"On Aug. 30, 1977, when the staff of the Chico News & Review published their first issue, they didn't have much time to reflect on the impossibility of the endeavor," the News & Review staff writes. "Had they stopped to think about it and been reasonable people, they might have given up on the spot. The odds were against them." As part of the paper's special anniversary package, the News & Review also reveals the true identity of film reviewer "Juan-Carlos Selznick," who has been writing for 29 of the paper's 30 years -- he's actually local English professor Pete Hogue.
AAN members won 15 first-place awards in the California Association of Newspaper Publishers' annual contest, led by Palo Alto Weekly, which took home five firsts. Chico News & Review placed first in in three categories; Pacific Sun won two; and Metro Santa Cruz, North Coast Journal, Sacramento News & Review, San Francisco Bay Guardian, and the Santa Barbara Independent each finished in first in one category. The awards were presented in a ceremony Saturday evening.
Tom Gascoyne, who resigned from CN&R in March after 11 years with the paper, has a new biweekly publication called The Chico Beat. According to his column in the inaugural issue, the paper has an initial print run of 10,000 copies. "Here's how it happened. Two out-of-work journalists stumbled across a generous offer they couldn't refuse and the rest is history," Gascoyne writes. The other unemployed journalist is award-winning reporter Josh Indar, who also used to work for CN&R. Without mentioning his former employer by name, Gascoyne adds, "That paper, by the way, is a fine paper, has always been a fine paper and will continue to be a fine paper -- just different."
Tom Gascoyne is ending his 11-year tenure at CN&R, he announced in his regular column yesterday. Gascoyne jokes that he was "scooped" by the Chico Enterprise Record, which published a front-page story on his resignation. ("Talk about your slow news days," he says.) Gascoyne told AAN that he has "become sort of disenchanted with the game. While we try, as a wiser newspaper person once said, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, in the end it is the comfortable who buy all the advertising."
Chico State University won't distribute the paper's "Goin' Chico" edition (pictured) to incoming students because of an article, "The Party Rules," that one school official calls "really hurtful." Officials deny physically removing copies of the paper from racks, but News & Review editor Tom Gascoyne says the school "grabbed 5,000 issues and put them in a room." Gascoyne describes the article as "a satire and sort of a cautionary tale" about the school's drinking culture.
"They've been doing these jobs for a while now," says Jeff vonKaenel, explaining why he recently named Kathy Barrett and Dave Schmall publisher at their respective weeklies, Chico News & Review and Sacramento News & Review. Both had been serving as general manager.
