Sacramento Union

The Sacramento Union was a newspaper founded in 1851 in Sacramento, California. The newspaper ceased publication in January 1994 but has since experienced two resurrections, the most recent one ceasing publication in March 2009.

Newspaper to 1994
"...Richard Mellon Scaife owned the newspaper from 1977 to 1989.... there were reports that Scaife lost millions of dollars every year on the newspaper...In 1989, Scaife sold the Union to local real estate developers Daniel Benvenuti Jr. and David Kassis. They hired Joseph Farah as editor, and the paper veered even further to the right. ...Farah resigned as editor 15 months later; under his editorship, the paper's circulation declined nearly 30 percent"

2004 magazine
"In August 2004, a modernized Sacramento Union returned with bimonthly magazines, then started publishing monthly in May 2005. James H. Smith, a former publisher of the Sacramento Union newspaper and co-founder of the Western Journalism Center with Farah, served as publisher, and Kenneth E. Grubbs Jr., former director of the National Journalism Center who had also worked for the Orange County Register, served as editor. ...the magazine ceased existing after only five issues. Much of the office staff was laid off in May 2005.[1] Smith and Grubbs were ousted in June 2005, and J.J. McClatchy, a member of the Union's board of directors, was named general manager."

2006-2009 tabloid and web
"In 2006, The Sacramento Union was reborn as a tabloid-sized free weekly newspaper fom 2006 to 2009....Published by The Sacramento Union, LLC, the paper also published a daily news Web site, http://www.sacunion.com . It suspended publication of both the paper and the website in March, 2009. James C. Dutra was The Union's publisher and editor-in-chief. The paper was conservative in tone."

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Western Journalism Center
 * National Journalism Center
 * Joseph Farah
 * James H. Smith