I’ve written a review of a newspaper. You’re about to read it or,
more likely, click away, because who cares enough to read a newspaper,
let alone a review of a newspaper? People think of newspapers the same
way they think of the sewer system or paved streets; they’re there, they
do what they do, and that’s good — but so what? Newspapers are as
quaint as knickerbockers and carbon paper, but I still read one
newspaper on paper: the once-weekly Anderson Valley Advertiser.

With that name, it sounds like a shopping flier full of 10% off
coupons and empty fluff, and that’s what it was when it started. But
then the AVA was purchased by a genuine journalist, and became something different.

Here’s the publisher, Bruce Anderson, explaining:

“When I took over the AVA in January of ’84, most of the
advertisers fled, one guy in Ukiah even sending me an old-fashioned
telegram that said only, “OUT NOW.” I’d anticipated a certain amount of
push-back, ha-ha, and knew my survival would depend on making the paper
good enough, interesting enough to survive on subscriptions and
newsstand sales. …”

It’s good enough and interesting enough that it’s survived, and it still doesn’t have many ads.

I first found the AVA thirty years ago, on a rack in San
Francisco’s famous City Lights bookstore. I read an entire issue
standing up in the store, then bought it even though I’d already read
it, took it home and read it again, and the next day I subscribed. It’s
arrived in my mailbox every week, ever since.

The AVA is not an ordinary newspaper. The owner is a cranky
old fart like me, only crankier, older, and maybe fartier. Their
coverage is accurate but opinionated, frequently funny, occasionally
profane, and largely concerned with local news from Mendocino County,
California (population 86,749).I’m far, far away with no personal
connection to that place, so I shouldn’t care about their local news. I
care, though, because the AVA‘s writing is intelligent and passionate, always interesting, and sharp enough to draw blood.

It’s not entirely local news. There’s also an enjoyable mix of
national news analysis, cultural observations, historical pieces,
free-range letters-to-the-editor, and always half a dozen articles you
didn’t expect and wouldn’t want to miss. My byline is occasionally in
the AVA, but the paper is worth the price anyway.

They’ll send a sample copy for $2 (The AVA, PO Box 459, Boonville, CA 95415), and these days the AVA is also available on the web.
As previously disclosed, I’m old, so my preference is reading it on
paper, usually on the toilet. It’s text-heavy without many pictures, so
it takes me a week to read it. Quicker if I’m constipated. And then the
next week’s AVA comes in the mail and goes into the bathroom, every week since the 1990s.