For someone to start a newspaper in 2012, its founding editor would have to either be totally nuts or betting on a very good idea. Jon Chown, whose new twice-monthly Monterey Bay News and Views hits the stands this week, obviously believes he falls into category number two.
Chown says he's basing his idea on the free alternative weeklies serving most cities and college towns, but with a slight twist to the right.
“Most tabloids are somewhat on the more liberal side of the news,” says Chown, who served as managing editor of the Register-Pajaronian from 2000 to 2011. “The whole thing about the weekly newspaper is more alternative, more into the younger audience. I’m going to turn that around a little bit.”
The paper is being bankrolled by Nader Agha, the Monterey real estate multi-millionaire who tried to buy the Monterey County Herald in 2006. Agha, whom Chown describes as the new paper’s co-owner, is a controversial figure in Monterey, currently pushing for a $128 million desalination plant on his 200-acre Moss Landing commercial park.
Chown, who describes himself as a moderate conservative, will enter what is already a competitive print-media environment in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties.
In addition to Santa Cruz Weekly, this area is already served by the Santa Cruz Sentinel, the Register-Pajaronian and Good Times as well as smaller publications including the Scotts Valley/San Lorenzo Valley Press Banner, the Mid-County Post and UC Santa Cruz’s City on a Hill Press. Plus toss in a wealth of talk-radio stations and newsy websites, including four Patch.com branches.
Similarly, Monterey County has the Monterey County Herald, Monterey County Weekly and the Carmel Pine Cone.
“They’d have an uphill battle,” says Tom Honig, the former Sentinel editor who now publishes his work on TomHonig.com, a site he is calling the Santa Cruz Observer.
The tricky part for the paper could be tying together two Central Coast counties that don’t know much about each other. Honig says he’s “intrigued” by the idea of spanning two counties.
“But the reality is that north Santa Cruz County people don’t care anything about Monterey County people,” Honig says, “and I haven’t heard that Monterey County people care about Santa Cruz County. I don’t know of anything that bridges that gap now. They’re so different socially and economically.”
Chown says bringing people together is part of the idea.
“The whole point of the publication is to let everybody know how these communities are really all part of one greater community,” Chown says. “Whether it’s pollution or crime, what’s going on in one community rolls on into the next in this bay. So, my publication is hopefully going to illustrate that.”
Chown’s free fortnightly will come out every other Thursday with 40,000 copies at about 700 locations, stretching from Scotts Valley to Carmel. The News and Views hopes to make much of its money from advertising revenues. Agha's backing is no doubt crucial.
Neither partner will say, but the publication’s success will likely depend on the depth of Agha's pocketbook. “I don’t really want to go into that much,” Chown says. “That gets into our LLC and our operating agreement.”
Agha says Chown approached to him with the idea of starting a newspaper and Agha agreed that the region needs more local political coverage. “It’s a concept that has not been tried before,” Agha says. “Anything new is beautiful and is desirable. We feel there is a niche.”
Chown says Agha will have access to the editorial page, but adds the publication won’t represent any of the real estate mogul’s personal or political interests, partly because Agha is too busy with a myriad of other interests to worry about running a newspaper, something Agha corroborates. “I don’t want to, either,” Agha says.
Greg Caput, the conservative Santa Cruz County supervisor who represents Watsonville, expects the editor’s new paper to do well. He says he admired Chown’s coverage of the methyl bromide, fluoridation and several controversial South County development projects. He isn’t the only fan.
Charley Freedman, a conservative talk-radio host at KSCO, says “there’s definitely room” for more Monterey Bay media. He thinks Chown is the person to break through, expose corruption and cover local government.
Freedman says he doesn’t know Chown’s politics well, but he admires the editor’s chops as a journalist and his investigative process.
“Right now, Santa Cruz and Watsonville are both in need of investigative journalism,” says Freedman, adding that—as he personally sees it—Watsonville is turning into a political “cesspool.”
Writers for the News and Views will include Chown as well as Herald columnist Jerry Gervase and Eve Britton, a former Herald reporter. Chown says they will cover local politics, city council meetings and land and water issues—with Chown writing some opinion pieces too.
“I don’t often mince words,” Chown says, “especially when l do my opinion pieces.”
“It’ll be a great asset to the Monterey Bay and Santa Cruz County area,” Caput says. “I think Jon gives a fair view to a lot of people. He looks at issues and takes his own view. In his opinion pieces he comes from the heart.”
Conservative love-fests aside, Gary Patton, the former Santa Cruz city council member and county supervisor who now works as a land-use attorney, says Chown’s stories about environmental issues could be important.
“I think that the more citizen involvement there is around land use and water policy issues, the better off everyone will be,” Patton says. “So I wish the new effort well.”
