Weekly publisher buys, rescues the Healdsburg Tribune

Northern California publisher Weeklys has acquired and rescued the Healdsburg Tribune, which was in the process of shutting down its print publication and pausing its affiliated email newsletters.

Weeklys on Tuesday announced it bought the newspaper from the Sonoma County Local News Initiative after the nonprofit group made the decision to shut down publication with its April 28 edition with a headline that read: “Stop the presses: Tribune’s final edition.” The newspaper dates back to the 1860s.

The company bought the biweekly Sonoma County Independent in 1994. It changed it to a weekly publication and was rebranded as the North Bay Bohemian in 2000. Weeklys also publishes the Pacific Sun in Marin County, and weekly newspapers in Alameda, Santa Clara, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.

“We didn’t want to see a treasured newspaper lost. We moved the Bohemian’s office to Healdsburg in 2020 and love the community. Residents here have worked hard to maintain community journalism and we intend to give the community a voice and local information every week,” said Dan Pulcrano, chief executive officer of Weeklys, in a statement.

“We are surprised, gratified and a little astonished,” said Nancy Dobbs, president of the board of directors of Sonoma County Local News Initiative, in a statement. “Dan came forward as (we) were calling it quits, saying goodbye to our reporting staff and telling the community we were walking away from print.”