So he put $5,000 in Sonoma West, an investment that he said made him feel that he was pushing back, in a small away, against forces that have diminished the role of traditional journalism in American society.
“I really depend on the small community newspaper,” Mr. Theis said. “They at least have trained journalists reporting the news, which social media does not.”
Mary Fricker, a retired reporter who worked for the local daily paper, The Santa Rosa Press Democrat, said the national mood had not been behind her decision to invest. She has lived in the area for decades, and write-ups in the local paper about her children and grandchildren fill her scrapbooks.
“I grieve every day over what’s happened to journalism, especially newspapers,” she said. “I need to put my money where my mouth is.”
Many of the same issues that animate communities across California, like an affordable housing shortage and devastating wildfires, are the ones that dominate the pages of Mr. Atkinson’s newspapers. There is a deep affinity for local businesses — witness the two independent bookshops on the town square, and the locally owned hardware stores — and the county’s communities have been more successful than others in the United States in keeping big-box retailers away.
Still, the cost of housing is so high that Mr. Holley, the managing editor, always asks potential new hires if they have a stable place to live.
Mr. Atkinson said he believed that his was the first local newspaper to sell stock directly to readers. Rick Edmonds, the media business analyst at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, said he knew of no other examples, even at a time of great experimentation at the level of local news, with owners testing online pay walls and nonprofit models.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/business/media/local-newspaper-shareholders.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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