Last week’s biggest local news was about the local news. That would be us. Maybe you caught the big change, or maybe you didn’t. Let us explain further. Last week we transformed ourselves into SoCoNews and launched a great new website, unfurled a new news flag and launched a new identity. We are SoCoNews, which is short for Sonoma County Local New Initiative, our new community-based nonprofit owner. It’s more than a name change, even though our local news mission stays the same and all the people here are still on board and continuing to work harder than ever.
Our transformation from the privately-owned Sonoma West Publishers to SoCoNews has been taking place over at least the last three years. Our efforts to keep local journalism alive has captured national attention in our industry and all our readers and supporters should feel proud we have come this far against huge obstacles. Since 2009, more than 1,800 newspapers have died and half of all newspaper journalism jobs in America are now gone forever.
How can this be, you must be asking? How can a community function without a dedicated reliable news source? Without a local news organization, who would hold local elected officials accountable? Where would we get essential facts about the pandemic, wildfires or school openings and closings? How would we know how our local taxes are being spent or find out what issues might be on the next election ballot? Don’t we still want to know the local ball scores and prep sports game results? What else is important that might need our support, questioning or volunteer efforts? When we have a local celebration or community event, who will record the local history?
What else gets lost when a hometown loses its local news source? We hope that never becomes a question we have to answer here. And, with our readers’ continued support, we can put that question to rest for the time being. But, just remember, journalism always has been hard work, with many long hours and limited rewards. It’s not just hard work for the journalists, but it takes dedicated support and involvement by readers and the community, too. SoCoNews belongs to you.
The coronavirus pandemic hastened our plans to present more of our local news in a digital format. The high costs of printing and postage — and the severe loss of commercial advertising — was leading us to the inevitable fate of losing our printed versions of our newspapers that have been printed on paper here since as far back as 1865. It’s now been over a year since we suspended the print versions of three of our four newspapers. (The Healdsburg Tribune continues to be published every Thursday.)
All of our local news is now free to everyone, so long as we continue to gain the support of enough local donors, grants and business sponsors. We believe our local news is essential for building a better community and we believe there are enough local people willing to support our local journalism efforts through our new voluntary pay and donation programs. (Visit www.SoCoNews.org to see suggested levels of donations and to learn more abut our mission and new nonprofit structure.)
This month, the owners of Sonoma West Publishers, Rollie Atkinson and Sarah Bradbury, are finalizing their gift of their four newspaper properties to the local communities and to the Sonoma County Local News Initiative. They are not receiving any compensation and are very optimistic that enough community members will join them in keeping local journalism alive here in north and west Sonoma County.
There is no replacement for local news. Fact-based, accountability journalism cannot be found on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Other non-local news sources do not have the hyper-local view, sources and record of trust that Sonoma West Publishers has built over 26 years and is now passing on to SoCoNews. Your ongoing support will be rewarded with a source of local news dedicated to you.
