The Bakersfield Californian

Last updated

The Bakersfield Californian
TypeDaily newspaper
Format Broadsheet
Owner(s)Sound News Media, Inc
PublisherCliff Chandler
EditorChristine L. Peterson
Founded16 August 1866;158 years ago (1866-08-16)
LanguageEnglish
Headquarters3700 Pegasus Drive
Bakersfield, CA 93308
U.S.
Circulation 31,000 Daily
37,000 Sunday(as of 2018) [1]
ISSN 0276-5837
OCLC number 44342451
Website bakersfield.com

The Bakersfield Californian is a daily newspaper serving Bakersfield, California and surrounding Kern County in the state's San Joaquin Valley.

Contents

History

The Bakersfield Californian Building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 2009-0726-CA-Bakersfield-Californian.jpg
The Bakersfield Californian Building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Bakersfield Californian is the direct descendant of Kern County's first newspaper, The Weekly Courier, which was first published on Aug. 18, 1866, in Havilah, California. At that time, Havilah, a small mining town about 50 miles northeast of the present site of Bakersfield, was the center of the 1864 gold rush, which brought the first major population influx to Kern County. The newspaper's name was later changed to The Havilah Weekly Courier.

As the mineral wealth of the area became depleted and the population moved southward toward Bakersfield, the newspaper also moved to Bakersfield in 1872, becoming The Kern County Weekly Courier. In 1876, the Courier merged with another Bakersfield newspaper, The Southern Californian, to form The Kern County Californian. Its name was changed to The Daily Californian in 1891 with the advent of daily publication. In 1897, the Kern County superintendent of schools, Alfred Harrell, purchased the newspaper.

Harrell gave The Bakersfield Californian its present name in 1907. In 1926, he moved the newspaper to 1707 Eye St. in downtown Bakersfield. In 1983, that structure was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. He served as editor and publisher of the newspaper until his death in 1946. Under Harrell's leadership, The Bakersfield Californian was recognized as one of California's finest newspapers, winning over 40 state and national awards for journalistic excellence. In 1969, Harrell became the 24th person to be named to the Newspaper Hall of Fame.

After Harrell's death, his wife, Virginia, became president of The Californian. She held that position until her death in 1954, when the Harrells' daughter, Bernice Harrell Chipman, assumed the position of president. She died in 1967.

Berenice Fritts Koerber, granddaughter of Alfred Harrell, was the president of The Bakersfield Californian from 1967 until her death in 1988. Under her leadership, the company constructed a $21 million publishing facility in 1984. It is named the Harrell-Fritts Publishing Center and is located at a business center near Meadows Field.

In January 1989, Virginia F. Moorhouse, daughter of Berenice Koerber, was elected chairman and president of The Bakersfield Californian.

On August 17, 2009, the weekday editions of The Californian switched to a tabloid format.

In December 2014, Virginia "Ginny" Cowenhoven, daughter of Virginia F. "Ginger" Moorhouse, was named associate publisher, the fifth generation of the Harrell-Fritts family to serve in a leadership position at the media company. [2]

On June 3, 2019, after 122 years of family ownership, the paper announced a deal with Canadian newspaper executive Steven Malkowitz to sell the paper to Sound News Media. [3] [4] The sale closed on July 1, whereupon printing operations in Bakersfield ceased and were moved to Antelope Valley, where Sound News Media owns the Antelope Valley Press. [5] The Harrell-Fritts family retained ownership of The Harrell-Fritts Printing Press Building located at 3700 Pegasus Drive and The Historic Californian building at 1707 Eye St. [3] With the sale on July 1, 2019, the newspaper returned to a broadsheet format seven days a week.

In September 2024, the newspaper announced it will cease publishing print editions on Sundays and Mondays. The paper will also transition from carrier to postal delivery. [6]

Other publications

The Bakersfield Californian [7] publishes several other publications in Kern County including the Tehachapi News , [8] Kern Business Journal, [9] Bakersfield Life Magazine [10] and the Delano Record [11] serving Delano and McFarland.

Awards

In 2020, The Bakersfield Californian earned first-place general excellence honors in the 2019 California Journalism Awards, recognizing the entire newsroom staff for its reporting and writing, photography, design and overall presentation. [12] The judges said The Californian offered "clean design, good use of typography. Great sense of place, and personality carries throughout."

