{"source_url": "https://www.latimes.com", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-29/californias-oldest-weekly-newspaper-nears-its-final-days", "title": "Mark Twain once wrote for California\u2019s oldest newspaper. Now it nears its final days", "top_image": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/307629e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1075+0+145/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc7%2F48%2Fce941523ee67894080f8743606ee%2Fla-1546565420-hyz5uaqmbn-snap-image", "meta_img": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/307629e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1075+0+145/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc7%2F48%2Fce941523ee67894080f8743606ee%2Fla-1546565420-hyz5uaqmbn-snap-image", "images": ["https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f46209f/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1152x1152+448+0/resize/100x100!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F7e%2F62%2F4ae7ca0bcb474a0c1f4d3044db36%2Fimg-545c07e2-turbine-la-bio-brittny-mejia", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/0e/c6/b86a8b4b43a793259deb28a32a56/latlogoinverse.svg", "data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ef956a6/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1365+0+0/resize/840x560!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc7%2F48%2Fce941523ee67894080f8743606ee%2Fla-1546565420-hyz5uaqmbn-snap-image", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/307629e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1075+0+145/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc7%2F48%2Fce941523ee67894080f8743606ee%2Fla-1546565420-hyz5uaqmbn-snap-image", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f1a3998/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1365+0+0/resize/840x560!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F03%2F30%2F80797f5d175c6f38563307fbcd6b%2Fla-1546565635-2amjsd8o7r-snap-image", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/b9/f5/1c9278c94a439e28f5150c679d6f/logo-full-black.svg", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/4e87128/2147483647/strip/true/crop/988x557+0+0/resize/840x474!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe2%2F5b%2F8e85e16b444494b95fa9b8ab0867%2Fdownieville-paper.jpg"], "movies": [], "text": "Mark Twain was once published in this Northern California newspaper.\n\nMore than a century later, the Mountain Messenger appears to be nearing its final days.\n\nEditor-publisher Don Russell had spent the past year trying to sell the state\u2019s oldest weekly newspaper with no luck. He is planning to retire by the middle of January, at which point publication will end.\n\n\u201cIt does feel like a death in the family,\u201d Russell said. \u201cThe flip side is, it\u2019ll be quite liberating for me.\u201d\n\nAdvertisement\n\nThe news first appeared in the paper\u2019s Dec. 12 edition, with a call for someone to take over the paper.\n\n\u201cAt this writing, it appears the alternative will be to simply close up shop, scrub the ink off the floors, and make some other banner claim to be California\u2019s Oldest Weekly Newspaper,\u201d Russell wrote.\n\nCalifornia\u2019s oldest weekly newspaper could soon close up shop\n\nWord spread quickly through Downieville, a town of about 200 where the Mountain Messenger office is located.\n\nAdvertisement\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t stop crying,\u201d said Jill Tahija, who began at the paper as a typesetter 11 years ago. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of historical value here, as well as sentimental.\u201d\n\nThe paper dates to 1853, when it was started as a twice-monthly publication.\n\nIt became the Mountain Messenger in 1854 or 1855 and moved to La Porte and then to Downieville, a Gold Rush community about 110 miles northeast of Sacramento.\n\nThe paper\u2019s claim to fame is that Twain once wrote there while hiding out from the law. He was only there for a couple of weeks, writing under his real name, Sam Clemens, according to Russell, who read some of his articles on microfilm.\n\n\u201cThey were awful,\u201d Russell said. \u201cThey were just local stories, as I recall, written by a guy with a hangover.\u201d\n\nRussell became co-owner of the paper, known around the area as the \u201cMountain Mess,\u201d in the early 1990s. Before that, he had written stories for the Detroit News and sold feature stories to the Seattle Times.\n\nScott McDermid loads freshly printed copies of the Mountain Messenger, the oldest weekly newspaper in Sierra County, into a vehicle. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)\n\nThe Mountain Messenger, which publishes on Thursdays, has a circulation of about 2,400 on its best day. For the last two years, Russell said, \u201cI haven\u2019t taken a salary to speak of.\u201d\n\nAdvertisement\n\nRussell has run local ads, as well as an ad in the Newspaper Publishers Association, trying to get someone to take over.\n\n\u201cNobody in their right mind would buy this paper,\u201d Russell said, with a laugh.