www.montereycountynow.com JANUARY 29-FEBRUARY 4, 2026 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 15 long-removed cubicles can be seen in the dirty carpet. The cavernous press room wears the decades of hard use. What appears to be a publisher’s wood-paneled office looks mostly intact, down to the cushy office chairs that remain along with a sturdy wooden desk. Perhaps it was in these chairs where staff learned the paper would be abandoning the building where it had operated since 1949. These images sum up the state of local journalism in Monterey County and beyond. But even in troubled times, bright spots remain. In July 2025, Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News released the Local Journalist Index, calculating the number of journalists across the country by state and county. The index introduced a metric called Local Journalist Equivalent (LJE) that estimates how many journalists are covering local news based on publishing frequency, outlet type and geographic focus. Using Muck Rack’s database of journalists, which tracks more than 3.5 million articles daily, the study found that across the country, there are 8.2 LJEs per 100,000 residents—a 75-percent dip from 2002, when there were about 40 journalists on average for that same number of residents. More than a third of the counties in the nation have less than one LJE. “This new data confirms that the local journalist shortage is more severe and far-reaching than we feared,” Steven Waldman, president of Rebuild Local News, said when the index was launched. Monterey County ranks 1,574th out of 3,141 counties, with 5.1 LJEs. The neighboring counties of Santa Cruz and San Benito stand at 15.4 and 4.6, respectively, but with much lower populations than Monterey County. For print media, the Weekly has 10 editorial staffers, while the daily Herald has six and weekly Carmel Pine Cone lists four reporters and one features editor, in addition to freelance writers and photographers. The Californian, at three days a week, has one reporter who, in addition to covering Salinas, also writes listicles and state news that are distributed across the USA Today Co. network. The paper was even the subject of a lengthy 2023 feature article in the Los Angeles Times titled “The California newspaper that has no reporters left,” chronicling the year the paper had no local staff. The King City Rustler and Salinas Valley Tribune’s editorial staff comprises an editor and a freelance sports reporter. The weekly papers share the same pages on the inside, with different front and back pages. The weekly Pajaronian, which is based in Watsonville but covers North Monterey County, has an editor, a photographer/reporter and a sports editor who also write for other newspapers within the San Jose-based Weeklys publication group that includes the above-mentioned South Monterey County papers. Had recent history not played out the way it did, three local papers would not have lived to see 2026. When Illinois-based News Media Corporation abruptly announced it was ceasing operations after 50 years in business in August, it made local news. At the time of its closing, the company operated roughly 30 publications across five states, but had been downsizing in recent years. In a letter to staff, CEO J.J. Tompkins wrote that the “decision was not made lightly,” as declining revenue and increased expenses, along with a failed sale of the company, led to the closure. It’s bad news every time a newspaper announces its closure, no matter where it is. (Studies show that in an area without a newspaper, known as a news desert, government corruption rises as civic engagement sinks.) But Monterey County readers dodged a bullet. News Media Corporation owned the King City Rustler and its affiliated Salinas Valley papers, along with the Pajaronian from 1995-2019. In 2019, Weeklys purchased those papers, later consolidating the Gonzales Tribune, Soledad Bee and Greenfield News into the Salinas Valley Tribune. (Editor’s note: This reporter worked for News Media Corporation and Weeklys from 2012-2024, including the Pajaronian, Rustler and Tribune.) Weeklys CEO Dan Pulcrano pointed to the company’s history of buying newspapers in danger of closing, from Sonoma County down to South Monterey County. “I believe we saved a number of publications from going under, not only News Media’s but the Gilroy, Morgan Hill and Hollister publications were at serious risk of closure,” he says, adding that the company’s acquisition of the East Bay Express, Pacific Sun and Tri-City Voice staved off their closure. Pulcrano says print media will continue to be in the mix in the future. But operating a newspaper in 2026 is a pricey proposition, with the added expense of printing. Payroll is the biggest expense, he says. As minimum wage increased to $16.90 an hour on Jan. 1, state law requires certain full-time, salaried employees who make at least double the minimum wage to be paid $70,304 annually, up from $68,640 in 2025. “Professional journalists are worth that, and a lot more, in terms of their value to society, but the advertising community is price sensitive, and has a lot of options from services that do not pay to create original content,” Pulcrano says. With traditional sources of revenue such as advertising well below what they used to be (according to a Pew Research Center study, total advertising revenue for newspapers across the country was estimated at $9.8 billion in 2022, down from a peak of $49.4 billion in 2005), publishers must find new Every Wednesday night, 20,000 freshly printed copies of the Monterey County Weekly are delivered to the paper’s Seaside headquarters from the printing press in San Francisco. The distribution team (led by Aaron Thomas, top, with drivers including Joseph Castello, below) deliver papers. DANIEL DREIFUSS DANIEL DREIFUSS
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