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-
INSIDER 2026 CALIFORNIA JOURNALISM AWARDS First Place, Best Newsletter First Place, Breaking News First Place, Investigative Reporting First Place, Column First Place, Enterprise News Story or Series First Place, Immigration Reporting First Place, Agricultural Reporting Monterey County Weekly editorial department (from left to right): Daniel Dreifuss, Katie Rodriguez, Dave Faries, Aric Sleeper, Royvi Hernandez, Sloan Campi, Pam Marino, Chrissa Olson, Erik Chalhoub, Agata Pope¸da, Celia Jiménez, (seated): Sara Rubin. Not pictured: Joseph Treviño. Second Place, General Excellence Second Place, Public Service Journalism Second Place, Coverage of Business/Economy Second Place, Food Writing/Reporting Second Place, Photo Essay The stories themselves were impactful, too, from spotlighting beloved local businesses to voting guidance to event attendance. While it can be hard to measure those impacts, we are always happy to receive anecdotal reports of these impacts. The winners in the Readers’ Poll are rightly proud of the recognition they received, and some readers have already reported going to check out the new-to-them Best Of winners. A cover story published in April that brought the widespread use of Flock cameras to the attention of the general public, and helped spur local advocacy groups to take action. That ultimately contributed to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors canceling a 10-year contract with the company just six months later. In another example on an individual but no less important scale, Sally from Pacific Grove wrote on Oct. 15 in response to a newsletter intro about voting: “Your lede literally made me just now get out of my very comfy chair, go over to the kitchen counter, and stack my ballot materials front and center. Thank you! Journalism at its very core…” Similarly unsolicited feedback came in from Denise in Salinas who wrote, “To the Hot Picks staff: Thank you so very much for your coverage of the First Mayor’s House of Salinas. On our open house Saturday, following your article, our visitor count tripled. Most people said they attended for the first time because they saw your Hot Picks article. So many visitors shared with us that they never knew about this site in the historic center of Salinas at Heritage Park. Heritage tourism is alive and well in Salinas with your help.” These impacts, and many, many more are a result of the financial contributions from Weekly Insiders—donors who demonstrate that they value local and independent journalism by making monthly contributions to support our work. To find out how to join them, see the sign-up form on p. 28. FIRST PLACE GENERAL EXCELLENCE • 2024 CA JOURNALISM AWARDS • FIRST PLACE GENERAL EXCELLENCE • 2025 CA JOURNALISM AWARDS • SECOND PLACE GENERAL EXCELLENCE • 2026 CA JOURNALISM AWARDS • 2026 Publisher of the Year MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY continued from pg. 25 SEPTEMBER 10-16, 2026 MONTEREYCOUNTYNOW.COM LOCAL & INDEPENDENT A CUP OF CONFIDENCE 8 | BUSY BALLOTS 12 | IT’S ALL GREEK 31 | THE SPIN ON YAMAGUCHI 36 Salinas Valley growers are still feeling the fallout of a cyclospora outbreak in iceberg lettuce this summer. p. 20 By Katie Rodriguez OH, SH*T Ariel Mar “Fremont Peak” Debbie Tanimura “Lilialanaikawai” Vol. 3 SEPTEMBER 12-13 & 19-20, 2026 SAT. & SUN. 11 AM - 5 PM Presented by EXPERIENCE ARTISTS OF MONTEREY COUNTY during this Free, Self-Guided Tour C M Y CM MY CY CMY K OSAT Magazine Guide Cover 2026 cmyk6a.pdf 1 6/11/2026 4:57:00 PM open-studios-guide_2026.indd 1 7/16/26 3:18 PM The official Open Studios Art Tour guide is inside
ticipate in civic life and hold local institutions accountable. Since its launch in May 2026, the publication has built a growing body of reporting focused specifically on Salinas and the surrounding Salinas Valley, while creating new opportunities for residents to share story ideas, experiences and perspectives with local journalists. The news that got covered in the past five months was both routine and extraordinary. Salinas Valley Now posted stories about the opening of Palomas Cafecito, the new brickand-mortar coffee shop in North Salinas; the inaugural public art installation Alebrijes & Nahuales: Fantastic Animals from Mexico, featuring 10-foot high, brightly painted wooden sculptures from Oaxaca; fan fest watch parties at the Salinas Regional Sports Complex during this summer’s FIFA World Cup; and the brief demise and quick return of El Grito, a cultural celebration for Mexican Independence Day. The stories reported in Salinas Valley Now also included plenty of hard news stories that ranged from a proposal for more funding for Flock cameras in South County to businesses setting up at the new ag-tech incubator Reservoir Farms, or the Board of Supervisors voting to outlaw the construction of ICE detention facilities, or Taylor Farms being at the center of the national cyclospora outbreak. This is what community investment in local journalism makes possible: not simply more news, but a better-informed and more connected community. To sign up for the newsletter, go to SalinasValleyNow.com A LARGE AND IMPACTFUL AUDIENCE INSIDER 58,872 readers per week 41.2% average open rate $17,166,426 total raised in 2025 MONTEREY COUNTY GIVES! 