\n\nHe\u2019s tried to give it away, he said, but locally the demographics are against it.\n\n\u201cPeople who read and are still in Sierra County are my age, and they have better things to do than run a newspaper,\u201d the 70-year-old said.\n\nMeanwhile, in another city and after 161 years of publishing, the Martinez News-Gazette is printing its final edition on Sunday. That paper, which covered the city of Martinez, the seat of Contra Costa County, had been losing money.\n\nThe Mountain Messenger has been able to hang on because of income generated from running legal notices. As the only adjudicated newspaper in Sierra County, it is the county\u2019s sole qualifier to publish them under state law. If the paper stops printing, there would be no such outlet.\n\n\u201cEverybody says, \u2018You can\u2019t let the Mess die,\u201d Russell said. \u201cWell, yes, I can. I\u2019ve been trying to get rid of it for two years. ... I don\u2019t want to be a prick about it, but I\u2019ve been doing this for 30 years and I\u2019m tired of it.\u201d\n\nAdvertisement\n\nRussell covers school board meetings, federal land use and everything else in Sierra and Plumas counties \u2014 some of the most rural areas of California. Last week\u2019s edition included a story on the county board of supervisor\u2019s stance on the concept of a customer-owned PG&E, as well reports of a \u201cdamn dog that wouldn\u2019t stop barking\u201d in the sheriff\u2019s blotter.\n\nIt also featured a call to subscribe, with the words \u201cMark Twain wrote here,\u201d next to a drawing of the writer\u2019s head. But the paper is no longer cashing checks from subscribers, Tahija said. The renewal cards she usually sends out the second week of the month are still sitting on her desk.\n\nAt the paper, Tahija does \u201cjust about everything except for write the front page.\u201d The 54-year-old handles subscriptions, invoices, typesetting and proofreading.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s more than a job to me,\u201d Tahija said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m going to do. This is what I know, this is what I love.\u201d\n\nEvery week, Lee Adams, a Sierra County supervisor, reads the Mountain Messenger. If the Downieville resident is in Nevada City on a Thursday, he picks up a 50-cent copy from a news rack there.\n\nAdams\u2019 family has subscribed to the paper since the 1970s.\n\n\u201cIt has chronicled our history for 166 years, and to see it disappear now is just quite sad,\u201d Adams said. \u201cThis is more than a newspaper, it really is an institution.\u201d", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": [""], "tags": ["Things to Do"], "authors": ["Staff Writer", "Brittny Mejia Is A Reporter On The Los Angeles Times", "Metro Desk Covering Breaking News", "Stories On Immigration", "Race. She Is A Military Brat Who Calls Germany Home", "Is A Graduate Of The University Of Arizona."], "publish_date": "Sun Dec 29 00:00:00 2019", "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "California's oldest weekly newspaper could cease publishing as early as January", "meta_lang": "en", "meta_favicon": "/apple-touch-icon.png", "meta_data": {"og": {"title": "Mark Twain once wrote for California's oldest newspaper. Now it nears its final days", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-29/californias-oldest-weekly-newspaper-nears-its-final-days", "image": {"identifier": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/307629e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1075+0+145/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc7%2F48%2Fce941523ee67894080f8743606ee%2Fla-1546565420-hyz5uaqmbn-snap-image", "url": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/307629e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1075+0+145/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc7%2F48%2Fce941523ee67894080f8743606ee%2Fla-1546565420-hyz5uaqmbn-snap-image", "width": 1200, "height": 630, "type": "image/jpeg", "alt": "DOWNIEVILLE, CALIF. - DECEMBER 13: Don Russell works in the Mountain Messenger newsroom on Thursday,"}, "description": "California's oldest weekly newspaper could cease publishing as early as January", "site_name": "Los Angeles Times", "type": "article"}, "article": {"author": "https://www.latimes.com/people/brittny-mejia", "content_tier": "metered", "published_time": "2019-12-29T14:00:44.871", "opinion": "false", "section": "California"}, "twitter": {"card": "summary_large_image", "creator": "@brittny_mejia", "description": "California's oldest weekly newspaper could cease publishing as early as January", "image": {"identifier": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/58f635d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1152+0+107/resize/1200x675!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc7%2F48%2Fce941523ee67894080f8743606ee%2Fla-1546565420-hyz5uaqmbn-snap-image", "alt": "DOWNIEVILLE, CALIF. - DECEMBER 13: Don Russell works in the Mountain Messenger newsroom on Thursday,"}, "site": "@latimes", "title": "Mark Twain once wrote for California's oldest newspaper. 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