The American Canyon Current keeps flowing
Just over a month ago, the Napa Valley News Group launched The American Canyon Current.
Arguably, this was a crazy thing to do, to start a news publication now when headlines keep telling us that across the country newspapers are closing at a rate of 20 a week. We had, however, several things that inspired the idea.
Foremost was the word from residents who wanted a newspaper to report on their vibrant growing city. “We don’t care if it is just online,” one woman told us. “We just want the news.”
Paul Franson, the editor and publisher of NapaLife, a weekly newsletter chronicling events throughout Napa County, kept saying, “Do you know how much is happening in American Canyon?”
Then, two long-time residents devoted to the city, Fran Lemos and Joanne Bennett, took Paul and me on a tour of the city, getting off the familiar route down Highway 29. We were dazzled. But how could a tiny, fledging non-profit get a new source of news going in today’s climate?
To back up a bit, Marc Hand is the leader of the Napa Valley News Group, which came into being as public benefit corporation, Highway 29 Media, in 2022. Hand, who lives in Yountville, has spent his career working in non-profit journalism, primarily with NPR and PBS. In 2022, seeing the rate at which communities were losing their local papers, he co-founded The National Trust for Local News, to save an endangered species, the community newspaper.
Paul Franson and I are among the journalists Hand has enticed to lending a helping hand.
Why is community news important? It’s where you find the news you won’t get anywhere else. When there is big state or national or international news, you can find coverage from all kinds of sources, but the community newspaper is the place where you can learn what the city council is doing, what’s new from the schools as well as who your neighbors are and what they are up to, what events are happening this weekend. In this way, it becomes the thread that holds a community together.
While Hand was working on a national scale, he was approached by neighbors asking him to help save the local Yountville Sun, which was at risk of shutting down after 20 years because the founder and publisher wanted to retire. It turned out that the same thing was happening upvalley with the independent Calistoga Tribune.
Highway 29 acquired these two papers and kept them running, but had a broader vision and mission: to provide accessible, reliable, professional news, locally owned which serves the entire county. This year, Hand decided to turn Highway 29 into a fully registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit (now known as the Napa Valley News Group), in the face of another threat to community news: the acquisition of newspapers, by profit-driven corporations.
The fledgling news group got a tremendous boost with the arrival of Mariela Gomez, to take a position funded by the Napa Valley Community Foundation, with a mission to provide much needed bilingual news in the county. She has since founded Conéctate, a free, weekly bilingual newsletter, the only publication of its kind.
This spring the Napa Valley News Group added to its publications The Napa County Times, a free, online collection of stories from throughout the valley.
Gomez, however, who lives in American Canyon, added to the conversation about the need for a publication for her new city. The question was: how could an organization, operating on a shoe-string, with a tiny staff, do it?
How did we do it?
Then answer came when the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism provided two student interns for the summer.
We decided their project would be: find a way to cover the news in American Canyon.
Fortunately, Xavey Bzdek and Fiona Ulrich were not only dauntless and talented, but as they began to know American Canyon, they fell for this diverse and welcoming city.
The result was The American Canyon Current, a weekly newsletter with a name inspired by the signs in the wetlands, “Beware! Strong Currents.”
We set a goal of getting 2,000 people to sign up for it by Aug. 31. If this happened, we promised to keep it going after summer’s end.
And they did it. Well, to be accurate, they and the community of American Canyon did it. As of Wednesday, Aug. 27, as our dynamic duo returned to start their second-year classes at Cal, the number of people signed up for The Current is in excess of 2,000.
While Xavey and Fiona plan to continue to contribute stories as much as they can, we are extremely fortunate that Kerana Todorov has joined our effort to continue to provide news for what we hope will be a growing newspaper.
Todorov is a veteran reporter, who once covered American Canyon, and has also written about education and most recently the wine industry.
What she said when she learned about The Current: “There are so many stories there.”
And there is more good news. In September we will welcome a new fellow to the News Group from the California Local News Fellowship Program, which is administered by UC Berkeley. Griffin Jones’ beat will be American Canyon, and she has told us she is looking forward to continuing the good work started by Xavey and Fiona.
One of the most asked questions, we are hearing is: will it become a printed newspaper?
The answer is: it depends. While many people tell us they like getting a printed newspaper to peruse, others say they are just as happy to read news online. They key thing is getting the news. In Yountville, the Sun has transitioned from a weekly print edition to online with considerable success. The Calistoga Tribune is now weekly print paper with an online edition.
The deciding factor is cost: it’s far more expensive to print a paper than to produce it online and we want to keep the paper free for everyone to read.
Either way, however, we are excited to forge ahead with the American Canyon Current.
How can you help?
If you have already signed up, spread the word to your friends and neighbors to sign up at https://theaccurrent.com/.
Keep us on our toes, with tips and story pitches. We also welcome contributions of opinion pieces and letters to the editor. Email editor@theaccurrent.com with queries.
And if you are interested in writing, let us know. We are looking for talented writers, especially sports and arts enthusiasts to keep everyone apprised of what’s happening at the outstanding American Canyon schools.
If you are a business, consider supporting your local news source with advertising. The American Canyon ad representative is Carolyn Nichols, carolyn@theaccurrent.com.
Keep in mind that you can run legal notices through the News Group that will appear in print, as required, in The Calistoga Tribune but will also run online in The American Canyon Current. Contact legals@highway29.com.
And, of course, while we want to keep The American Canyon Current free to read, we always welcome gifts and donations. Contact marc@highway29.com or visit the Napa Valley News Group website.
But most of all thank you for your enthusiasm and support in keeping The American Canyon Current going strong.
