By Roger Straw, February 4, 2020
Announcement from p. 3 of the January 12, 2020 edition of the Martinez News-Gazette
The news is still a bit sketchy, but today I heard from Nick Sestanovich, former editor of the Benicia Herald, commenting on my story yesterday, “News of the death of Martinez News-Gazette was premature…”
Nick pointed out that the editor of the Martinez News-Gazette “was able to find another company to continue publishing the paper as a weekly.”
P. 1 of the January 12, 2020 edition of the Martinez News-Gazette
The print edition is a full color Sunday paper, and it looks great! Here’s an online pictorial copy of the Sunday, January 12 edition. The announcement on page 3 goes like this: “Martinez News-Gazette Continues! PCM Publishing LLC, owner of The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle along with Rick Jones, editor of the Martinez News-Gazette for the past six years announce the continuation of the Martinez News-Gazette. In the upcoming weeks look for a new, full-color edition of the Gazette to be published weekly. We will continue to provide the best hyper-local news coverage in Martinez.”
P. 1 of the January 19, 2020 edition of the Martinez News-Gazette
It’s something of a sleuth job to discover other online versions of the print publication. I was able to locate the January 19 edition at martinezgazette.com/martinez-news-gazette-jan-19-2020, but subsequent editions either didn’t get posted online, or they are following some other URL protocol.
The new owner (or co-owner along with Rick Jones?) is PCM Publishing. I’m not sure, but pcm.com might be the company in question.
HERE IN BENICIA… we are hopeful that if and when Benicia Herald owner (and former owner of the Martinez News-Gazette) David Payne realizes that his 121-year-old Benicia treasure has – for several years now – hit rock bottom, he is able to find a backer and sell, so that Benicia continues to have a local newspaper, and a more vibrant one at that.
There’s no reporting on this out there, but I stumbled on a fresh reference to the Martinez News-Gazette while googling for something, can’t remember exactly what.
Hmmmm… wasn’t it the 161-year old Martinez News-Gazette that announced its last issue and published a final edition in December of 2019? Yep – see my Dec 28 repost of the San Francisco Chronicle article, “The latest “news desert” – Martinez News-Gazette closes“.
But it lives! At least the online edition, which seems vigorous and healthy at martinezgazette.com. Check it out.
I can’t find anything that confirms yes or no as to a print edition. Guess I’ll have to venture over the Benicia-Martinez bridge to find out.
This is good news for those of us in Benicia, where our ancient local news outlet, the Benicia Herald, is owned by the same guy who owns the Martinez News-Gazette. I hope our fears of becoming more of a “news desert” are somewhat diminished, if not banished. (The Herald publishes a print edition only 3 times per week and occasionally online.)
Here’s weekly opinion writer Bill Sharkey’s delightfully rambling account of the surprise resuscitation of his old friend, the Martinez News-Gazette:
WHAT HAPPENED? You tell me! Whatever it was, it was mighty fast. And, here we are again. No longer an unemployed volunteer columnist. Hardly a day off to consider my future. Perhaps, just as well! Reflecting on my past keeps me well occupied; it’s been such a long past. Maybe good for a cheap autobiography?
It seems there was an ‘obituary’ notice in the old Morning News-Gazette on Page One announcing in advance the pending demise of the 161-year-old newspaper which had its founding in September 1858, and continued under a variety of names until the planned death on December 29, 2019. Strange, stating a specific date of a death of something in advance? Oh, well!
So, after the Page One shocker announcement hit the streets (newspaper talk), people were definitely shocked. What would we do for local news? How would we keep apprised of upcoming events? How would Martinez P.D. tell us if there were bad guys lurking in our neighborhoods? What music groups would be playing at Armando’s next week? Where are the beavers? Who is planning to run for political office? What is the legal profession doing if we don’t have Barbara Cetko’s legal advertising to keep us current? When is the next crab feed fund-raiser which we certainly can’t afford to miss?
No wonder there was distress, concern, mourning in the community. It would be like losing a dear friend, or favorite aunt, or worse. Wow!!
