The closure of Del Norte County’s only newspaper after 146 years of service is a painful blow. It’s not merely the end of a business but the loss of a vital civic institution—one that cannot be easily replaced.
As the publisher of Siskiyou News, now a paper of record, this hits close to home. I founded our weekly newspaper because I saw the warning signs. If Gannett deems the Siskiyou Daily News and Mount Shasta Herald unprofitable, we could face the same fate as Del Norte County.
Siskiyou County has already lost newspapers. The Dunsmuir Tribune Weekly, launched in March 1926, is gone. The Pioneer Press of Fort Jones, founded by Gary Mortenson on November 16, 1972, served Scott Valley as the official newspaper of the State of Jefferson until it ceased print publication in 2010. When Daniel Webster, who acquired the Pioneer Press in 1998, transitioned it to digital-only, he built local Facebook news pages to fill the gap.
