National Newspaper Association Foundation

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Ojai (California) Valley News sold

Dec 1, 2021

Ojai Media LLC has acquired the assets of the weekly Ojai Valley News and quarterly Ojai Magazine from Downhome Publishing LLC, Publisher Laura Rearwin Ward announced on the occasion of the newspaper's 130th birthday. Terms were not disclosed.

Ward has been publisher since 2018 and engaged local investors to help her to acquire the company.

"Come what may, the people of our valley deserve a free press, the power to know, the ability to become better connected and to have their history preserved through well–told stories for another 130 years," she wrote.

In a California Publisher profile by California News Publishers Association last fall, Ward said, “There is never enough time to dig into all the beautiful, thoughtful, outrageous, touching, wrong things that our community is up to every day.”

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