Either by closing shop completely or being gobbled up by publishing conglomerates, independent small city papers are going extinct all across America. A local community newspaper is an endangered species. Either a workable business model must emerge, or printed papers are going to continue to disappear.
Since the death of Val Robichaud last February, we at the Sonoma Valley Sun have been working on just that, building a new model for a community newspaper. Now in our seventh month of printed publication, we’re feeling more confident and resolute than ever. It’s not been easy, but it feels like the right thing to do.
We’ve put out fourteen editions of the paper and like to think that there’s something special about each one. From covering land use issues like the proposed development of the Sonoma Developmental Center, political changes like proposed By-District City Council elections in the City of Sonoma, the School District crisis, sightings of Salmon spawning in local creeks, community organizations like SOS and HAS helping to house and feed people, and local opinion authored by smart folks who live right here in Sonoma Valley, we’ve filled our pages and our website with information and articles of interest to this community. And we’re going to continue.
Entirely supported by advertisers, the generous donations of our reading public, and a few grants, we’ve been able to pay our printing bills and stock the paper in over three dozen distribution points in the valley. By making both the printed paper and our website free to the public, we’ve constantly expanded our readership. And we’re going to continue.
We’ve overcome the harassment of haters who have tried to intimidate us. We’ve endured the displeasure of powerful people, institutions, and sometimes government over what we’ve reported and opinions we’ve expressed. We’ve volunteered tens of hours of work each week to provide the very best in local coverage in a creative and entertaining way. And we’re going to continue.
Val Robichaud was energetic and devoted, but he left little in the way of business structure behind when he suddenly died. We’ve had to completely reconstruct the Sonoma Valley Sun as an ongoing business, relying on the loyalty of our readers first and foremost. We reconstituted ourselves as a 501C3 nonprofit, instituted proper accounting and record-keeping procedures, entirely rebuilt our ten-year-old website to be more dynamic and stable, and began to use a new high-quality printer, who is the most environmentally responsible in Northern California.
All of this requires money, and even though we are a nonprofit, all advertising revenues we receive are taxable and we pay a combination of Federal and State taxes of twenty-one percent. Even after raising our advertising rates twenty percent for 2025, advertising in our paper remains a bargain. As we like to tell our advertisers, an ad in the Sun is not just going to help your business or nonprofit; it’s going to support local journalism that helps the community overall.
The 3,500 copies we print twice monthly disappear almost as fast as we can distribute them. In the coming year we expect to increase the number of advertisers, readers, visitors to our website, and pages in the printed editions. We’re resolved to continue to provide in-depth stories about the people and events that shape our lives here in Sonoma Valley, and to build a sustainable business model that lasts. We thank you for your loyalty and support.
Sonoma Valley Sun Editorial Board
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