka Times-Standard. In all, MediaNews Group owns 160 newspapers.
With the ousting of previous SMI publisher Eric Johnston, the current publisher of record is Sharon Ryan, whose primary office appears to be in San Jose. Many of the current Press Democrat news staff are quietly circulating their resumes and seeking new job options at other newspapers. Veteran reporter Phil Barber has been quoted by local NPR radio station KRCB as having “guarded optimism” while acknowledging concerns about Alden’s and MediaNews Group’s past track record for downsizing newsrooms wherever they go.
“The first major change was that they liquidated anything that wasn’t nailed down,” said Robert Salonga, a guild leader at the San Jose Mercury News about the purchase by Alden of his newspaper. At the Vallejo Times-Herald, another MediaNews Group newspaper, there is only one full-time news reporter to cover the community of 120,000 people. The MediaNews Group newspapers in Monterey and Salinas have no local newsrooms whatsoever and the papers are produced remotely by copy editors and graphic artists based as far away as Denver.
Outsourcing, condensing business offices and human resource departments and jacking up subscription rates and other fees are all part of the MediaNews Group playbook.
Less than two decades ago, there was a news and newspaper design staff of almost 100 people at the Press Democrat. At its peak in 2004 the Sunday Press Democrat print circulation was 104,000. Today, before Alden begins its full round of anticipated newsroom buy-outs, there is less than one-third of the employee base remaining and the newspaper’s daily print circulation is now less than 20,000, according to U.S. Postal records. About another 14,000 readers are paid digital-only subscribers. (NOTE: These circulation numbers vary according to various sources and calculation methods.)
Alden Global Capital was one of the main subjects of a 2024 documentary titled, “Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink.” The company is also prominently mentioned in the book “Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy,” written by Margot Susca. The book criticizes the wave of private equity firms that now own newspapers “not as a practitioner of journalism and democracy” but as a “peddler of stocks and bonds or any other widget.”
This same commodity-focused, shareholder dividend perspective is what has led to the recent cowardly legal settlements by ABC and CBS television companies in response to threatened lawsuits by Donald Trump. “We’re already feeling the effects of that extraction as the investor class gets richer and misinformation spreads like a virus in the void left by a weakened local newspaper system,” said Susca in a recent interview about her book.
Wait, there’s more bad news
Another nationwide threat to independent media also may bring harm to Sonoma County’s local news landscape. With Congress set to repeal current and future funding for PBS and NPR public television and radio stations, the local KRCB airwaves owned by Northern California Public Media may also face programming or staffing cuts.
Before it is too late, I encourage my local Substack readers to become daily listeners of the KRCB FM 104.9 radio newscasts. Led by News Director Greta Mart, the small news team provides breaking news coverage and feature-length pieces on regional government, economic and environmental topics.
Threats to democracy and community
“News Deserts” was a term popularized in a 2018 University of North Carolina study by Penelope Muse Abernathy. She reported that more than 2,000 newspapers had closed within the previous decade, mostly due to the impact of internet-based advertising and the loss of audience to social media platforms.
Wherever she found a community or region without a local newspaper, Abernathy also found declining voter registration and decreasing election turnout. There were upticks in crime and environmental accidents. Local government budgets grew and cases of graft and corruption by local elected officials increased but were only reported much after the fact, if at all.
Inhabitants of news deserts also reduced their support for local nonprofits and extra-curricular school programs, Abernathy’s and other studies found. Even declines in daily school attendance were attributed, in part, to the loss of a daily newspaper.
Recent history shows that Sonoma County is already turning into a news desert — even ahead of the feared gutting of the Press Democrat. Already gone are the Cloverdale Reveille, The Windsor Times and the print edition of Sonoma West Times & News. The current print edition of The Healdsburg Tribune has become a “ghost” version of its previous years. These “legacy” newspapers, most over a century old, once provided reliable and accountable news coverage of their city governments and school boards. All those newspaper voices went “dark” just three years ago.
