Palo Alto Weekly
From Palo Alto Wiki
The Palo Alto Weekly is a community newspaper published every Wednesday and Friday by the Embarcadero Publishing Company, 703 High Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301, (650) 326-8210. The online edition of the paper is posted by 10 a.m. (Wednesday edition) and 10 a.m. Friday (Weekend edition). The Palo Alto Weekly serves the San Francisco Peninsula communities of Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, Portola Valley, Stanford, East Palo Alto and Los Altos Hills. In January 1994, the Weekly became the first newspaper in the United States to publish on the World Wide Web.
[edit] History
The Palo Alto Weekly was founded in 1979 by Bill Johnson, then a 26-year-old Stanford graduate with no newspaper or business experience.
His vision for the paper was simple. He thought that a community as educated, progressive and sophisticated as Palo Alto deserved a well-written newspaper that covered issues and people thoughtfully and insightfully and that served as a place for community dialogue and debate. He believed a newspaper should strive to do more than just report the news. It should also provide the context, analysis and commentary needed to stimulate public participation and the resolution of important community issues.
The Chicago Tribune bought both the Palo Alto Times and Redwood City Tribune in January 1978. The two papers merged into one "new" Peninsula Times tribune, and started covering regional issues instead of local Palo Alto news.
It was then that Johnson decided it would be beneficial to start the Palo Alto Weekly. Together, Johnson, business manager-to-be Bob Heinen, and editor-to-be Tim Clark found 14 investors. Starting in a makeshift office in Johnson's own Palo Alto home, the Weekly published its first issue Oct. 11, 1979.
The first issue cost 35 cents and had a whimsical cover illustration of a map of Palo Alto, in The New Yorker style, by Palo Alto artist Jim M'Guinness. The main story was a profile of Bill Zaner, the then-new Palo Alto city manager.
