The Endearing Quirks of Weekly Community Newspapers

Remembering Lillian Woodward and the North County News

Eagle-eyed readers will notice a glaring misspelling in the illustration above. It’s down there beneath the “Castroville Times” logo, where it locates the community of Castroville in the state of “Caliofrnia.”

Misspelling the name of a state is an example of the delightful quirks of the grubby little community weekly newspapers that once populated the journalism landscape in great numbers. Editors at little weekly newspapers worked long, unhinged hours to serve their community, often at the expense of English grammar, proper spelling or the dictates of the Associated Press Stylebook. It was all a hit-or-miss proposition (preposition?), depending on whether the editor was sober.

But the coolest thing about mighty little weeklies was that they existed at all, once upon a time.

I cut my Monterey County journalism teeth at the North County News, a long-forgotten community weekly. Working for a dinky weekly newspaper is an all-consuming slog, but editing the North County News was the most fun I ever had in my modest journalism career.

Little community newspapers barely exist anymore, the victims of social media and general indifference. If you can find a weekly that doesn't brag about being "alt" in this day and age, it probably serves a hopelessly remote village. Or a community populated with readers so decrepit, so old and so Carmel-ized that they haven’t yet learned that social media exists.

More than 360 newspapers in the United States disappeared in the five years ending in 2022, according to a Northwestern University’s Medill School study. “All but 24 of those papers were weeklies, serving communities ranging in size from a few hundred people to tens of thousands,” according to the study. I’m sure many more weeklies have shut down since then.

The North County News was way ahead of the trend, closing its doors long before America’s newspapers started failing in earnest. It enjoyed a good ride, I suppose, if you consider 34 years a “good ride” for a newspaper.

But the North County News was important, for a time, because it defined certain burgs, communities and villages — places like Prunedale, Pajaro, Moss Landing and Castroville — as a singular geopolitical entity in Monterey County, a community of interest that gave citizens something approximating a unified voice.

For a time, virtually every city in the county had their own crummy little newspaper: The King City Rustler, the Soledad Bee, the Seaside Post, the Carmel Cymbal, the Pacific Grove Crackpot … I could go on.

Covering a place like North Monterey County could be a challenge because none of the region’s burgs, communities and villages were incorporated cities. With no city council agendas demanding the attention of the population and the press, reporters were forced to dig up stories on their own initiative.

Like so many other sweet little community newspapers, North County News was founded by a dreamer with no real experience running newspapers and who was desperately underfunded from the get-go. Lila Thompson was her name; she was deep into her 60s when she published the first edition of the Castroville Times in 1948 from a hole-in-the-wall office somewhere in Caliofrnia.

After surviving a heart attack in 1951, Lila turned the operation over to Dorothy and Bill Carnie. The Carnies were already publishing a dinky weekly called the Alisal Progress at the time. The Carnies set up operations in an abandoned blacksmith shop on Wood Street in Castroville, but moved to a garage in Moss Landing after the actual blacksmith returned to town and wanted the place back.

The most significant talent to come out of those old North County newspaper days was a graceful writer with a sweet sense of humor named Lillian Woodward. She and her husband operated a popular boat/fishing equipment shop on Sandholdt Island in Moss Landing. Her weekly columns in the North County newspapers chronicled the life and times (if not the crimes) of the salty characters of her community. Over time her columns were published in the Monterey Herald, the Watsonville Pajaronian and the Salinas Californian.

Meanwhile, the little North County weekly went through several different ownership changes. The name of the paper changed just as frequently, until everyone settled on “North County News” — aka the North County Snooze.

The real heyday for the North County News came when Bob and Mickey Gebbie bought the paper. Bob Gebbie was an experienced journalist with half-decent business sense, a rarity in the profession. Mickey was the advertising manager. Together they patched together the paper out of the garage at their Prunedale home. Bob Gebbie claimed that he never lost a dime on his newspaper.

Eventually the North County News was sold to a couple of gents who operated a string of weekly newspapers in California, from Paradise to Chula Vista. Their names were Lowell Blankfort and Rowland Rebele. They professionalized the place, set up an office in a Prunedale business center, and hired a passel of ad salespeople, an editor/reporter/photographer and even a front-desk clerk. They also tried to make their big money by circulating direct-mail advertising products that clogged up everybody’s mailboxes once a week.

I was hired as the editor/reporter/photographer of the North County News in 1980. By the time I got there, the little office was a lively spot. It was sort of a hangout for every weirdo and gadfly in North County who wanted to share their peculiar grievances about the county, the school superintendent, harbor politics or the cemetery district.

From a human-resources point of view, little weekly newspapers like the North County News generally attracted what might diplomatically be referred to as “problem employees.” North County News workers were the nicest and funniest people you’d ever meet, but they also managed their lives by the skin of their teeth; lost and dazed, they willingly accepted whatever measly salary offered them because they had run out of most other options. One of the paper’s more boozy freelance writers spent nights sleeping under a desk in the office, using his shoes as a pillow, because he had nowhere else to go.

The office pretty much operated as a wacky weekly tragicomedy, starring an ensemble cast that laughed their way through the workday because it hurt too much to jump out a window.

Blankfort and Rebele would blow into the office once a month to issue edicts, to convene awkward staff meetings and to bitch and moan about the cost of labor. (They liked to brag that they once hired a full-time sports reporter in Chula Vista who accepted a salary offer of $50 a week, or $163 in today’s economy.)

I learned a lot of now-useless skills while at the North County News, like how to paginate, paste up and develop Kodak film. I learned how to use a photo proportion wheel and an X-ACTO knife. I learned to recruit and edit a team of earnest community columnists who tried and inevitably failed to become the next Lillian Woodward. I learned that people liked to see their names (and the names of their kids) in print. I learned the endearing and unifying value of presenting a weekly account of community news and events.

And eventually I learned the human anxiety and heartbreak that comes during a business closure after the North County News went out of business in 1982.

A couple weeks later, I landed at the Pine Cone — aka the Porn Cone or the Corn Pone — where not a week went by when some precious local wouldn’t tell me how lucky I was to be working in Carmel.

Editor’s note: Folks in Santa Cruz will remember Rowland Rebele as the good-hearted philanthropist who supported virtually every great community effort in town, from homeless organizations to fine arts associations and research facilities. He died in 2023. He was truly one of the good guys.

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