How a Free Press Has Turned Costly

During a brief stretch in the early 2000s, the Long Beach Press-Telegram (P-T) furnished ten free daily copies to several branch libraries; a practice that ended after the paper was folded in 2010 into the Southern California News Group (SCNG), headquartered at the Daily Breeze in Torrance, which was later acquired by Alden Global Capital, an East Coast hedge fund.

Founded in 2007, Alden had stakes in roughly 200 American newspapers by mid-2020, making it the second-largest newspaper owner in the United States behind only Gannett. The P-T was in keeping with Alden’s model: local reporting consolidated under SCNG bylines, making it increasingly difficult to discern content produced elsewhere in the region by one of eleven dailies from the Daily Breeze to a Redlands daily, in addition to five weekly papers.

Described as “seemingly intent on destroying local newspapers” by the Washington Post, Bloomberg described Alden as “a destroyer of newspapers”. In 2020, Vanity Fair wrote “Alden Global Capital has eliminated the jobs of scores of reporters and editors, and decimated journalism in cities all over the country.”

The P-T was no exception. All local reports are credited to the regional SCNG instead of the P-T, making it difficult to distinguish Long Beach-generated stories from out-of-town generated stories.

As of the 2020s, at the El Dorado branch of the library, those who wish to read the P-T or the L.A. Times must hand over their library card who then supplies the paper. The reason? Theft, a vivid example of how times have changed.

Of the 18 articles in the front section of the Thanksgiving Eve, Nov. 26 issue of the P-T, eight articles were from the Associated Press (AP), SCNG journalists contributed eight articles and the New York Times supplied two stories. Of the 24 articles on the same date, the L. A. Times printed 23 articles by its own journalists and one supplied by the AP. Though the Times does tend to run a surprising amount of Mexican Mafia/prison gang profiles, it also breaks stories about local corruption, terrorist groups and all-around accounts of major traffic accidents, murders and high-profile trials as well as a healthy dose of international and national political, criminal, sports and entertainment news.

In the 1980s, the Times maintained a three-person Long Beach bureau, which vanished in the 1990s. Then there were two defunct news outlets, the free District Weekly and the one-year tenure of the Long Beach Register, which never got a local foothold.

Not too long ago, the L.A. Times featured columns by Jack Smith, who covered the L.A. scene, replaced by about a dozen current columnists, among them, Gustavo Arellano, Steve Lopez, LZ Granderson and Patt Morrison. As far back as the 1950s, the P-T featured columnists like Malcom Epley and George Robeson. More recently, Tom Hennessey retired in 2007, sportswriter Doug Kirkorian by layoff in 2011 and most recently, Tim Grobaty, who defected to the LBPost in 2018.

Amid this fragile environment, the Beachcomber has not only survived, but powered through with a unique news product, covering stories not often found in other print publications.

“Daily newspapers have a bigger challenge to cover their editorial and production costs due to the daily frequency, which is why they spread those costs among several corporate-owned publications in a wider geographic area,” wrote Beachcomber publisher Jay Beeler. “Long Beach’s daily paper now contains more regional stories than local news, using writers from as far away as the San Fernando Valley. Meanwhile, the free weekly, biweekly, and online publications have been filling that local news void and are surviving on advertising revenues from smaller, local enterprises.”

“Most daily newspapers have seen their paid circulation numbers cut in half or more in recent years due to competition from other non-print media,” wrote Beeler. “This means that publishers must cut overhead costs and charge higher subscription rates to survive.”

For the past three years, the cost of daily home delivery of the L.A. Times increased substantially. In October 2023, the price increased to $305.50 for three months; in July 2024 it went to $357.50 and in November 2025, the price zoomed to $442 for the identical time span.

According to online comments, the P-T is keeping pace with these prices.

“We cancelled our subscription – the paper kept getting smaller and weaker in news, but more expensive each year, but the prices do vary. “I just paid my subscription renewal and it is $1,003.70 for the entire year. “You must have been scammed. So sorry to hear that happened. “I paid 843.00 for 52 weeks. Just renewed in September.

Then there was this. “If you subscribe to the P-T, you might check what you pay! For a 13-week subscription I paid $651.00 or $2,600.00/year. I called and complained at which point the agent offered $453.00. The agent was an overseas third party service agency with no contact to the newspaper.

“The only bad subscription I’ve ever had and had to fight to fix was P-T. When I delivered newspapers from my bicycle (57 years ago), I had to collect 63 cents each week. When the price was raised to 67 cents, customers dropped their subscription. At the rate they were charging me the daily paper would cost approx. $7.12 per day.”

Several e-mail attempts to elicit comment from the P-T on these issues were not answered.

In contrast, the Beachcomber is free to residents in its East Long Beach circulation area, delivered every other weekend or available at public libraries; nominally priced for mailed copies.

In August 2023, the P-T offered a one-year on-line subscription for $1. A reader who signed up trusted the offer as the promotion supplied a local 562 number for easy cancellation. A year later, he found out cancellation wasn’t easy when the 562 number turned out to be at an offshore site complete with circular responses to his request to cancel. As of this article, whether he succeeded in his cancellation is not entirely clear.

Not so different from a positioning statement published by the Long Beach Independent when it first hit the streets in 1938. “Many who read the first edition of the Long Beach Independent telephoned the office to place subscriptions for the paper. The Independent has no facilities for paid subscriptions but it is deeply appreciative of the compliment these readers paid us with their calls. The only price you can pay for this newspaper is to mention to merchants that you read their advertisements in the Independent. That repays the publisher; it serves the merchant because it helps to guide him in placing his advertising where it will do the most good.”

Pretty much the same attitude about keeping the Beachcomber a free news source.

“We love the Beachcomber” is a statement we frequently hear because of the local news coverage. Our Community Scanner column is very popular because it provides them with details relating to police and fire activity down the street.

“Older readers like our paper because they prefer having a paper in their hands while drinking their morning coffee. They dislike using computers and rely on television newscasts to supplement our free content.

“There is now and will be strong demand for local news in the future,” said Beeler. “We see it every day in social media as people ask about ‘all that police activity in our neighborhood.’ We know the answer because we have scanners and other sources providing the details. It has been that way – and will be – forever.”