Dan Pulcrano, CEO and Editor of "The Bohemian!"
Our special guest speaker for June 10, 2021, was Dan Pulcrano, CEO and Executive Editor of Weeklys, a newspaper group that includes the North Bay Bohemian, Metro Silicon Valley, Santa Cruz Weekly, Pacific Sun, and the East Bay Express, among others. Dan is also a member of the San Jose Rotary Club and a ‘sort of’ in-law of our own Bulletin Editor and club member, Max Childs! Dan started his journalistic career working for the San Diego Reader at age 16. He has been working in weekly newspapers and publications ever since!
His Weeklys was recently given 47 awards, including the award for General Excellence for “Good Times,” a Santa Cruz newspaper, as the best weekly newspaper in California. The Weeklys group includes 13 weekly newspapers, five of which are “alternative” papers, such as the Bohemian. The main idea behind the Bohemian and other alternative papers is providing free information about cultural events, literary issues, and different perspectives. The Bohemian provides a very different view of the world than an ordinary newspaper, e.g., it is much more “rock and roll” than mainstream papers.
Dan bought the Sonoma County publication “The Sonoma County Independent” in 1993 and changed its name to “The Bohemian.” His staff thought the name was nuts, but he reasoned that Sonoma County has always had its own individualistic ethos; we do not always follow trends and are not a mass culture area. 1994, when he started publishing the Bohemian, was a pivotal time in the industry. Many of the old newspapers had been purchased more than 50 years before and had not evolved. The digital wave was just starting and he was able to stay slightly ahead of it by, for example, using an artist in Holland to send art files to Sonoma County! Dan was able to get ahead of many publishers by recognizing and adapting to digital publishing.
Dan pointed out some amazing differences between digital and paper publications. Generally, complete understanding of complex subjects is less likely with digital publications than with the written word. Children are not learning as well in the digital classroom as they did in the traditional classroom, and this lack of complete attention when reading digital news and information also seems to have taken place as well in our political and cultural understanding of events. Clearly, digital is here to stay but written newspapers maintain an important place in our communities and the nation.
Dan’s presentation also included a pitch for a program sponsored by his club. The San Jose Rotary Club developed the practice of installing adaptive swings to allow accessibility for all children, including children with special needs, in city parks. Take a look at the https://www.sanjose.org/listings/rotary-playgarden for an explanation of one of the main adaptive park projects.
Many thanks to Dan for the thought provoking and interesting program. And, good job on The Bohemian; it is always worth a read!
Click HERE to view a recording of Dan's presentation. The recording started after the introductions and will be available for the next week or so.
