The Nichi Bei Times announced yesterday that it would be closing on September 10. The oldest Japanese American newspaper in Northern California, its board of directors stated in their letter that they reached the decision with “great sadness.” I, as well as many others within the Japanese American community and media industry, was shocked at the news.
Since 1990, Nichi Bei Times had experienced a steady decline in circulation as well as a decline in their advertising revenue, and although they changed to a bilingual daily format with a new English Weekly in 2006, they saw only a modest increase in subscribers and it was not enough to sustain operational costs. I remember interviewing for their graphic design position when I first moved out to Northern California almost two years ago, and they told me frankly that they could not offer me the salary I asked for due to the fact that they, like many other newspaper companies, were struggling financially. The movevement of readers to online sources of news have beset the entire newspaper industry, and caused many papers nationwide to cut back or shut down completely. Their struggle has also no doubt been exacerbated by the recession of this past year.
Since it was established in 1946, the Nichi Bei Times has achieved its purpose to help revitalize the Japanese American community of Northern California, and today, we can see that Japantown has more community-based organizations than ever before, reflecting an active cultural and service-oriented community. And despite this sad news, there’s still a glimmer of hope — community leaders are rally efforts together to help Nichi Bei be reborn as a nonprofit organization, the Nichi Bei Foundation. You can read more about it in the letter, “Out of the Ashes, a Rebirth.” You can make donations to the foundation on the site, which will assist in their startup costs as a nonprofit.
On a more personal note, the closing of Nichi Bei Times really brings the recession close to home. Both of the two places I interviewed with before I arrived at my current company have gone out of business and closed down within the past year — Nichi Bei and Elephant Pharm. Although it saddens me that they’ve closed down (Nichi Bei Times is a great newspaper as well as an irreplaceable community organization, and I loved shopping at the oh-so-hip Elephant Pharm), I am breathing a sigh of relief for having not gotten those jobs, and am grateful that I still have one. We’ve been swamped with work lately and although it’s stressful, it’s better than having no work at all.