Amid a wave of Washington Post layoffs and hedge fund newspaper takeovers, journalists and Petaluma natives Jennifer Sawhney and Crissy Pascual are opening the town’s newest nonprofit, paywall-free news source, Petaluma Voice.
Sawhney and Pascual worked for the Petaluma Argus-Courier when Alden Global Capital purchased the company and its daily sister paper, The Press Democrat, in 2025.
Though Sawhney, SRJC and Oak Leaf alum, stayed with the newspaper until October, Pascual didn’t have a choice in the matter.
“It was a shock to all of us,” Pascual said. “One of the first things [Alden does] as they’re gutting everything is a bunch of layoffs. They purchased all the papers in May, and I was laid off in June.”
These Sonoma County papers weren’t the first to be consumed by MNG Enterprises, Alden’s newspaper publisher, and they won’t be the last. The Manhattan-based hedge fund has dissolved and merged hundreds of newspapers across the United States and is responsible for the consolidation of papers like The Denver Post, the Chicago Tribune and the East Bay Times.
Though Pascual and Sawhney didn’t officially start planning the launch of Petaluma Voice until fall of last year, the idea was born long before then.
“[We] had been talking about this dream while we were both on staff,” Pascual said. “We just think this town is ripe for a nonprofit newsroom. We saw so much potential in our town, embracing this.”
Early in the planning process, Pascual spoke to Noberto Santana Jr., a friend and former colleague from her days at the San Diego Union-Tribune. Santana Jr. left the Orange County Register to start his own nonprofit newspaper, Voice of OC, in 2009.
Santana Jr. guided Sawhney and Pascual to The Tiny News Collective, an organization that supports journalists opening and running independent newspapers.
Through TNC, the future-501(c)(3) was able to take donations to begin developing Petaluma Voice.
“It’s been a really eye-opening experience on what it takes to start a newsroom,” Sawhney said. “It’s also been really fulfilling, hearing the positivity from people, the way people have just given their support. Even before we’ve published our first story, I feel like we’re answering a need for this community that we both recognized before and now are able to fulfill.”
Petaluma Voice will be written by and for community members, intending to highlight the civic-minded nature of the town. “We want to hear from everyone,” Sawhney said. “We want to cover what they want us to cover. We want to tell the stories that they want to hear and see and talk about.”
Additionally, the community-minded newspaper intends to involve students of all ages in not only the stories it tells, but the telling of the stories.
“We really want to hear all the young voices,” Pascual said. “We want to be a training ground for future journalists.”
The nonprofit, nonpartisan, independent news source will be one of the only in Sonoma County whose articles won’t be hidden behind a paywall. This was a no-brainer decision for Sawhney and Pascual, who believe that everyone has a right to information.
“We want to make sure that people have access to news so they can see what’s happening around town,” Sawhney said. “If you have a paywall up, you’re going to limit access to the information. It’s like air and water.”
To these journalists, information is not a privilege — it’s a right. This was a major factor in their decision to follow the nonprofit business model.
“We didn’t want to be beholden to anyone except for our community and ourselves and our hearts,” Pascual said. “We are beholden to just doing the right thing for our community. When you’re driven by that, that’s the purest form of journalism.”
Sawhney and Pascual follow in the footsteps of Santana Jr. and hundreds of other journalists who have started their own independent news sources.
“Nonprofit news isn’t this radical new thing. It’s returning to what journalism is and should be,” Sawhney said.
Petaluma Voice will launch in the spring. More information, and ways to support the nonprofit, can be found on its website or its Instagram or Facebook pages.
Corrections: The Tiny News Collective goes by TNC, and Noberto Santana Jr. left the Orange County Register on his own in 2009 to start Voice of OC. This information was corrected 2/26/26 at 4:20 p.m.