Then, talk began to filter through the gloom. There might be something cooking to continue the Gazette or, as Harriette Burt has always fondly called it, “The Gazoo”. However, the publisher, known for a lack of communication technique, any conversation regarding speculations of things to come was not coming forth. So, plans moved ahead for the final day’s publication. Many news writers, civic leaders, readers, business folks gathered their forces and provided an historic final edition of the Morning News-Gazette, the 161-year-old purveyor of news and advertising (never fake news!!), maybe a rumor or tad of gossip along the way. As a famous newspaper has stated, “All the news fit to print”.
THEN, as the old story line which has been used in plays, etc., a strange thing happened on the way to the funeral for the beloved publication.
The grave diggers had completed their grave digging chores, and were standing by for the procession. Their grave site was prepared according to specifications. A large crowd of mourners had gathered to be part of the services. Anything reaching the venerable age of 161 years deserved proper mourning and respect. They were ready with hankies, tissues and dark glasses. It was a beautiful day in Martinez, a place be happy and safe. But, now a place without a newspaper. How could it be true?
As the gathering of friends, mourners and longtime subscribers waited for the procession to arrive, some began to be restless, began to fiigit. Has something happened, they wondered? What could possibly delay a funeral for such an important member of the community?
Than, ‘the word’ came down from out there some place…there would be no funeral today. What?? Why not?? Answer: The reported demise of The Gazette (for Harriett, the Gazoo) had been apparently premature (not fake news) but, certainly official sounding on Page One the day it appeared. Was it a ‘played closed to the vest’ move, or was it a case of saved by the bell? Hopefully, we will hear the story one day soon. All of us are most anxious to know what is ahead. Meanwhile, how about a cup of coffee and a print newspaper to read? I will buy!
WE ALL KNEW 2020 was going to be an exciting (?) year, right?!? What we did not know was that our unfit Oval Office Person was going to get us into another potential war in the Middle East. As of my deadline, we are still just (just!?!) in the back and forth threatening stage. “If you do this, we’ll do worse”. How did we get here? We got here by ‘hiring’ a know-it-all real estate tycoon from NYC who has no integrity, and no idea of how a president of the United States behaves, or how to lead a nation of good people with ethics and rules of law and order. He also does not know how a leader of this “best nation of all time” should behave when out on the international scene.
When we hear explanations of why we had to assassinate a very popular Iranian general from the Oval Officed Occupant, knowing that has lied or made mistaken facts over 15,000 times since January 20, 2017, how confident can we be that what he and Mike Pompeo are now saying is the truth? Scary? You bet, Mr. and Ms America!!
As we citizens at home are waiting for the BIG BOOM, or whatever the Iranians and their supporters around the world might do, we have our thoughts on the upcoming 2020 national election next November.
OH, YES, THAT!! How do you feel about candidates chasing around the landscape trying to be presidential wannabees? Anyone stand out for whom you would like to plunk down $$ to help? Anyone know the details of the proposals for health care? Have you heard that drug costs are going to increase about five-plus percent in 2020? Make a difference? Or, are you more concerned about the international situation? How about the immigration problems? How about crime in your neighborhood? Then, of course, there are the homeless.
So much of which to be concerned. Or, are you concerned?
CHEERS to those who stepped up to save our local newspaper. As of this columnist’s deadline, we are, fortunately, not in a new Middle East war, the SF 49ers made it to the NFL playoffs, and it looks like we are not headed for another California drought. And, so long to the former Oakland Raiders. If the Warriors can just get it all together!
Restart the presses: California’s oldest weekly newspaper saved
The Los Angeles Times, by Brittny Mejia, January 7, 2020
Don Russell works in the Mountain Messenger newsroom in Downieville, Calif.(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
The state’s oldest weekly newspaper, which once published Mark Twain, will keep printing after a California retiree stepped in to save the day.
Carl Butz, a fourth-generation native Californian, is taking over the Mountain Messenger, which is based out of his hometown of Downieville.
The 71-year-old has been friends with Don Russell, the editor-publisher of the paper, since moving to the town in the 1990s and was aware of his troubles trying to sell the paper over the last year.
Russell planned to retire by the middle of January. On Thursday, he told the printer the paper would soon cease publication. Russell ran the numbers and told Butz, “It’s hopeless … don’t do this.”
