14 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JANUARY 29-FEBRUARY 4, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com Print publishers face rising costs, wealthy competitors and the whims of the federal government in 2026. By Erik Chalhoub Nick Pasculli, the county’s chief public information officer, thanked the staff of the news outlets for the “vital work” they do. “They are our partners in democracy,” he said. “Each of these organizations, large and small, enriches public discourse, raises local voices, uncovers stories that might otherwise be overlooked and holds power to account.” Representatives from only three news outlets attended—Monterey County Weekly, Monterey Herald and KAZU. On the surface, the low turnout was to be expected—news staffers prefer to report on the news, not be the news themselves. But even if the event drew full participation from all of the outlets in Monterey County, the crowd wouldn’t have been much bigger. Staffing is tight among the county’s print, television and radio media, and sparing a staffer for the Tuesday celebration would have been difficult, if not impossible. Perhaps the most notable no-show, due to the location of the ceremony, was the Salinas Californian. Just a block over from the supervisors’ chambers stands the newspaper’s once-thriving but now-decaying former headquarters. For nearly a decade, the two-story building with Art Decoinspired touches has sat boarded up, with weeds growing in the parking lot and the remnants of the newspaper’s sign still etched into its sides. In mid-2017, the Californian moved into an office complex inside a shopping center’s parking lot on South Main Street. But with cuts over the years from its owner, USA Today Co. (formerly known as Gannett), the Californian is down to one reporter, while most of its other operations have been outsourced to other papers in the company. That office is now vacant, and the Californian lists a Northridge Mall address for mailing purposes. Meanwhile, the Californian’s former building at 123 W. Alisal St. remains available for lease. A listing posted by Remax Property Experts shows the state of the building in recent photos. A mural showcasing a stagecoach stands in the lobby, but the former newsroom is in disarray—wires hang from the ceiling and the outlines of PRESS RUNThe agenda for the Oct. 21 meeting of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors was relatively standard: a proclamation here, a budget talk there, with some commission appointments sprinkled throughout. Unremarkable from a news standpoint, as it was mostly routine business that doesn’t generate headlines. Still, news outlets from across Monterey County were invited to attend—the supervisors were scheduled to commemorate Free Speech Week, so the celebration wouldn’t be complete without those in attendance who exercise the First Amendment on a daily basis. The ceremony was also timely, not only because it fell on the nationally recognized date for Free Speech Week, but just a month earlier, KION TV suddenly shuttered its local news operations, representative of the fickle nature of the industry. Newspaper racks still exist, but there are fewer titles and fewer copies of local newspapers printed. DANIEL DREIFUSS
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