Pacific Palisades paper stages comeback after fire

Clara Harter, Tribune News Service

After the loss of thousands of family homes and businesses to the Palisades fire, the subsequent closing of the community's nearly century-old newspaper felt like yet another a gut punch. But as the infrastructure of the Palisades rises from the ashes, The Palisadian-Post is preparing to stage an unexpected comeback. Longtime Pacific Palisades residents Laura and Tim Schneider purchased the paper and intend to relaunch it with a brand-new website on May 4, coinciding with the publication's 98th anniversary. "Laura and I are deeply committed not only to Pacific Palisades, but to the future of local journalism and community news," Tim Schneider said. "It's going be a labor of love to rebuild the newspaper and we hope that by doing so, we can speed up the recovery of Pacific Palisades."

At a time when thousands of local newspapers across the nation have folded in the face of plummeting web traffic, advertising losses and shifting reader habits, the rebirth of a community news outlet is rare. The Schneiders, who both built their careers in publishing, believe that they can carve out a financially stable path forward. "We're all certainly well aware of the difficulties facing the traditional newspaper publishing model and how that doesn't seem to work anymore," Tim Schneider said. "But we're also aware of the successes that newspapers are having by sort of standing that model on its head."

Their initial focus is re-branding as a digital-first product with a revamped website offering resources on the rebuilding process alongside coverage of local sports, schools and community developments. In time, they plan on bringing back a print version after consulting closely with community members. Tim Schneider said they reached out to the previous owner with their interest in purchasing the paper as soon as they read in The Los Angeles Times that it had shut down. He said it took some time to come to a deal, the terms of which he did not disclose, but added he and his wife were very pleased with the outcome.

The couple are interested in partnering with a philanthropic organisation to help digitise the newspaper's archives, which stretch back to 1928 — when the eight-page weekly tabloid, known then as the Palisadian, sold for just five cents a pop. The extensive archives survived the fire, and Tim Schneider hopes that they can help return photos and revive cherished memories for community members who lost personal memorabilia to the smoke and flames. The closing of the Pali Post, as community members affectionately called it, was a direct result of the destruction wrought by the January 2025 firestorm.

Damaged and destroyed businesses ended their advertising contracts. Subscribers scattered across the county, state and country. The paper's previous owner, Alan Smolinisky, said in December that closing down was the hardest decision he had ever made, but noted that the community had become a ghost town in the wake of the blaze. "You can't print a newspaper nobody reads," he wrote in the last issue of the paper. As of this January, more than 70% of Palisades residents displaced by the fire had still not returned to their homes, according to a survey commissioned by the Department of Angels, a nonprofit created by the California Community Foundation and SNAP Inc.

Based on data from people who held Palisadian-Post subscriptions in December, Schneider estimates there are more than 5,000 displaced Palisades residents living in Santa Monica and more than 3,000 in Brentwood. He hopes that the reborn paper can help serve as a catalyst for the community's recovery by connecting the fire diaspora to the recovering community — helping lure back residents and attract new businesses.

The publication also seeks to become the community's go-to source for reliable information on the rebuilding process and to provide specific advice for residents and businesses grappling with building permits and insurance claims. "What we saw occur in the wake of the fires is there was a lot of information through social media channels, but most of that information was not fact-checked," Tim Schneider said. To meet the goal of providing unbiased, fact-checked information, the new owners intend to tap into the expertise already present in the community and connect with people who previously worked for the publication.

The news outlet recorded the coastal community's quotidian happenings for generations, documenting births, marriages, deaths, soccer games, high school graduations, Fourth of July parades, the Mr. and Miss Palisades contest and more. During that time, the community also confronted wildfires, landslides, coastal erosion, development battles, evacuation challenges and insurance instability.