The Sun pivots, a sign of the times
This June 5, 2025 issue of the newspaper is bittersweet, as we all bid farewell to this long-standing print edition. Stay with me, though, the Yountville Sun is not setting.
When the Napa Valley News Group paused printing for a few weeks earlier this year, I wrote that part of life in town for more than a quarter of a century was our community newspaper.
A few weeks later, we rallied, returning to print twice per month with the hope that the initial advertising we received at that time would spark additional support. The absence of support, however, is a sign of the times.
I grew up reading the daily paper, then known as the Napa Register. It was delivered right to our driveway like clockwork each evening, by our neighborhood paperboy who nimbly balanced a full pack while bicycling the residential streets.
Having a paper route was a big responsibility for kids back then. The daily work, ink-smudged hands from rolling the papers, and monthly door-to-door collections were part of the deal. Nearly everyone on our street subscribed to the paper. In fact, it seemed very odd to me if a household did not.
As the years have flown by, papers were eventually delivered by adults and thrown from vehicles, billing became electronic, and the news sources cited were located further and further away from our hometowns.
But not in Yountville.
Having lived in Yountville for 13 years, I know what it was like to receive the Sun in our mailbox each week. The mentions of friends and neighbors in Lois Riker’s Out & About, seeing my daughter’s portrait on the front page when graduating high school seniors were annually featured, and then the honor of editing this paper since January of this year are personal highlights I will forever treasure.
These past few months have not been easy for me or my colleagues at the Napa Valley News Group. Together we have held each other up, albeit by a thread at times. The instability, the hopes, the work, the grit, the reasons we do what we do. We discover, report and tell stories.
It is not lost on us that the freedom of press is a fundamental right in our country. While we are grateful that much of Yountville has continued to support the Sun, it did not seem important to others to support local journalism. The reason that this hurts, is that as journalists we care.
There simply has not been enough financial support to pay the weekly cost of printing and distribution.
For quite some time, even the ever-optimistic me was a bit bummed out. Then, something shifted. Under the committed leadership of Marc Hand, when the decision to simply let go of the print edition was made, a giant weight was lifted.
I realized that we still have what we have always had.
We can still discover, report and tell the stories. I felt a bit like Dorothy in Oz, when she clicked her heels to get back home. We just needed to pivot, as the power to do what we need to do was already within each of us and has been all along.
Follow us, sign up for our free email list, and then watch your inboxes. The future of local journalism now actually feels hopeful, and anyone with access to a computer, tablet or smart phone will be able to continue to receive the local news. The Sun will continue to shine, online. Check out what we are beginning to do at YountvilleSun.com.
Join us at NapaValleyNewsGroup.com and click “subscribe” to sign up for our free versions of local news.