8,048 total number of donors 20,323 average net circulation 2.7 readers per copy 27,500 subscribers (MailChimp campaign report 5/1/26 - 5/31/26) (Campaign totals for 2025) Monterey County Gives! is a special project of Monterey County Weekly in partnership with the Community Foundation for Monterey County and the Monterey Peninsula Foundation. LARGEST PRINT AUDIENCE IN THE MARKET 50% GREATER THAN THE INDUSTRY AVERAGE 141,000 average monthly unique visitors MONTEREYCOUNTYNOW.COM 41% access via mobile phone 460,000 average monthly page views (Google analytics October 2026) WITHOUT A PAYWALL SINCE 1996 OVER $99 MILLION RAISED SINCE 2009 PRINT JULY 9-15, 2026 MONTEREYCOUNTYNOW.COM LOCAL & INDEPENDENT FIREWORKS TAKE THE HEAT 10 | A COUNTRY STAR 30 | AT HIGH SPEED 33 | OFF THE PITCH 36 Angélica Negrón is changing the face of the Bach Festival, and the way we listen to music. p. 20 By Agata Popęda • How a long-time Big Sur artist cultivated space for Bach BACH AND FORTH APRIL 16-22, 2026 MONTEREYCOUNTYNOW.COM LOCAL & INDEPENDENT 24 HOURS OF BIKING 8 | PAY TO PARK 12 | SUNNY STREETS 15 | CELEBRATE EARTH DAY 26 | REGGAE ICON 31 FIRST PLACE GENERAL EXCELLENCE • 2025 CA JOURNALISM AWARDS • Returning favorites join new adventures at Sea Otter Classic, where trials await the athletes and the volunteers behind them, on and off the course. p. 20 PUMP IT UP JANUARY 8-14, 2026 MONTEREYCOUNTYNOW.COM LOCAL & INDEPENDENT SONGS OF TRANSITION 5 | HOSTEL TAKEOVER 6 | ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM 23 | INTO THE FRYER 30 FIRST PLACE GENERAL EXCELLENCE • 2025 CA JOURNALISM AWARDS • As Julie Packard prepares to retire from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, she reflects on the state of ocean science. p. 14 By Katie Rodriguez UNCHARTED WATERS 6,453 subscribers SALINAS VALLEY NOW 58.2% average open rate 435 bilingual stories published WEBSITE MONTEREY COUNTY NOW NEWSLETTERS SALINAS VALLEY NOW continued from pg. 25 (MailChimp campaign report 5/15/26 - 10/15/26)
THE NEW MODEL TO FUND JOURNALISM INSIDER INSIDER JOIN US NOW Go online at insider.montereycountynow.com Or by mail: 668 Williams Ave., Seaside, CA 93955 Your contribution level: $500 $150 $50 $20 $15 $10 Other $_______ Contribution schedule: Monthly Annual One-time Name_________________________________________________________________________ Address_ ______________________________________________________________________ City, State, Zip__________________________________________________________________ Email_ __________________________________ Phone________________________________ May we include your name in public acknowledgments? Yes How would you like your name to appear___________________________________________ No, I would prefer to be anonymous Payment: Credit card number_ ____________________________________________________________ Expiration date __________________________CVV code_ _____________________________ Name/Billing address (if different from above) ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ For more info: linda@montereycountynow.com (831) 394-5656 102226 The Impact You Can Make As a business and a journalism enterprise, we here at the Weekly are both lucky and good. As I hope you have gleaned from the preceding couple of pages, we’ve earned awards, delivered impactful local stories and increased the number of people we employ. We deliver good journalism week in and week out; our advertising base, while diminished, remains solid and we live in a place that backs up its values with generosity. But the deck is stacked against us. We have operated for close to 40 years on the notion that if we produce trustworthy writing, we will attract an interested and dedicated audience. In turn, we have then gone to business owners in the community and suggested that they run ads in our pages and on our digital platforms to invite that audience to come do business with them. It was and is an elegant transactional relationship. You will find many of the most successful businesses in the county advertising in our pages and on our platforms. Without them we wouldn’t be here. The next time you find yourself patronizing an advertiser, please tell them you saw their ad in our pages. It is against that backdrop that we initiated our Weekly Insider program in 2020. Since that time we have been buoyed by the results. In the current media landscape, direct financial support from readers is a vital part of a sustainable business model. It too is elegant; it’s a connected relationship where the people who value local and independent journalism help underwrite the costs. We have also embarked on direct appeals to foundations and philanthropic partners to make contributions via our fiscal sponsor and we are happy to report that this new model is working. In the past year we received four major grants of $20,000 or more. At the same time over 4,400 of your friends and neighbors have made a direct financial contribution to fund our work, joining a select group we call Weekly Insiders. Those investments have been put to good use: they have helped to fund the startup costs of Salinas Valley Now and our newsroom expansion. If you are not yet one of them, and you value the paper, the newsletters and the websites, this is our request for you to take action. Will you join them and make a contribution today? If you are already an Insider, or an advertiser, allow us to thank you again. Your support helps us deliver great journalism. —Erik Cushman, Publisher 4,428 Total number of Insiders 250 Goal for new Insiders in October 2026 $172/year Average contribution level THE AVERAGE CONTRIBUTION LEVEL IS UP 40% INSIDERS Source: LGL constituent report 10/26
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