Jeff vonKaenel has weathered wildfires, recessions and getting sued by a mayor in his nearly 50 years running weekly newspapers.
But the Sacramento newsman met his gravest challenge yet last month when public health officials urged cancellations of large gatherings to slow the novel coronavirus’ spread.
Four days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory, the 69-year-old owner of the Sacramento News & Review and sister publications in Chico and Reno made the “brutal” call to stop the presses and lay off 40 staffers.
“This could be the death knell, not only for us but for the dailies that we compete with,” VonKaenel said in an interview.
He hopes the closure is temporary because he doesn’t want to let down employees or readers of his free alternative weeklies, which have fearlessly covered deadly police shootings, casinos’ dark side and Sacramento’s vibrant arts scene. But the advertisers he depends on — restaurants, breweries, small museums and concert venues — were swept up in the economic shutdown, and without their support, VonKaenel can’t cover the $45,000 a week it takes to run his Sacramento paper…
To read the entire article from Los Angeles Times, click https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2020-04-17/coronavirus-local-newspapers-struggle
