The Martinez News-Gazette has deep roots, but not deep enough to resist withering changes in the newspaper business. At the end of 2019, the paper will fold.
Founded in 1858, the paper will have completed a 161-year run after witnessing the history of a town that grew from fewer than 700 residents to roughly 38,000.
Martinez is the onetime home of baseball great Joe DiMaggio, the “bocce ball capital of the United States,” and — arguably — the birthplace of the martini. Residents are mourning the loss of their hometown paper. But for journalists, the loss symbolizes something deeper.
The News-Gazette propelled the careers of numerous journalists who went on to make their mark elsewhere. Among them is Elliot Diringer, who reported for the paper in the early 1980s, then wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle before assuming a post at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Later he became Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Press Secretary. Today he is executive vice president at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions in Arlington, VA.
Marc Sandalow, associate academic director of the University of California Washington Program and a political commentator at KCBS radio, among other stations, says the Gazette “gave me a career.”
From 1984 to 1986, he said in an email, “I wrote about proposed subdivisions, car-break ins, refinery fires, and mosquito abatement board meetings. I also had the chance to cover Supervisor Nancy Fahden’s re-election, the flood of 1986, Gary Hart’s visit to Martinez on the eve of the 1988 Presidential election, and how the town handled the shock of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.”
Like many in community news, he experienced the close connection between writer and reader — and the importance of journalism at the local level.
“People who never worked for a small town newspaper can’t appreciate the thrill of watching people reading – even if not liking – what you’ve written,” he said. “I’ve been in Washington, D.C., for the past 25 years, where I’ve been witness to a contested presidential election, the first woman House Speaker, the September 11 terrorist attacks and the impeachment of one, and soon a second, American president. While lane improvements on Highway 4 or proposed improvements to Martinez Waterfront Park are not as weighty, if they aren’t covered by a local newspaper, they won’t be covered at all.”
Small-town newspapers commonly have been hand-to-mouth operations, even before the arrival of competition from social media, blogging and neighborhood websites like Nextdoor. But bloggers and Facebook followers aren’t usually regular fixtures at every school board, planning commission and city council session. Yet somehow, papers like the News-Gazette managed, even with a miniscule staff.
“The Gazette was always a tiny operation,” Sandalow said. “Two news reporters, a columnist and a sports reporter filled three pages of print each day. I remember covering a Pac Bell news conference introducing “Lifeline Rates’’ for the indigent and realizing as I scribbled notes that with my salary, I qualified. I also had the misfortune of having a desk near the bathroom, and shortly after a Roto-Rooter man cleared our pipes, I watched a rat climb out of the toilet. I have never felt so lucky to be a man.”
Carlos Avila Gonzalez, a highly regarded photographer and multimedia producer at the San Francisco Chronicle, likewise got his start in Martinez. The News-Gazette, he said, inspired him to become a journalist.
In a Facebook post, Gonzalez recounted his arrival at the paper and the curiosity it fostered:
“I walked in when I was 8, and became a carrier, bringing it to readers’ homes in the best and worst of weather. I remember slogging through water 2-3 feet high in downtown streets to make sure my customers had it during the flooding of 1982.
“By the time I was 10, I had a key to the office so I could bundle inserts to make a couple of bucks for myself. But that key offered me more than candy and toy money …. It opened my eyes to the amazing world you’d find by asking questions, taking pictures, writing stories and relishing the history of your community.”
Mostly, he said, “I’ll remember my elderly customers, seniors at the Martinez Senior Citizens Center and those living nearby who just loved having their paper and didn’t let you forget when you missed a delivery. For a lot of these folks, the paper was their connection to their community and friends pre-Internet. Well, pre-, pre-, pre-Internet. It showed me the value many people placed in their local papers.”
The News-Gazette is part of a local group of papers owned by David L. Payne, chairman of Westamerica Bank and owner of Gibson Radio & Publishing Co. But in its 20th century heyday, the Gazette was published by Luther Gibson, who also was elected four times to the California State Senate, serving from 1948 to 1968.
Like the News-Gazette, Luther Gibson had deep newspaper roots. According to a California News Publishers Association profile, Gibson started as a newspaper carrier in the Santa Cruz area. “Later he tried his hand at being a printer, and being infatuated by the art, decided to make it his life’s work. He did everything expected of him as an apprentice, from sweeping the floor to setting type to hand-feeding a printing press.”
Gibson died in 1988 at the age of 93.
News-Gazette editor Rick Jones told the East Bay Times there’s some hope the paper will emerge as an online-only publication, but no plan has surfaced. But rescuing the paper will be like swimming against the tide.
Responding to Facebook posts bemoaning the imminent closure, retired News-Gazette reporter Beth Weilenman wrote that she made a pitch to investor and philanthropist Warren Buffet, who declined in a handwritten note.
The trend is unavoidable. In a study called “The Collapse of Local News” by the nonprofit group PEN America, more than 1,800 newspapers have closed in the last 15 years, “leaving more than three million people with no newspaper at all, and more than at least a thousand have become ‘ghost newspapers,’ with little original reporting.”
Sandalow, now far from his beginnings in Martinez, views the News-Gazette’s demise with regret and a touch of nostalgia.
“The town embraced me with open arms,” he wrote. “A small-town newspaper is a civic institution. The city council and school board expected a Gazette reporter to be present. I have no idea how to make the finances work at a time when no one under 50 soils their hands with ink covered pages. However, I know Martinez will be poorer without the Gazette.”