Sacramento News & Review suspends print publishing after coronavirus cancellations
The Sacramento News & Review and its sister paper in Chico will suspend its publishing and layoff employees next week as a result of recent coronavirus concert cancellations and declining advertising revenue over the past several years.
In an announcement posted on the SN&R’s website, president and CEO Jeff vonKaenel said the weekly newspapers are forced to lay off nearly all of its employees. He didn’t indicate how many employees will be out of work starting next week.
“The coronavirus-related shutdowns, postponements and cancellations are having a huge impact on these advertisers and our local economy,” vonKaenel wrote in his announcement.
Authorities in the Sacramento region and throughout Northern California have asked residents to stay home to slow the coronavirus spread to protect those most vulnerable from infection of COVID-19 and serious illness. That has resulted in numerous canceled or postponed events, and closed bars and restaurants.
Many businesses have been forced to cut their advertising with SN&R, but he said he hopes the layoffs are only temporary. VonKaenel asked readers to support local journalism by donating online at newsreview.com/sacramento/donate.
SN&R’s advertising revenue for the past 30 years mainly came from local businesses promoting concerts, theaters, galleries and in bars and restaurants.
“But over the last ten years, as more and more businesses have moved their advertising dollars to Facebook and Google, the foundation of the media business model has crumbled,” vonKaenel wrote. “These large internet companies collected revenues without having to generate expensive local coverage.”
It has used its financial reserves before, when expenses were more than advertising revenue, according to vonKaenel, who also is the majority owner of the News & Review newspapers in Sacramento, Chico and Reno. It was unclear how the Reno newspaper will be affected by the print publishing suspension.
The Chico newspaper produced more than 300 stories after the 2018 Camp Fire devastated Paradise, which included award-winning journalism the helped the community cope with the aftermath, vonKaenel said.
The SN&R will continue to provide news and arts coverage online on its blog: sacblog.newsreview.com. He said more than 400,000 people read SN&R each month. Without advertising revenue, the SN&R can’t meet its payroll. He said it cost about $45,000 a week to produce the SN&R, or about 10 cents for each of its readers.
During a crisis, the public needs to know how local governments and public health organizations responding, what’s happening with schools and daycare, and they need to know how local businesses are adapting services, vonKaenel said.
He said the costs of the public not having good information is “staggering.”
