Welcome CINA Members

 By Laura Rearwin, founder California Independent News Alliance

Distrust in the media is well founded.

The role of newspapers is to hold government and power to account on behalf of the people. When the media is controlled, blocked, censored or manipulated by powerful interests, it becomes untrustworthy.

The shift toward opinion-infused reporting began in 1987 with Ronald Reagan and the end of the “Fairness Doctrine,” which required balanced reporting, enforced by the FCC. Also under Reagan came new rules that allowed for greater media consolidation than before. Then, under Bill Clinton, we got the Telecommunications Act (1996) that opened the floodgate to the mass-media consolidation we have today.

Today, 80% of U.S. news organizations and half of all daily newspapers are owned by private equity and hedge funds and, according to the Medill School of Journalism, more than two newspapers per week have closed over the last five years.

Well-funded interests seek to control the narrative and the flow of information to their advantage. With the loss of campaign finance control, these entities often work hand in glove on censorship and propaganda campaigns to control what the public receives through chain-media and social platforms. Those algorithms drive the anger, the fear and profit. The citizens are being used, and Big Media is part of the problem.

• Even at the local level, government agencies seek to control their own narratives. The city of Ojai rarely advertises in our local newspaper beyond what is required by law. Instead, they spend marketing dollars in Irvine, make their own printed mailed “news” letter, and officials share press releases to their low-traffic Facebook page and website. Meanwhile, the Ojai Valley News has six times the followers of Ojai city, and more than 4.5 million pageviews a year. If transparency were the goal, the city could spend less for more impressions.
• In 2021, Ojai Unified School District’s past embattled administration — either in anger or in secrecy — actually took their legally required public notices out of the Ojai Valley News to publish in newspapers outside the district to the Fillmore Gazette and to The Star. Regardless of whether it was to avoid public transparency or to defund the local newspaper of tens of thousands of dollars — either one hurts our community.
• Even though the state of California encourages County governments to place local rural election ads, and provides reimbursement for them from the Secretary of Sate, the County of Ventura has opted not to do so.

For the past seven years, the Ojai Valley News has had both a publisher and an editor. The advantage of that separation is a stronger wall between news and opinion. Still, canceling over opinion has happened in Ojai. It’s a shame when people give up their right to know what is going on in their community over anger at speech on the opinion page. Opinion is extra, not the point; it is a platform for the voices of our town to speak their minds — our local platform.

The paper is a watchdog for the people, truly here to report without fear or favor. When I hear people refer to an editorial comment as an “article,” or refer to me as “the editor,” I know right away we have a lack of media literacy, because publishers don’t read or edit articles in advance of publication, and articles should not contain editorial comment. It’s also hard when council members refuse to comment or speak to reporters — which is another attack on the press and the public right to know. It can also appear that the news reporting favors certain individuals. 

Many news organizations have made the mistake of shaping their reporting to partisan bias, and they are paying the price — in trust.

A complicated national example is when the Washington Post, which built up a partisan audience, opted in 2024 not to endorse a presidential candidate, one that most every reader had already decided to vote for. In the following week, 250,000 people canceled their subscriptions. (Similarly, 8,800 quit the L.A. Times.) For some, the lack of a presidential endorsement was a catalyst, but others sited changes in the big newsrooms. Ojai Valley News copy editor Julie Price Coleman shared her perspective: “I quit (subscriptions to) both the Post and the L.A. Times several months after the election, when I was reading news that had clearly been cherry-picked and whitewashed. As a Watergate-era journalist, I couldn’t believe the things the reporters were not allowed to cover.”

To be sure, part of that lack of news literacy is with big-chain media blurring those lines in their editorial news, and breaking the rules of good journalism, and writing to gain a partisan audience.

Unfortunately, it’s hard nowadays to even agree on a set of facts, because information sources have rightfully become suspect.

Good journalism involves freedom of access to information, fact-checking and interviewing all sides of a conflict. Good reporting needs sunlight without censorship. As free speech and privacy rights evaporate abroad, the threat to those rights grows in the U.S.

The self-censorship that comes with allegiance to party and politicians comes with loss of empathy, curiosity and an open mind. Demonizing and name-calling are powerful tools of control. They are used nationally, within parties and within our community to discourage people from thinking for themselves, or even allowing the expression of alternative points of view.

Luckily, independent news reporting is growing. Yes, it means we are hearing conflicting narratives, based on different sets of “facts.” Choosing our sources is challenging. Stretch yourself and explore the new world of independent news. We now have the ability to get more information and consider the source influences. We have gained clarity on how the most powerful abuse the public trust to forward their interests — through politicians and media. 

The press should be in the hands of the many — not the few. Press freedom is worth fighting for, because as the independent press is surveilled, censored and attacked, so goes our individual freedoms and right to know. The question is whether we can acknowledge the possible shortcomings of our information, set aside our blue or red team, and listen with respect to the concerns and fears of our neighbors. Can we disagree without contempt? 

