www.montereycountynow.com OCTOBER 22-28, 2026 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 25 INSIDER 2026 IMPACT REPORT Bucking national trends On Oct. 13, the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University published the 2026 version of their journalism industry status report, “The State of Local News.” The data tells a bleak story and the narrative is unflinching. The executive summary states: “Seismic shifts in publishing business models, combined with aggressive consolidation by large chains, have led many news media outlets to merge or shut down entirely. These losses, happening in lockstep with a dramatic shrinkage of journalism jobs, have left communities across the country without access to a reliable source of local news. Alarmingly, these trends have shown no signs of slowing. In fact, they’ve been accelerating. “In the past year, 170 newspapers have closed or merged, at a rate of nearly three a week, and many of these were the last remaining source of original news in their communities.” The report here is different. Thanks to the financial support of Weekly Insiders (and the print and digital advertisers who spend their marketing budgets locally), things in Monterey County are different. Backed by a diversified revenue model and with an ambitious set of goals, Monterey County Weekly has not shed jobs, but rather increased the headcount in our newsroom, hired additional journalists and expanded our news outlets in 2026. (See our story about Salinas Valley Now, at right, for details.) In many ways, the expansion of the staff and their reporting was the greatest impact of the past year. Bucking the trends that are engulfing the news industry is impactful. In the past 12 months the Weekly, Monterey County Now and Salinas Valley Now crews (including Squid) published 2,959 stories, from personal newsletter introductions to the 31,100-word Best Of Monterey County® cover story. INSIDER.MONTEREYCOUNTYNOW.COM MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY continued on pg. 26 SALINAS VALLEY NOW continued on pg. 27 Welcome to Monterey County Weekly’s annual report to our Insiders. This is the select group of readers, plus foundation and philanthropic partners, who have made direct financial contributions in support of the company’s journalism and as such have become stakeholders in our project. While typically we relay the details of what’s happening in the community to our readers, in this annual publication we turn our gaze inward and report out some of the impacts from the past 12 months that resulted from the investments the Insiders have made. From the first edition in September of 1988 to today, the mission of the news organization has been remarkably consistent. It is the journalism that has been at the core of the business. Thank you for your support. If you’re not yet a Weekly Insider, you can find a remedy for that situation on page 28. JANUARY 29-FEBRUARY 4, 2026 MONTEREYCOUNTYNOW.COM LOCAL & INDEPENDENT MYSTERY BEHIND THE BRUSH 5 | LAST CALL AT SADE’S 11 | DOC’S FOLLIES 27 | CHOPPED UP 34 FIRST PLACE GENERAL EXCELLENCE • 2025 CA JOURNALISM AWARDS • Years of cutbacks by corporate owners have decimated the daily newspapers in Monterey County. Where does local journalism stand in 2026? p. 14 By Erik Chalhoub STOPPING THE PRESSES PLUS, Spanish-language news media is on the brink. p. 18 By Celia Jiménez Local News for the Salinas Valley In 2026, Monterey County Weekly launched Salinas Valley Now, a bilingual news initiative created to address a critical gap in local journalism. For too long, the people and communities of the Salinas Valley—home to the county seat and more than 250,000 residents, the center of Monterey County’s $11 billion agricultural economy and agribusiness tech hub—have lacked a dedicated source of daily, professionally reported local news. Salinas Valley Now is changing that. Each weekday, journalists deliver local reporting that appears on salinasvalleynow.com, is shared in an email newsletter and via WhatsApp, all in both English and Spanish, at no charge to the reader. Its journalists cover the people, politics, culture, public institutions and issues shaping life across the Valley—from housing and health care to education, the arts, business, public safety, agriculture and immigration. The impact goes beyond the number of stories published. Salinas Valley Now is helping rebuild the civic infrastructure of a region that has experienced a significant loss of local news coverage. By providing accessible, independent reporting, the project gives residents information they can use to understand their communities, par-
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