A lot has changed in the 14 years since the Colusa County Pioneer Review began serving our community. We have laughed, cried, and celebrated with every setback or accomplishment our Colusa Countians have experienced. For better or worse, through sickness and health, the Pioneer Review has and will always stand hand in hand with Colusa Countians, till death do us part. We will remember to turn out the lights.
The latter statement is becoming less of a promise, and more of a hyperbole.
Trying to compete with social media in a digital age has wrecked the newsprint industry. The pandemic made a worldwide urgent push to living life on the internet, in the cloud, on zoom calls, and on social media.
The “support local” mantra has become “support corporate” culture.
Why support a newspaper when you can go online and read the same story that was swiped from news agencies for free? It’s true. Any valid news story you read on social media was taken from a legitimate source, most likely a newspaper. Or users will unlawfully screen capture, screenshot, or copy and paste content from news sites like a digital aged Robin Hood: “Out to stick it to the man.” This would be less of a concern if newspapers, like the Pioneer Review, didn’t have to rely on reader revenue to pay its bills.
The pandemic and ensuing shutdowns wrecked our advertising lifeline to the point the owner of this paper (me) hasn’t taken a cent from the business in years. The final straw has been the fallout from us doing our job as your watchdog. We hear from countless readers how much you appreciate the fact that we hold leaders accountable and fearlessly defend the citizens of this county and their tax dollars. Doing the right thing and upholding that mandate of the common men and women of this county has come at one heck of a price.
We’ve stood up for the citizens of Colusa County and exposed a plethora of misdeeds, some of which were eventually investigated and confirmed by a grand jury. Yet, those same political figures and government employees campaigned to delegitimize our reporting and called us liars.
The City of Colusa continues down the path of “government media” by publishing an email newsletter – at the expense of taxpayers. They claim it’s to increase transparency, and to inform the public; however, it’s never been or never should be the government’s place to inform the, public, it’s their job to do the publics business. Their elected officials also boast to residents to “get their information” from Facebook, instead of the local newspaper. Shame on them.
The County of Colusa has also entered into the path of “government media” by starting its own taxpayer-funded newsletter to “increase transparency” and to “Inform the public.” If I remember correctly, Supervisor Denise Carter said, “to put a positive spin on” on their news, while hiring an overpriced consultant.
As an insult to taxpayers, these institutions are now begging taxpayers for more of their money because they have a budget shortfall. Colusa, you need your roads fixed, but they pay someone to send you a pretty email newsletter. The Citizens of Colusa County, you need an ambulance, but they’ll pay some fancy social media guru to tell you just that.
As counties, cities, school districts, and other government institutions create their own news outlets, they diminish the work of real journalists and the watchdog journalism that they do. After all, who do you believe, a newspaper, or a press release posted on social media followed with prayer and heart emojis. Can’t go awry with circular reporting from a bunch of “atta-boy” comments from those that work for the institution.
In the last couple of years, we have seen a steady decline in cooperation from local law enforcement on replying to requests. When called upon, some agencies won’t answer our questions; but, instead write a press release, post on social media, and then send it to us “the press” hours or days later. This includes the California Highway Patrol that used to send us incident reports within hours of a collision – now, we’re lucky to get an aimless response with no real information.
While government agencies’ responses to the media will always be in vexation, our local groups, churches, and clubs are also a source of decline. Gone are the years when Rotary and Lions clubs, church groups, or service organizations would send us community event information or public service projects. Instead, they now share on social media and “forget” about their local newspaper. That’s until we don’t show up to cover their event in our pages. Then we’ve become the bad guys – or the worthless “rag.”
Parents will call us enraged when we don’t cover a little league game, or put their children’s name in the paper, because of some accomplishment we weren’t aware of. But the youth organizations will gleefully shout “share our post” on social media. FFA, 4-H, and FBLA reporters are now social media managers and snub their noses at this ancient form of carving letters into stone.
Zuckerberg wont send a reporter to your
city council, or your child’s football game.
Gone are the days of photographs of local elementary students at the fire department on the front page of the newspaper during fire safety month. After all, it’s more important to get them likes and shares on social media.
Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
The delegitimization continues as the support from our local businesses has declined in favor of social media. The dozen or so shares and likes are more important to the businesses, than reaching a targeted audience, and supporting a fellow local, small business.
