www.montereycountynow.com APRIL 9-15, 2026 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 17 I’ve written in this space before about challenges facing the media industry, but this week I am here to report good news about a groundswell of support for community news happening statewide and nationally. Thursday, April 9, is the first-ever Local News Day. It is a national day of action connecting Americans to local, independent and trusted news sources. It is the result of a grassroots campaign dreamed into existence by John S. Adams, the executive director of Montana Free Press. In just the last three months, the initiative has enlisted over 1,300 local newsrooms nationwide to participate. Adams explains that the program is inspired by the success of Giving Tuesday and Earth Day. “This is a model we can replicate. We want to build an organic mass movement where everyday Americans are coming together to make it a national day of celebration around local news,” he says. Here at Monterey County Weekly and Monterey County Now, our goal is to gain 3,000 new subscribers this week. At present, we have just shy of 30,000 subscribers to the daily Monterey County Now e-newsletter. To get to our goal, we are asking for your help. If you think local health care reporting is informative, culture writing evocative or reporting on a city council vote is important, then it seems like you are a believer in local news. If you’re a reader who thinks knowing about Monterey County’s food and wine scene or where to go to hear live music makes you more connected, then you’re already engaged with the mission of Local News Day. The fact that you are reading this column shows you’re interacting with our coverage—for that, thank you. This week, I’m asking you to step up and become an ambassador. If you hand over this edition of the paper or forward a Monterey County Now e-newsletter this week to three people in your network and suggest that they subscribe to the newsletter, together we can help make the local information ecosystem healthier and more sustainable. There is no cost to subscribe to the newsletter. The same is true of our website and the print edition of the paper—all are entirely free to readers. In Sacramento, there is also a flurry of activity taking place to help shore up the news industry. In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 155 into law, establishing the California Civic Media Program and authorizing the economic development agency GO-Biz to empanel a nine-person advisory board to propose how to distribute $20 million this year to eligible California journalism entities. (I am one of those nine board members.) The $20 million is the first tranche of what I hope will become an annual allocation. It comprises $10 million in state funds matched by $10 million from Google. GO-Biz has hired the James B. McClatchy Foundation to act as a third-party administrator and establish guidelines for how newsrooms can qualify, and then distribute the state money. The board has had general agreement that news organization needs to be based in California, have the vast majority of its audience in California and have had media liability insurance for the past 12 months. In addition, all applying newsrooms will have to publicly disclose ownership, have an established media ethics and corrections policy, and not be affiliated with a political entity or lobbying organization. The board reviewed two options for distribution of the money. One is based on prorated funding of newsrooms based on the number of journalists employed; the other is akin to a grant process where newsrooms would apply to fund a specific journalism project. I am strongly in favor of distributing the money based on newsroom headcount as that levels the playing field for all organizations, as opposed to pitting them against each other in a competitive process. The hang-up remains that while the state knows how much money it has to distribute, the best estimate for the number of journalists is imprecise, somewhere between 2,400-3,700. So while the money will be impactful, it will not be transformative. It should be distributed this fall. The good news is that just like you on Local News Day, the State of California believes in supporting local news. Erik Cushman is the Weekly’s publisher. Reach him at erik@montereycountynow.com. News Match Local News Day uplifts the reader side of the community news equation. By Erik Cushman SAFETY FIRST…Squid was oozing around Seaside recently and saw recent improvements to San Pablo Avenue—new medians, new double-yellow lines, new pavement—and thought the two-lane road looked spiffier and safer. But the pedestrian-only bridge between Lincoln-Cunningham Park and Manzanita-Stuart Park remains dangling there in the sky, closed for three years due to unsafe infrastructure. The budget to demolish and rebuild the bridge ballooned to $1.5 million, and the City was counting on U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, to bring home $850,000 worth of federal bacon in the latest federal appropriations package to make that possible. On April 3, Panetta did, and local officials gathered around to praise the funding for the bridge. “This investment represents more than infrastructure,” said Monterey Peninsula Unified School District board member Bettye Lusk, noting the Safe Routes to School alignment. “It’s an investment in our students and families.” According to Jessica Allen, head of school at International School of Monterey, “Its restoration represents not just safety but also belonging, connection, and opportunity to be with people and places in our local community.” That’s a lot of hype (and money) for a bridge that Squid never missed anyway. Squid thought it would have been fun to paint a bright crosswalk between the two parks, and with just a couple of cans of paint and a two-figure budget, Squid would have lent a tentacle to help. BRIDGE TOO FAR…Speaking of bridges, Squid oozed Squid’s way into the County of Monterey Health, Housing, Homelessness and Human Services Committee meeting on March 26 and caught a plea by a weary supervisor over one of the world’s most famous of all bridges, Bixby Bridge in Big Sur. A staff presentation on some mundane government decision was about to begin and up on the screen flashed an image of Bixby Bridge—Squid can’t even count how many county presentations, plus other local entities, use the image ad nauseam in slide presentations—when Supervisor Kate Daniels, whose district includes the Instagram-famous landmark, felt compelled to speak. “I cannot let it pass that in District 5 I struggle very much with the Bixby Bridge and all of the visitation on the Bixby Bridge,” she said, sounding exasperated. Couldn’t they find another image? “I’m sorry to be the one to say that, but I’m tortured.” Squid sympathizes with Daniels’ lament. As beautiful as it is, the image of the bridge is overused and needs to be retired. Especially in a meeting focused on helping people who live under too many bridges in Monterey County—it’s the one bridge that no one can live under but way too many visit. THE LOCAL SPIN SQUID FRY THE MISSION OF MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY IS TO INSPIRE INDEPENDENT THINKING AND CONSCIOUS ACTION, ETC. “We want to build an organic mass movement.” SEND SQUID A TIP: squid@montereycountynow.com
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