In June 2019, Jeff vonKaenel spoke to PBS KVIE as his newspaper, the Sacramento News & Review, celebrated 30 years in business. At that time, he reiterated claims made over two decades prior in a front-page editorial titled “Mainstream Newspapers, R.I.P.” It’s the oldest article preserved on SNR’s website. In it, vonKaenel predicts dailies like The Sacramento Bee will disappear while his paper, a much smaller and cheaper operation, will survive.

“When the environment changes, bears don’t do very well. Mosquitoes, or other things, do just fine,” vonKaenel said on Studio Sacramento. As print media declined, he believed SNR would be “the last person standing.” About nine months later, something happened that no one could have predicted: A global pandemic. SNR stopped the presses, literally. Its print edition ceased as ad sales dried up.

“It was just painful,” vonKaenel told me. “We had to lay everybody off. We had to stop publishing, just instantly.” Years later and the mosquito did survive, not without losing a few legs and a wing. Most jobs were eliminated. The office was sold off. The print archive was donated. Its vendor boxes remain empty, but the SNR persists as a digital news outlet aided by a local nonprofit.

‘We’re back’

Scott Thomas Anderson soldiers on as SNR’s lone full-time journalist. He got his start interning at the paper, and years later, in 2016, was hired on as a crime reporter. Before COVID, there was a team of 10 journalists and graphic designers. Now it’s just him. Anderson was named editor by the end of 2021 (he’s also a contributor for Comstock’s magazine). Another writer in a different division sometimes offers assistance. For the most part, SNR’s articles are written by freelancers working for Solving Sacramento.

The nonprofit launched in early 2022 with SNR as a founding collaborator. Its goal is to help sustain the region’s local news ecosystem. The eight current members include CapRadio, Sacramento Business Journal, The Sacramento Observer and Hmong Daily News. Each can submit their own stories for the others to republish and can also re-use any of the articles produced by the freelancers Solving Sacramento contracts. It’s a means to increase the amount of local content the partners have at their disposal.

“We’re back to being in a pretty good place, because that Solving Sacramento experiment has panned out better than I ever imagined it would,” Anderson says. Of the top 10 most-read stories posted last year to SNR’s website, four came from Solving Sacramento and another four came from SNR’s pool of freelancers. Anderson authored the other two on the list.

The output level has returned, while the focus has shifted. The grants given to Solving Sacramento typically fund reporting on a specific topic, like the housing crisis or the creative economy. This means there’ll be times when SNR publishes a lot of content on that subject matter. Anderson said the tone of the writing from the nonprofit’s freelancers is more akin to a traditional daily newspaper-of-record than an experimental alternative weekly like SNR. So it feels different, but it’s still news.

“A lot of grant funders out there are not looking to fund the next Tom Wolfe or Hunter S. Thompson, they’re looking to fund really specific journalism that’s helpful and meaningful to everyday people’s lives,” Anderson says. “That’s how it is, and we’re lucky they’re out there, you know? So right now, SNR is much more of a mainstream news publication since the pandemic.”

Anderson is fine with the change because SNR still has a separate freelancer budget it can use to fund the kinds of reporting others won’t, like long-form pieces up to 4,000 words, literary journalism and creative nonfiction. It’s much less than what Solving Sacramento can muster, but it makes a difference. “We still have the freedom to do really creative pieces.”

‘A two-newspaper city’

SNR made it through the pandemic. However, vonKaenel said he isn’t concerned with its long-term survival. What’s important to him is producing reliable information that helps the community. “Whether we do that with the News & Review or with Solving Sacramento, I don’t really care. What I do care about is making it happen.”

SNR still has a small office in Sacramento. VonKaenel doesn’t visit it much. These days, he spends most of his time on N&R Publications, his communications firm that primarily works with government agencies across the country, like adult schools and community colleges. The business is “using journalists to help tell their story, which has been really impactful, and we’re really proud of the work that we’re doing there,” vonKaenel says.

Seventy-four-year-old vonKaenel and his wife are still trying to figure out what to do with SNR. Right now, its future is undecided. What is certain for vonKaenel is that SNR will not resume its print edition anytime soon, if ever. He also doesn’t think SNR can become a self-sustaining business again.

“I don’t see a path there right now,” vonKaenel says. “I wouldn’t mind if I could run a four-minute mile, either. But how do we get there? I’m not seeing it.”

VonKaenel would like to pass on his news outlets. The owner of Coachella Valley Independent reached out about the Reno News & Review, and “we basically gave him the paper,” vonKaenel said. He hasn’t seen much interest in SNR or Chico News & Review. “There’s been not a lot of people knocking at the door.” It’s possible SNR could cease or merge with Solving Sacramento in some capacity.

Historically, Sacramento was served by two large dailies, the Sacramento Bee and the Sacramento Union. The Union ceased in 1994. Anderson said the SNR in some ways succeeded it as the city’s second general interest newspaper. He’d like it to continue fulfilling that role.

“It’s important for Sacramento, the capital of the fourth largest economy in the world, for it to be a two-newspaper city,” Anderson says, “even if one of those newspapers is an army of freelancers.”

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