The Colusa County Chamber of Commerce has even stated to us that, “the Chamber has an obligation to all its members to promote and feel that in this day and age, social media is an integral part of promotion, for Chamber members’ businesses and events,”
As this newspaper is a paying member of the Chamber of Commerce, we are not relevant to them. The Colusa County Chamber of Commerce has willfully, without regard, decided to put all of its efforts in supporting a global, uber-corporate, non-local, business called Facebook that holds no membership. Yet, they will hold monthly “lunch mobs” at “member-only” restaurants, boasting to support our local restaurants. Hypocrisy at its finest.
The Colusa County Fair board and staff also took a stance to only promote the County Fair and its other activities solely on social media. Our readers are not that important to them.
Gone are the days when the casino, hospital, doctor and dental offices, car dealerships, plumbers, electricians, auto repair shops, restaurants, gyms, real estate agents, lawyers, gas stations, grocery stores, hair salons and barbershops, and countless other businesses place their ads in this newspaper.
Their excuse is that they don’t see a value in advertising in the newspaper. Our 1,500+ subscribers mean nothing to them. Those who exist on social media do.
Yet, these will be the same people that will call and wonder what happened on 4th Street last Saturday, or viciously harass us because their grandchild wasn’t in the paper for hitting a home run, or wonder why there wasn’t an obituary published for their childhood best friend.
It takes a village to raise a child; it also takes a community to run a newspaper.
A wise newspaper publisher told me, “You may own the newspaper, but the newspaper belongs to the community. If they want you, they’ll keep you – if not, they’ll bury you.”
I have sacrificed my time, energy, family, reputation and sanity to support you Colusa County. And I try to do a better job each and every day than I did the day before. So, I’m not just asking you to spend your hard-earned money and advertise your business with us because the people of this community need and deserve a strong paper. I’m not just asking you to advertise because I deserve a living wage as opposed to being a partial volunteer in my quest to tell Colusa County’s story. I’m asking you to advertise because I can get your name out there with our platform in a way that never fades away or requires someone to tune into a specific place at a specific time, or else, that ad is no better than the philosophical question of, “If a tree falls in a forest, and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
We may not always say what you want to hear, but we will always try to say what we think you need to hear.
We never expect you to take our opinion as scripture, but we always expect to challenge the way you think and then let YOU decide what is or isn’t right. And I will always stand in a downpour for you to cover your story.
All I’m asking for is a minuscule fraction of the support you give outside corporations. All I’m asking for is the silent majority that privately supports us all day every day through letters, emails, phone calls, or word of mouth to stand behind us the way we try our best to stand behind you. Be our mouthpiece, and encourage your local businesses to advertise. Encourage your groups and organizations to submit items to us; or maybe ask to help cover a local meeting, or event.
Please look at the ads. Visit those businesses, call them, and thank them for advertising. Tell people you saw that ad, that story, that notice, that event brief in the paper. Give validation to our advertisers that you saw their ad and that their advertising dollars have worked.
Encourage friends, family, and neighbors to subscribe to the paper, and encourage them to read the newspaper.
Otherwise, you are closer than you realize to having a news desert in your backyard where the only information you will have about Colusa County is FB rumors, laughable propaganda from government agencies, and Sacramento news channels occasionally coming up for clickbait stories. Or you can try your luck at contacting Mark Zuckerberg at zuck@fb.com. I am sure he’d love to cover your child’s volleyball game.
I love you all, even those I am critical of at times – it’s never been personal. If you cut me open, I will bleed Colusa County. I cannot thank those that support me enough for allowing me to do what I do for this long. I love doing what I do, no matter how bad it hurts sometimes.
As much as I hate asking for help – those that know me, know that it sorely pains me. It appears that, if something doesn’t give soon, we very well may be traveling down a road together that is quickly becoming too narrow for the Pioneer Review to fit.
At the end of the day, Colusa County, you owe me nothing, but you owe your community everything.
If you no longer want me here, kindly let me know. I’ll step aside and relinquish my efforts to the highest bidder; because, I don’t want my last thoughts to be, “What was it worth?”
We have fought for Colusa County for 15 years, and we would love to do it for another 15.
Will you come to our aid in this time of need? If not, please remember to turn out the light. ■