The state of business in North County has been slow this year — slower than any of us on the Paso Robles Main Street board can remember. I sit at that table alongside fellow business owners, and we’re all feeling it. Our own business, the Atascadero News and Paso Robles Press, has been hit hard by the loss of advertising. In recent years, both the cities of Paso Robles and Atascadero chose to publish their legal notices in New Times, a publication focused on San Luis Obispo County rather than our local communities.

The Paso Robles Press, founded in 1889, has been the paper of record since its inception, telling our local stories in print every single week for 135 years. The Atascadero News, founded in 1913 and originally printed at The Printery in town, has been the community’s voice for over a century — employing local journalists, preserving local history, and connecting neighbors.

My husband, Nic, began his journalism career with the Atascadero News in 2012 as a sports reporter and became sports editor for both papers in 2013. He left when we purchased Paso Robles Magazine, but when we acquired the newspapers in 2019, it felt like we had come full circle.

At that time, the papers were losing more than $250,000 a year. We turned them around quickly, combining them with our magazines and starting 2020 with steady growth — until COVID brought everything to a screeching halt in March. Since then, we have never fully recovered.

Today, we have an exceptional team of journalists, photographers, sales staff, and graphic designers who put their heart into every printed edition. Over the years, Nic and I have personally covered the shortfall to keep print alive because we believe in its value. But we are now at a crossroads. Our online readership is thriving, but print is not. If advertisers will not support print, we may have no choice but to move fully digital.

The ripple effect would be felt beyond our office — the printer who has produced our papers for decades, our delivery team, the post office, and our own staff would all be impacted. This is not a decision we take lightly.

I love print. Our team loves print. But perhaps we are in a time when it’s no longer valued in the way it once was.

I will be making this decision in the next few weeks, and I’ll be bringing it to the attention of our cities, our advertisers, and our readers. We’ve always been here to serve you, and before we take this next step, I want to hear from you.

Let me know your thoughts. Email me at hayley@13stars.media