Chris Smith: SRJC’s newspaper wins big awards, too, but may go out of print

Congratulations to the Oak Leaf! And condolences.

The Santa Rosa Junior College newspaper is being roundly honored for its firestorm coverage and other work, and also it looks squarely at the prospect that after 90 years it may go out of print.

Faculty advisor Anne Belden was working at home Wednesday, “trying to catch up after the Oak Leaf published what might be its last print edition.”

Belden and the Oak Leaf staff, which has garnered multiple awards in statewide journalism contests, are determined to continue publishing despite a struggle to pay their bills. But they’re moving away from paper and toward becoming mostly or entirely a digital enterprise.

The Oak Leaf finds itself in a bind common to newspapers everywhere:

A decline in advertising revenue makes it a supreme challenge to continue printing a hold-it-in-your-hand paper. But if the Oak Leaf switches to digital only, there’s no guarantee that online advertising, typically less lucrative than print ads, will bring in sufficient dollars to cover expenses, either.

Unlike the PD and other general-circulation papers, the Oak Leaf can’t raise subscription rates because it distributes for free. Belden and the staff are looking at asking SRJC to begin contributing to the making of the paper, and at finding ways to make money from its digital and social-media presence.

Apart from the financial challenges, the Oak Leaf is keenly aware that, increasingly, readers - especially young ones - simply expect to get their news online.

Belden said perhaps the Oak Leaf will go digital but each semester print a news magazine.

“I’m trying to figure out how to keep the Oak Leaf alive in some form in print,” she said.

The JC paper confronts the loss of its print edition as it celebrates the bevy of awards it has won chiefly for its dogged, in-depth coverage of the firestorms of October.

“I have such an amazing, hardworking crew right now,” Belden said. “They jelled and crystallized during the fires.”

Belden speaks of the “amazing eight” Oak Leaf staffers who rushed to the flames and covered the historic story alongside professional journalists from across the land. Of the eight, she mentions, five were evacuated from their homes.

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THE STAR, TOO, shone in the wake of the fires.

The Sonoma State Star won a statewide award for General Excellence, largely for its coverage of the fires.

Star editor Shannon Brown said that to come out on top of some leading journalism schools “just shows that if you have the drive, it will reflect in your content no matter the size of your audience.”

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YOU CAN BELIEVE everybody at the PD appreciates the overwhelmingly positive comments that have flowed in since Monday’s announcement of the Pulitzer.

I’d like to share one:

“I just want you to know I’m proud of you,” Peggy Puckett said in a voicemail.

She shared that failing eyesight forced her to cancel her subscription. Then the fires struck and she bought and mailed PDs to friends who’d moved from here but were keen to follow the story.

“We were so pleased with the coverage,” Peggy said. “After that, I decided that I would get a magnifying glass and read the paper.”

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.