150 years of Downey, 150 years of news coverage

This story was written as part of the D150 Celebration, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the city’s founding.

DOWNEY - Since the city’s founding 150 years ago, there has been a newspaper in some shape or form covering Downey.

That is no small stat to wink at.

According to longtime Downey Patriot editor Eric Pierce, the difference between community newspapers and larger publications comes down to the level of coverage.

“I think it’s kind of cool when you open the paper on a Friday morning, and you might see your neighbor in there, or maybe you see somebody who’s turning 100, or somebody who got a promotion, or even obituaries, it’s a part of life,” said Pierce. “It’s kind of rare to see newspapers now cover the community like we do…I think we do really important work.”

Pierce said that bigger papers “are not going to come into Downey” barring extreme circumstances.

“For the most part, a paper like the LA Times, they don’t have the resources to cover a community like ours,” said Pierce. “In LA County alone there’s 88 cities, and bigger newspapers, they just don’t have the staff to cover every community. That’s where smaller newspapers like ours come in to kind of fill the gap.

“Every once in a while, we’ll get a bigger newspaper come in – we’ve had the Washington Post come into Downey to do a paper – and it’s exciting, but then they leave, and what’s going to happen after they leave? We need newspapers to cover the day-to-day of what’s going on…There’s a lot going on in Downey, believe it or not. Finding things to write about is not difficult; there’s news happening, you just have to be involved and know what’s going on.”

Downey’s coverage began in 1875 with the Downey Courier, established by Alonzo Waite, a Maine native who started off as a printer in 1854 for Los Angeles' first paper, the Los Angeles Star.

The Courier resided in one of Downey’s first buildings, The Central Hotel, which was erected in 1875 near the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. It published every Saturday, and eventually expanded to the Los Nietos Valley Courier in 1876.

As the community around it grew, however, so did the competition.

In 1879, Santa Monica news editor L.T. Fisher brought his paper, the Outlook. Downey’s second newspaper would quickly disappear from the scene.

The Courier would suffer a similar fate, ceasing in 1881. Publishers Samuel H. Purcell and J.M. Emmert opened the Downey Signal the following year, however it too would fold in 1895, following Emmert’s descent into poor health.

In 1885, Superior Court judge and L.A. County district attorney James C. Rives – the builder of the Rives Mansion – established the Downey Weekly Review. It too would be a short-lived endeavor, folding in in 1887 after Rives left his paper to pursue law career.

Pennsylvania native Charles Henry Eberle found some success in 1888 with the Downey Champion, albeit the Champion was initially established to "champion" the agendas of the Democratic party. Nevertheless, it went on to become Downey’s longest lasting newspaper.

That wouldn’t stop others from popping up.

In 1898, the Downey Mirror was published by M. M. Purcell and Jessie McCoy. The Downey Dispatch was brought forth by C.A. Seay and C. C. Arrowsmith in 1902, publishing for five years until November 1907.

The Downey News came next, in 1910, thanks to printer H. Hull, and in 1914 merged with the Champion. Upon the Merger, Eberly retired, giving Hull the reins.

The Downey Eagle was established in 1914 by J. Ed Van Matre. In 1918, Van Matre bought the champion.

There was some turbulence in the transaction, however, as prominent employee Knowles C. Weiss' wife Fannie parted company with Van Matre after an alleged disagreement. Soon after, the Weiss family published the Downey LiveWire, with a more conservative tilt.

The Weisses retired by 1968, and the Call-Enterprise, an expansive paper that covered many cities in the Gateway, bought out the LiveWire and merged with another paper, the Downey Herald American.

Van Matre sold the Champion in 1935 to Thomas S. Fisher, a democratic businessman from Calgary, Canada. His son, 1944 Downey High School graduate Don Fisher served as editor during the mid-1940s until the paper was sold again in 1954 to Gus Karnopp.

Karnopp published the Champion alongside the Southeast News from the same headquarters for four years. In 1958, the Champion and Southeast News merged and became a Monday-Friday paper owned by John Dennis.

Operating as the Southeast News, the paper covered Downey, Norwalk, Bellflower, Paramount, Pico Rivera and Santa Fe Springs. It closed in 1985.

The News Tribune (published by Joseph S. Bianchi) followed. Then came the Eagle, a weekly newspaper published by Jerry Andrews from March 5, 1993 until March 29, 2002.

That brings the story to current day, and the Downey Patriot which rose from the ashes of the Eagle in May 2001.

Publishing for over 21 years, the Patriot was established by veteran news editor John Adams. In 2006, when Adams’ health started to decline due to Parkinson’s Disease, he sold the company to current publisher Jennifer Dekay, a Downey native and 1990 Downey High School graduate.

That brings us to today.

In the online age, most have turned away from newspapers in favor of quicker, more immediate access.

That is, except for the Downey Patriot, according to DeKay.

“I think media in general has taken a different shift. I think in order to stay relevant you have to stay consistent, and not only consistent in many ways,” said DeKay. “You have to stay consistent with technology, and consistent in what people are looking for. They want quick and easy, and that’s maybe not sitting down and reading the paper, except in Downey. People say print is dying, and I would agree with them, except in this city.”

DeKay lauded the support that the Patriot has received from the community, saying that “The Downey Patriot is still regarded as a very good source of information.”

“I believe that the Downey Patriot has a brand that other companies – I don’t necessarily want to say should be envious of – but we are very fortunate to have the brand that we do, and we’ve worked very hard on making that brand very prominent in the city.”

When asked about the Patriot’s role in the legacy of Downey news coverage, DeKay said “it’s a lot of pressure,” but also called it an honor.

“It’s a lot of pressure only because you don’t want that piece of the legacy to end; you don’t want to be the reason why it ended,” said DeKay. “That’s why it’s so important to stay relevant. Downey has such a diverse community in ages, and you want to make sure that newspaper is read by the youth as well as generations before them.”

DeKay said that “there is always going to be news” in Downey, as long as there is business, government, and a school system.

“There might not be a physical Downey Patriot paper 30 years from now, but I would love to say that there will be a podcast, or a review, or a video recap that people can say, ‘Okay, I don’t want to listen to or go to the city council meeting, I want the five-minute recap on what happened.’ That’s another form of news that could be produced by the Downey Patriot,” said DeKay. “I don’t see the Downey Patriot’s legacy ending; I just see it evolving into different forms of communication.

“At the end of the day, the biggest difference between community newspapers and national newspapers, or multi-city newspapers, is reporters are stretched thin – even in our company, they’re stretched thin – but you can always look to the Downey Patriot for what is happening in that city. As long as there’s a city of Downey, there’s always going to be news, and hopefully we will be the ones providing it to you.”