Tag Archives: Print journalism

The Vallejo Sun – Benicia residents should think about subscribing!

Local journalism is so important…

By Roger Straw, September 27, 2023

The Vallejo Sun is celebrating it’s second anniversary, and has earned my respect with excellent in-depth reporting on police, local government, schools, arts, and local events.  Recently, I re-subscribed with a voluntary increase in my annual renewal amount. You can subscribe here.

Understand – I’m a longtime supporter of our own small town press, the Benicia Herald, and our next door neighbor paper, the Vallejo Times-Herald. And gosh, wouldn’t ya know, I read the Benicia Independent, yes! I hope you do, too, because local journalism isn’t on firm ground anywhere in the U.S. these days. We need a variety of perspectives – and no one source can cover it all.

Here’s how Scott Morris of the Vallejo Sun puts it on the occasion of the Sun’s second anniversary:

Scott Morris, co-founder of the Vallejo Sun. Scott is a journalist who covers policing, protest, civil rights and far-right extremism. His work has been published in ProPublica, the Appeal and Oaklandside.

Dear readers,

I’m writing because the Vallejo Sun just passed a major milestone: Our second year anniversary. While this is cause for celebration, it remains to be seen whether we can keep going for another year. So I’m also asking for your help.

We founded the Vallejo Sun in 2021 because we saw a need for in-depth reporting about local government, policing, and extremist movements in the region. In 2022, we expanded to cover Vallejo’s rich arts and culture.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our in-depth reporting on police, local government, schools and arts, and have found our extensive event listings useful. We think it’s important to bring you the best information available. But we can’t do it without your help.

This year we’ve overcome some challenges. Our founding member John Glidden departed for a new role with the county. Upheaval at social media companies has made it harder for news publishers to reach consumers.

But we remain committed to bringing you the news and added six new contributors in the last year. These new voices have expanded our breadth of coverage and brought you even more of the in-depth news you’ve come to expect from us.

For the first time, you can make a tax deductible contribution to the Vallejo Sun through our fiscal sponsor, the Alternative Newsweekly Foundation. Your contribution means more work for local journalists and more thought-provoking, impactful stories.

Click here to make a tax deductible donation to the Vallejo Sun.

Click here to become a paid subscriber to the Vallejo Sun.

Alden Capital bought the Times-Herald, cut staff, moved facilities, weakening coverage of Vallejo, Benicia and American Canyon

National news stories rip owners of Vallejo Times-Herald

By Roger Straw, October 23, 2021

Four national news sources have named the Vallejo Times-Herald in the last two weeks, in stories citing a corporate hedge fund that is gutting newspapers.  (See links below.)

On Thursday, the PBS News Hour published How this ‘vulture’ hedge fund’s gutting of local newsrooms could hurt Americans. Judy Woodruff begins the discussion, “The hedge fund Alden Global Capital has been acquiring scores of U.S. newspapers across the country — then gutting newsrooms and selling off assets. It’s part of a larger trend in the erosion of local news and related jobs in the last decade.”

In three of the four national news stories, former Times-Herald reporter John Glidden is mentioned.

This reporter, John Glidden, told me that he started out as a general assignment reporter, which meant he was kind of covering local crime and community events and whatever came up. Within a few years, he was the only hard-news reporter left in town. He said he had this legal pad that he kept at his desk where he would write down tips that he got from sources. And a lot of them were tips for stories that he knew were important but that he would never get to. He was ultimately fired after criticizing Alden in an interview with The Washington Post. But, you know, when I talked to him, he said it was heartbreaking to see what this once-proud newspaper serving this proud city had been reduced to under Alden’s ownership.

– A Martinez, NPR Business News

Local readers should note that John Glidden has recently joined with Brian Krans and Scott Morris to publish an independent online news publication, The Vallejo Sun.  Another former Times-Herald reporter, Katy St. Clair, also started her own online news medium, katystclair.comThe Benicia Independent has been in operation since 2007, providing news and views on Benicia, Vallejo, and select issues of concern including climate change and the environment.

Here are links to all four national news stories mentioning the Vallejo Times-Herald:

How this ‘vulture’ hedge fund’s gutting of local newsrooms could hurt Americans (Full transcript)
PBS News Hour, by John Yang & Ryan Connelly Holmes, Oct 21, 2021

When this hedge fund buys local newspapers, democracy suffers (Full transcript)
NPR KQED Business News, by A. Martinez, October 18, 2021
The Chicago Tribune Is Being Murdered Before Our Eyes – And it’s a serial killing
GEN, by Cory Doctorow, October 17, 2021

A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms – Inside Alden Global Capital
The Atlantic, by McKay Coppins, October 14, 2021