For more information, interested participants can contact 

CINA at 559-909-2996 or via email at info@cina.news

By Laura Rearwin Ward, publisher Ojai Valley News, Dec. 24, 2025

Just as local independent news publishers and editors understand the existential threat from being gobbled by the Big Bad Wolves of Wall Street, in strolls the wolf in sheep’s clothing, an out-of-state nonprofit making moves to “save” California’s independent newspapers by absorbing them. However, whether we are steamrolled or hugged to death, the result of media consolidations by powerful interests for communities is the same: aggregated, canned, outsourced content; sponsored editorial mixed up as news; loss of reporters; slop AI content; and the evaporation of outlets’ individuality and community connection.

Why is it that big money and government want to control messages in California? It’s to call off the watchdogs. Reporting for the people, independent news outlets are mission-driven to investigate, uncover and inform the public — without fear or favor — through our state’s remaining independent free press outlets.

To be fair, being a locally owned independent doesn’t in and of itself mean it’s an unbiased paper. However, the framers of the United States knew the importance when they chose to protect the role of the press — the only business mentioned in the Constitution. That’s because it is vital to foster a diversity of news ownership, where the financial and political interests rest in communities, and in the hands of many, rather than in control of the few. Speech and press freedoms are key to a free country. (It’s a right we fight for every week when we buy our local Ojai Valley News paper.)

The billionaire player gaining ground in the California news industry is Newswell, funded by Arizona State Foundation and the new owner of the Santa Barbara News Press. Newswell is also aggressively paying calls on small independent newspapers up and down the state, with pockets puffed with $5 million in seed money from The Knight Foundation, and much bigger money behind that. The Foundation received new gifts and commitments of $630.8 million in 2025 and with more than a billion dollars in assets.

Landing in Santa Barbara this month, Newswell made quick work of poaching talent from local digital newsroom Noozhawk and stood up a site leaning on shared content from other nonprofits as it develops its “innovative” and “sustainable” business model implementing “economies of scale” (the same inspirational words used by all chain-news outlets).

Offering Ojai Media a soft off-ramp from the news industry, the executive director of global advancement spoke to me about “partnering with Newswell.” He named other independent California newspapers he was also working on to turn over their publications to Newswell. He explained their profitability plan — a twist on journalism’s core value — with revenue coming from pay-to-play, AI-generated articles funded by businesses, with human oversight.

Turns out they are advertising for a developer to create the platform right now: “We’re looking for someone who thrives at the intersection of journalism, automation and innovation. … Develop pipelines that combine scraping, AI summarization … and using stakeholder inputs in creating minimum viable products.” Add to that a few actual reporters (complete with benefits from Arizona State University) and, presto, another cog in the generic-chain-news web is stamped out from Arizona. It’s genius.

In a stunning show of coordination, and within hours of me getting off the call with “global advancement,” an Ojai acquaintance of mine was contacted by Newswell’s “senior director of advancement, West Coast,” presumably cross-referenced as both a graduate from ASU and a friend connection on social media. The caller convinced him to email me to promote the benefits of Newswell.

Global corporate news chains like Gannett (USA Today), which is owned by Softbank Japan, and Alden Global Capital join Big Tech in their responsibility for decimating local news. They buy California local newspapers, sell off property, lay off staff, eliminate differences in style and cross-publish content. They squeeze out the profit, leaving a ghost of the publication that was, and community news deserts grow.

See Newswell’s handiwork for yourself in San Diego, where eight newspapers were folded into one website: timesofsandiego.com. In Santa Barbara, newspress.com, where a few reporters have come on board (with room for an Ojai Valley News page), both leverage other nonprofits (CalMatters, EdSource, Capital & Main) as well as press releases and AI content.

For a for-profit peek into Ventura County, observe how Times Media Group (TMG), an Arizona chain, purchased The Acorn in 2023 and reduced five papers into one, theacorn.com. The vcreporter.com, also owned by TMG, formerly distributing 25,000 papers a week, shed its office and now prints fewer than 8,000 copies. These are both shells of their former selves, while the parent company continues to acquire more. Exhibit C is vcstar.com, which sold in 2016 to Gannett (now printing 7,566 copies) and is now so lacking in basic reporting that a local philanthropist props it up by funding a couple of local reporters’ salaries through the Ventura County Community Foundation.

Philanthropy should be there to fill in the gaps for news reporting created by Big Tech monopolies and chain news buyouts rather than jockeying with hedge funds for industry control. The world’s most powerful should not be permitted to pick winners and losers in California journalism. It’s communities themselves that will face the consequences when their mystery content “innovation” goes badly wrong.

The last of California independents take pride in their mission. We have formed California Independent News Alliance (CINA) 501(c)(3) and are making a stand alongside our communities. Learn more at: www.cina.news.

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