"Stripped for parts: American journalism on the brink"

David Berger’s handsomely reincarnated Ojai Playhouse was ground zero for the Jan. 18 sold-out kickoff fundraising event of the Ojai Valley News Foundation, led by its executive director, Laura Rearwin Ward, whose mission is to protect and foster the health of independent newspapers in Ventura County and throughout California.

Attendees screened “Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink” by twice-Oscar-nominated documentarian Rick Goldsmith, who has covered the crisis in journalism for almost 40 years.   

Goldsmith’s film tells the real-world saga of how a handful of billionaire private investment firms are gobbling up regional newspapers across America and stripping them bare, selling off real estate and laying off workers. In the bare-knuckle arena of capitalism, these titans have powerful advantages, and they are not afraid to use them.  The overall message is chilling: Independent print journalism is currently worth more dead than alive. 

Lenin supposedly once observed that capitalists will sell rope to their hangmen. What is happening right now to America’s regional newspapers is not that different.

This dire view is not exaggerated. I have personally seen in my own business career the overreach of the private-investment community.  I had the pleasure to be a witness against one of those rapacious firms after a company they bought had been stripped for parts and then declined into bankruptcy. It’s a long story, but the upshot was the investor had to give back $166 million to the creditors who had been left holding the bag. But the company, and its jobs, were still gone. 

My story was a rare victory. The much more common outcome is the little guys lick their wounds and crawl off into the underbrush.

The message of Goldsmith’s film, and the mission of Laura Rearwin Ward’s Foundation, is that the death of the free print press that we are seeing all around us need not be the end of the story. Indeed, the power of everyday citizens can overcome the scourge of vulture capitalists, if we all pitch in.  This is the magic of democracy — we don’t have to take anything lying down if we don’t want to.

It is a theme that resonates extremely well in our community. Who knows? Maybe someday someone will do a documentary on how the rebirth of independent free print press got its start in a little theater in little Ojai.

Hats off to Laura Rearwin Ward for bringing this film to Ojai and for educating us about the guerrilla war to preserve the freedom of the press.

The bad news is, this war is far from won. For example, Times Media Group, owner of the five Acorn newspapers, just laid off five employees from Acorn Simi Valley this same week.

What can you do?  Help local news grow and thrive by volunteering your time and philanthropy to the nonprofit 501(c)(3) Ojai Valley News Foundation whose mission is to support Ventura County-owned, adjudicated, independent newspapers by expanding reporting coverage; promoting local media literacy and access; preserving newspaper history; and fostering professional relationships within the local independent news community. 

It’s time to take action against corporate media!