The next day, Butz came in with a check.
“I said, ‘OK, it’s not going to cost that much — I’m going to save it,’” Butz said. “I’m going to try and make sure the thing survives.”
Butz is aiming for a nonprofit model and wants to rely on more volunteers to help fill the paper, which for a long time has fallen on the paper’s two full-time employees, Russell and Jill Tahija.
He’s already found a woman in Sierra City who wants to cover the Board of Supervisors meetings, he said, and staff will send out subscription renewal cards once more.
Copies of the Mountain Messenger. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
As newspapers shut down nationwide, Butz is happy to keep the Mountain Messenger going.
The Martinez News-Gazette printed its final edition last week, after 161 years of publishing. The paper, which covered the city of Martinez, the seat of Contra Costa County, had been losing money.
“There’s just been this rash of these things across the country; you lose the community,” Butz said. “I think we need to have newspapers.”
The Mountain Messenger, which publishes on Thursdays, has a circulation of about 2,400. The paper dates to 1853, when it was started as a twice-monthly publication.
It became the Mountain Messenger in 1854 or 1855 and moved to La Porte, and then to Downieville, a Gold Rush community about 110 miles northeast of Sacramento.
The paper’s claim to fame is that Twain once wrote there while hiding out from the law. He was only there for a couple of weeks, writing under his real name, Sam Clemens, according to Russell, who read some of his articles on microfilm.
“They were awful,” Russell said in a previous interview with The Times. “They were just local stories, as I recall, written by a guy with a hangover.”
Russell became co-owner of the paper, known around the area as the “Mountain Mess,” in the early 1990s. The Jan. 16 edition will be his last in his current role.
“I don’t have to clean out the office. That’s a huge relief,” Russell said. He is planning to take a vacation with his wife on the 20th, but his association with the paper “will continue for the foreseeable future.”
“It’s the absolute best thing I could have hoped for,” he said. “I get to do the stuff I like to do and not have to do the stuff I don’t like to do.”
In this Dec. 13, 2018, photo, press operators check the freshly printed issue of The Mountain Messenger, California’s oldest weekly newspaper, at the pressroom of Feather Publishing Co., in Quincy, Calif. The paper began in 1853 as a twice-per-month publication; its claim to fame is that Mark Twain once wrote there under his real name, Sam Clemens. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via AP)
DOWNIEVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A retiree has canceled an around-the-world trip to save California’s oldest weekly newspaper, which was set to shut down when its editor retires this month.
The paper began in 1853 as a twice-per-month publication; its claim to fame is that Mark Twain once wrote there under his real name, Sam Clemens. He was there hiding out from authorities in Nevada, where he had accepted a challenge to a duel after dueling had been outlawed, Don Russell, 70, the current publisher who is retiring told SFGate.
Carl Butz, 71, says he is taking over the Mountain Messenger, which is based out of his hometown of Downieville and covers two rural counties northeast of Sacramento. Terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.
“I’ve been a widower for three years and this is a new chapter in my life,” Butz, who lives in an off-the-grid cabin, told SFGate. “What am I going to do? Go on another trip around the world? Instead, I’m doing something good for the community, and I feel good about it.”
Known around the area as the “Mountain Mess,” the paper covers school board meetings, federal land use and other issues.
Russell, the Mountain Messenger’s editor-publisher, told The Los Angeles Times he is planning to retire soon and had spent the past year trying to sell the paper but hadn’t received any offers.
Russell became co-owner of the paper in the early 1990s. The Jan. 16 edition will be his last in his current role but he said he plans to continue his association with the paper after he takes a vacation with his wife.
“It’s the absolute best thing I could have hoped for,” he said. “I get to do the stuff I like to do and not have to do the stuff I don’t like to do.”
A retired independent software consultant, Butz plans to run the weekly as a nonprofit and do some writing and editing. He will rely on volunteers to help fill the paper. He’s already found a woman who wants to cover the Board of Supervisors meetings, he said.
As newspapers shut down nationwide, Butz says he is happy to keep the Mountain Messenger going.
“There’s just been this rash of these things across the country; you lose the community,” Butz said.
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