The Rumors of Our Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
A while back I encountered a highly placed Democratic office holder who was kind enough to say he missed my old column in
The Sacramento Union newspaper.
Then he leaned forward and whispered to me, "I miss your newspaper."
The Union, you see, ceased publication with the issue of Jan. 14, 1994, leaving the capital of the nation�s richest, most populous state with a single newspaper. The implication of the office holder�s conspiratorial whisper was that
The Sacramento Bee, freed from competition, had been riding roughshod over the city ever since.
I wasn�t surprised, because "the buzzer," as some of its employees like to call it, always was inclined to throw its weight around, and only the presence of
The Union gave politicians and regular folks alike some muscle to push back.
Though the Republican-oriented
Union long has seemed dead and buried, its spirit has lived on in the hearts of former readers, including many Democrats, who -- literally in tears �- called us to lament the newspaper�s passing.
That spirit lives as well in the hearts of those who labored there, including former Publisher Jim Smith, who runs the Western Journalism Center in Sacramento. Smith, on the side, has been working with a group of people who want to revive
The Union, both online (as a daily news website) and in print (as a magazine).
January marked the 10th anniversary of
The Union�s last issue, so this seems a particularly felicitous time to announce that the first step toward regular publication has arrived as
The Union launches its "transitional website" today, February 10th.
By early fall, California�s capital once again should be a competitive media market, with a fully developed
SacUnion.com and the monthly
Sacramento Union magazine.
The joy of some will be open and unbounded. Democrats will shout "hooray!" as well, but only after they lock themselves in their interior bathrooms and turn the showers up full blast to mask the sound. They wouldn�t want "the buzzer" to hear.
As for the
Bee (still referred to as "brand �b�" by many), its executives -- if they say anything -- will issue a pious statement on the value of competition in the news. And they�ll sort of mean it.
Back to SacUnion.com