Next to go, we fear, will be the Sonoma Index-Tribune and Petaluma Argus-Courier, two community weekly newspapers that Alden (MediaNews Group) just purchased from SMI. Probably first to be shuttered will be The Sonoma Gazette, a free-distribution monthly that also was part of the SMI-Alden transaction.
Readers of these newspapers, now or recently bereaved, are strongly encouraged to join their voices together and organize to reverse the quickening drift toward a news desert in Sonoma County.
My space on Substack here will continue to publish updates on this local news crisis. Subscribe and stay tuned. Also, if you live in or care about Sebastopol and western Sonoma County, subscribe to The Sebastopol Times on Substack now being published by Laura Hagar Rush and Dale Dougherty (
And, as previously mentioned above, pledge your support to KRCB public media (norcalpublicmedia.org) and its daily newscasts and hard-working journalism team.
One final plea
All the journalists and their co-workers at the Press Democrat need your individual support, even as many of you may want to withdraw your support for their new hedge fund private owners. The Pee Dee team of journalists includes both accomplished and award-winning veterans and energetic and strongly committed younger journalists still in their first full-time news jobs.
Follow their bylines and send them notes of encouragement and support. Challenge the new Press Democrat owners to fulfill the 128-year-old legacy of the Press Democrat’s community leadership and trustworthy news forum.
It may look inevitable at this point that many — if not almost all — local journalists at the Press Democrat will lose their jobs. If true, many more livelihoods and quality of life will suffer beyond just the lost newsroom jobs. And that means you, your neighbors and Sonoma County’s next generation.
I’m 80 years old, a retired metallurgist that has lived through the decades of US Reaganomics.
Following WWII, the US created wealth by manufacturing goods imagined by scientists and engineers. But few people have such brains and eventually core competence was commodified by people in business schools. This was fine with the lawyers we elect to government, neoliberal and ‘conservative’. ‘Question everything’ morphed in Monitize Everything; The buildings for Bethlehem Steel were demolished and a gambling casino was built, extracting retirement funds from silly men.
Instead of creating wealth, for example, GE (an evolution of Thomas Edison) under Jack Welch made money by manipulating money.
Democrats and Republicans changed laws enabling media consolidation and eliminated the Fairness Doctrine. The destruction of local media has the support of mainstream corporate media and our politicians that for decades have extracted wealth, sort of eating the seeds.
We few that read Rollie see the symptoms but there is no Center of Disease Control for the virus that is greed and ignorance, and society has rejected inoculation.
Refresh your memory of the path of destruction we have democratically followed:
This is disastous, Rollie! Having subscribed to the PD for over 70 years, reading it daily (online in recent years). Had no idea this was such a sad happening. What is the best thing we can do, as retirees on limited income? Im also a paid subscriber to. Sebastopol Times and very appreciative of the job Laura is doing🤗
Sigh…. First they came for:
I’m 80 years old, a retired metallurgist that has lived through the decades of US Reaganomics.
Following WWII, the US created wealth by manufacturing goods imagined by scientists and engineers. But few people have such brains and eventually core competence was commodified by people in business schools. This was fine with the lawyers we elect to government, neoliberal and ‘conservative’. ‘Question everything’ morphed in Monitize Everything; The buildings for Bethlehem Steel were demolished and a gambling casino was built, extracting retirement funds from silly men.
Instead of creating wealth, for example, GE (an evolution of Thomas Edison) under Jack Welch made money by manipulating money.
Democrats and Republicans changed laws enabling media consolidation and eliminated the Fairness Doctrine. The destruction of local media has the support of mainstream corporate media and our politicians that for decades have extracted wealth, sort of eating the seeds.
We few that read Rollie see the symptoms but there is no Center of Disease Control for the virus that is greed and ignorance, and society has rejected inoculation.
Refresh your memory of the path of destruction we have democratically followed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Stockman
This is disastous, Rollie! Having subscribed to the PD for over 70 years, reading it daily (online in recent years). Had no idea this was such a sad happening. What is the best thing we can do, as retirees on limited income? Im also a paid subscriber to. Sebastopol Times and very appreciative of the job Laura is doing🤗