It was one of 18 honors the newspaper received in the contest put on by the California News Publishers Association. The awards were announced online as the association decided to forgo its traditional May gala in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also in 2020, The Californian earned honors in seven of seven categories in the 32nd annual George F. Gruner Awards, recognizing excellence in Central Valley print journalism. Meanwhile, the Tehachapi News also captured honors in five of the seven divisions. [13]

In 2004, the paper received the Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism [14] for Robert Price's January 2003 "Lords of Bakersfield" stories, which focused on the stabbing death of Assistant District Attorney Steven Tauzer and similar crimes committed over the previous 25 years, some of which reflected negatively on the newspaper's ownership and management. The articles were also recognized with California Newspaper Publishers Association and George F. Gruner awards, and publisher Ginger Moorhouse was named Publisher of the Year by Editor & Publisher magazine.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kern County, California</span> County in California, United States

Kern County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bakersfield, California</span> City in California, United States

Bakersfield is a city in and the county seat of Kern County, California, United States. The city covers about 151 sq mi (390 km2) near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, which is located in the Central Valley region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tehachapi, California</span> City in the United States

Tehachapi is a city in Kern County, California, United States, in the Tehachapi Mountains, at an elevation of 3,970 feet (1,210 m), between the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert. Tehachapi is 35 miles (56 km) east-southeast of Bakersfield, and 20 miles (32 km) west of Mojave. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 10 square miles (26 km2) and a population of 14,414. The Tehachapi area is known for the nearby Tehachapi Loop, the Pacific Crest Trail and for the excellent conditions for the aerial sport of gliding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California State Route 58</span> Major state highway in California

State Route 58 is a major east-west state highway in the U.S. state of California that runs across the Coast Ranges, the southern San Joaquin Valley, the Tehachapi Mountains, which border the southern Sierra Nevada, and the Mojave Desert. It runs between U.S. Route 101 near Santa Margarita and Interstate 15 in Barstow. It has junctions with Interstate 5 near Buttonwillow, State Route 99 in Bakersfield, State Route 202 in Tehachapi, State Route 14 near Mojave, and U.S. Route 395 at Kramer Junction. SR 58 also provides access to Edwards Air Force Base. At various points it is known as the Calf Canyon Highway, Carrisa Highway, Bakersfield-McKittrick Highway, Rosa Parks Highway, Westside Parkway, Barstow-Bakersfield Highway, Bakersfield Tehachapi Highway, Kern County Korean War Veterans Memorial Highway, and Mojave-Barstow Highway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tehachapi Loop</span> Rail line spiral between the Central Valley and Mojave Desert

The Tehachapi Loop is a 3,779-foot-long spiral, or helix, on the Union Pacific Railroad Mojave Subdivision through Tehachapi Pass, of the Tehachapi Mountains in Kern County, south-central California. The line connects Bakersfield and the San Joaquin Valley to Mojave in the Mojave Desert.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Area code 661</span> Area code in central and southern California, United States

Area code 661 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan for the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley and for the far northern part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The numbering plan area comprises most of Kern County, most of northern Los Angeles County, and small parts of Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, and Tulare County. It was created in an area code split of area code 805 on February 13, 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bakersfield College</span> Community college in Bakersfield, California

Bakersfield College (BC) is a public community college in Bakersfield, California. BC serves about 27,800 students each semester or 31,000 annually, and offers associate degrees, certificate programs, and is one of fifteen California Community Colleges offering a baccalaureate degree. It is part of the Kern Community College District (KCCD), which is itself part of the California Community Colleges system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willow Springs, Kern County, California</span> Unincorporated community in California, United States

Willow Springs is a village located around a set of former springs in Kern County, California, United States. It is located off of Rosamond Boulevard, 7.5 miles (12 km) west of Rosamond, at an elevation of 2,523 feet (769 m).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walker Basin</span>

Walker Basin is a valley in the Southern Sierra Nevada, in Kern County, California. It is named for Joseph R. Walker, a pioneer in the area.

<i>Bristol Herald Courier</i> Newspaper published in Bristol, Virginia, United States

The Bristol Herald Courier is a daily newspaper owned by Lee Enterprises. The newspaper is located in Bristol, Virginia, a small city located in Southwest Virginia on the Tennessee border.

