Santa Clarita Citizen : Newhalls Calling It Quits; Close Upstart Paper

The Santa Clarita Valley Citizen, the maverick newspaper launched last September by a family of top editors who resigned from the Newhall Signal, ceased publication Wednesday, apparently ending the career of newspaper legend Scott Newhall.

A front-page editorial announced that Wednesday’s edition would be the paper’s last.

“This is a difficult, most painful decision,” wrote Publisher Scott Newhall and his wife, Ruth, the Citizen’s editor. The paper, launched Sept. 11, could not attract sufficient advertising or subscribers to remain solvent, they said.

Newhall, patriarch of the influential Newhall family, had guided the Signal for 25 years before abruptly resigning, along with his wife and son, in a stock dispute with the Signal’s owner last August.

Newhall, 75, who gained a nationwide reputation for irreverence as editor of the San Francisco Chronicle in the 1950s and for his bombastic editorials in the Signal, said he had no firm plans for the future. “Maybe I’ll just saddle up and ride into the sunset,” he said.

“We lost a lot of money” but it was “less than a million,” said Newhall, a descendant of a wealthy pioneer family.

Few Paid Subscribers

The Citizen’s business managers said it cost $11,000 just to print and deliver 43,000 copies of each edition. The paper, which appeared Wednesdays and Sundays, had only about 1,000 paid subscribers, Scott Newhall said.

The paper was literally a mom-and-pop operation under the Newhalls, and employees caught the spirit. The farewell edition carried a photo of Ruth Newhall, 78, folding copies of the first issue for delivery. When deliveries faltered, reporters and advertising managers tossed the papers onto doorsteps themselves.

In their goodby editorial, the Newhalls wrote: “Never since the building of the Egyptian pyramids have so few worked for such miserable wages. Never, in order to meet the day’s deadlines, have so few eaten so much junk food at their desks.”

Wednesday’s surprise announcement shocked readers throughout the Santa Clarita Valley. To many residents, a Newhall newspaper was as permanent a fixture in the community as oak trees.

“We are losing something that is part of the heart and soul of our community,” said Laurene Weste, a city planning commissioner. Weste visited the paper’s newsroom after attending a meeting of a civic transportation committee.

Everybody Talking

“No one talked about transportation,” Weste said. “Everybody talked about the paper.”

Scores of readers called the paper to express condolences or offer support. “Most of them are in shock,” said Kris Widner, a classified advertising manager who tended the telephones Wednesday morning.

Kaine Thompson, a reporter, said the Newhalls announced the paper’s impending closure at a staff meeting Tuesday morning. Some stunned reporters found it difficult to keep their minds on the 5 p.m. deadline for the last edition, she said.

The Newhalls hold a unique position in the Santa Clarita Valley. Scott Newhall’s great-grandfather, land baron Henry Mayo Newhall, founded the towns of Saugus and Newhall. The surprise of Wednesday’s announcement was only surpassed by the sudden departure of the Newhall family from the Signal last August.

The Newhalls and their son, Tony, who was publisher of the Signal, resigned during a stock dispute with Morris Newspaper Corp. of Savannah, Ga., which purchased the paper from Scott Newhall in 1978. The Newhalls charged that the newspaper chain did not allow them the freedom to run the paper as they wished. Morris officials denied the allegation.

Two days before the Citizen’s first issue, Morris obtained a restraining order to prevent Tony Newhall, 47, from working on the new paper. The company said that when Tony Newhall sold his 19% interest in the Signal to Morris in 1983, he signed a contract not to start a competing paper in the valley.

Biggest Blow

Ruth Newhall said the judge’s order was the biggest blow to the Citizen. She and her husband simply could not handle both the business and editorial sides of the paper, she said.

The Citizen, which used on its masthead the symbol of a phoenix rising defiantly from ashes, occasionally mocked its rival. When the Signal reported that “stealth bomber” secrets had been discovered in a remote canyon shack, the Citizen ran a photograph of two model airplanes under the headline “Stealth Secrets Found.”

Scott Newhall, known for his flamboyant prose, also lashed out at newspaper chains, saying they had compromised the independence of hometown newspapers. While under Morris ownership, he wrote in January, the Signal had degenerated into “just another chain-owned journalistic yam plantation, owned and operated from 3,000 miles away.”

The phrasing was typical of Newhall, who once called the state Legislature a “whining, lying, groveling gang of sneak thieves.” Under his editorship, The San Francisco Chronicle once fulminated against the poor quality of coffee in local restaurants under a front-page banner headline: “A Great City Forced to Drink Swill.”

Wished Them Luck

But instead of lashing out at his rival Wednesday, he wished the Signal good luck and urged the community to support it. The Signal’s publisher could not be reached for comment.

Scott Newhall attributed the Citizen’s death not just to its battle with the Signal, but to the decline of small papers in general. To their dismay, the Newhalls said, they discovered that there is “precious little room for an old-fashioned hometown weekly.”

They wrote: “These are grave days for literacy. . . . In the press of our daily lives so little time remains for reading. So many strident voices are calling for your attention that, as a result, millions of newspapers lie unnoticed, unopened and often unwanted in driveways, lawns and front porches of America.”