Last days of the 144-year-old Weekly Calistogan
By Cynthia Sweeney
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — In March 2022, as editor of The Weekly Calistogan, I was summoned to a meeting with Napa Valley Register staff. There, interim editor Samie Hartley had the unfortunate duty of informing me that our parent company, Lee Enterprises, had decided to end print publication of The Weekly Calistogan. For a moment, the room went silent.
Then I asked, “How many more weeks do we have?”
The answer: one.
After 144 years in publication, The Weekly Calistogan was done, just like that.
I heard nothing directly from anyone at Lee before, during or after putting out the last print edition. I found that ironic for a company in the communications industry.
For weeks afterward, I contributed a few stories to the Register, but I was pretty much left dangling with nothing much to do. I did donate historical items, such as bound newspapers to the Napa Historical Society and a few of the last issues to the Sharpsteen Museum in Calistoga.
Eventually, the new editor of the Register, Dan Evans, drove up to see me at the Calistogan office.
He sat down and said, “You probably saw this coming.”
I had. But that didn’t make it any easier. After four years of being married to the paper, I had an hour and half to pack up my stuff and leave the office — for good.
Increasing pressure
The writing had been on the wall for some time, but that didn’t make it any easier, either. During the previous few years, Lee had been cutting long-time staff at the Register and the St. Helena Star, the other sister paper in the Napa Valley. We speculated that it was age-related, but it was just that, speculation.
Lee is based in Iowa and at that time owned hundreds of papers nationwide. These were corporate decisions coming from people looking at dollars and bottom lines.
On the plus side, as part of a corporation there were resources for an online presence for the paper that was paid for and maintained by Lee. There was, however, increasing pressure to deliver more and more digital content and pressure and competition with other Lee papers to supply video with each story.
I was pretty much a one-woman band reporting on community events, attending city meetings, conducting interviews, writing stories, processing photos, managing freelance writers, proofing final pages before production and a lot more. But with help from photo and video master Tim Carl and freelancer Julie Mitchell we put out a pretty good paper each week — with online content. I was also mentoring high school student Saida Morales, who contributed several insightful pieces about student life, and showed promise as an up and coming journalist. Most importantly, we kept our community apprised of critical events such as decisions by city officials, wildfires threatening the city and PG&E activities in the area.
As my tenure progressed, there was also increasing awareness, filtered down from Lee and from reports elsewhere, that print newspapers in general were suffering as printing costs became more and more prohibitive. The big push from Lee was for the transition to online subscriptions. I wrote several editorials trying to inform our readers that print newspapers eventually going away was indeed a reality.
Then, without any notification, Lee stopped delivery, first to the kiosks in Calistoga, then St. Helena, then Napa. I found out about it because a reader notified me that the kiosks were empty.
A large portion of The Weekly Calistogan’s readership was through purchase at these kiosks, so that was a big nail in the coffin.
Though morale was not high, we all soldiered on.
The last issue of The Weekly Calistogan
During that meeting in Napa, I was also told not to print anything about this being the last issue of The Weekly Calistogan. Well, that didn’t happen. After 144 years the paper deserved a better sendoff, and our readers deserved to know what was happening.
With such short notice, it was a scramble. I wrote a front-page editorial informing readers this was the last issue, and nearly the entire paper was devoted to the history of The Weekly Calistogan. I asked past editors Sean Scully and Anne Ward Ernst to contribute, also former St. Helena Star editor and former Calistogan contributor Dave Stoneberg and current St. Helena Star editor Jesse Duarte.
Readers expressed their appreciation for our efforts and also their concern and dismay about the paper’s demise.
Did anyone at Lee see the last issue? I’ll never know.
If today's story captured your interest, explore these related articles:
Cynthia Sweeney, former editor, The Weekly Calistogan.
Brilliant, Cynthia. You captured that sense of loss we all felt and continue to feel for Lee-owned papers.
Hello Cynthia - I rue the day local print newspapers disappear! We will be an ill informed community. Thank you for your leadership during your years with the Calistogan. It was lovely to see your byline again even if online.