The 1952 Kern County earthquake occurred on July 21 in the southern San Joaquin Valley and measured 7.3 on the moment magnitude scale. The main shock occurred at 4:52 am Pacific Daylight Time, killed 12 people, injured hundreds more and caused an estimated $60 million in property damage. A small sector of damage near Bealville corresponded to a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), though this intensity rating was not representative of the majority of damage. The earthquake occurred on the White Wolf Fault near the community of Wheeler Ridge and was the strongest to occur in California since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Havilah, California</span> Unincorporated community in California, United States

Havilah was an unincorporated community in Kern County, California that was completely leveled by the 2024 Borel Fire. The land is located in the mountains between Walker Basin and the Kern River Valley, 5 miles (8.0 km) south-southwest of Bodfish at an elevation of 3,136 feet (956 m).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transportation in Kern County, California</span>

Kern County’s transportation system was quoted as the “unseen industry.” Located at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, the county is at a prime location to ship goods west to the central coast, south to ports in Los Angeles, and east to corridors that connect to the rest of the country. It is also on major corridors that link to all northern points.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bakersfield Californian Building</span> United States historic place

The Bakersfield Californian Building is a historic office building in Bakersfield, California. The structure was placed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on March 10, 1983. It was built for the newspaper The Bakersfield Californian.

Alta Newspaper Group Limited Partnership is a Vancouver-based publisher of newspapers in Western Canada and Quebec. It owns three small daily newspapers and more than a dozen weeklies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kern County Sheriff's Office</span> Law enforcement agency in California, US

The Kern County Sheriff's Office is the agency responsible for law enforcement within Kern County, California, in the United States. The agency provides: law enforcement within the county, maintain the jails used by both the county and municipalities, and provides search and rescue. Its jurisdiction contains all of the unincorporated areas of the county, approximately 8,000 square miles (21,000 km2). The headquarters is in Bakersfield with 15 substations located throughout the county. The metro patrol area is divided into four regions: north, south, east, and west. The Sheriff's Office has over 1,200 sworn officers and civilian employees.

The Lewiston Morning Tribune is an independently owned newspaper in the northwestern United States, located in Lewiston, Idaho. Founded in 1892, it serves eight counties in north-central Idaho and southeastern Washington, the southern portion of the Inland Empire.

The Delano Record was a semi-weekly newspaper serving Delano, California and surrounding area. It ceased publication in 2017 as an individual publication, but appears to have reemerged as a subsection of the Bakersfield.com website.

The Los Banos Enterprise is a newspaper that serves the city of Los Banos, California. The paper is printed bi-weekly and has a circulation of 16,000 copies. The paper had been owned by The McClatchy Company since 2003 until the company sold it in 2022 to Michael Braa.

The Superior Court of California, County of Kern, also known as the Kern County Superior Court or Kern Superior Court, is the California superior court with jurisdiction over Kern County.

References

  1. "Database of Newspapers: California" (PDF). American Newspaper Representatives. 2018. Retrieved October 15, 2020.
  2. History of The Californian
  3. 1 2 "Bakersfield Californian sold, ending 122 years of family ownership". The Bakersfield Californian. June 3, 2019. Retrieved August 2, 2019.
  4. Wick, Julia (June 4, 2019). "Newsletter: Who are the mystery investors buying some of California's last family-owned newspapers?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  5. Goss, Emma (June 21, 2019). "Frustration, confusion as Bakersfield Californian faces layoffs and new ownership". KBAK. Retrieved August 2, 2019.
  6. Garcia, Luis (September 5, 2024). "The Bakersfield Californian transitions to a five-day per week newspaper". KGET.
  7. "The Bakersfield Californian".
  8. "The Tehachapi News".
  9. "Kern Business Journal". August 16, 2021.
  10. "Bakersfield Life". April 27, 2024.
  11. "The Delano Record". April 28, 2023.
  12. "Californian earns top honor in California Journalism Awards". April 2, 2020.
  13. "The Californian, Tehachapi News win Gruner Awards for top-notch journalism". April 2, 2020.
  14. List of Past Winners of the Payne Awards