From
Boonville,
Mendocino County, California,
Bruce Anderson, his wife Ling, and his longtime collaborator Mark Scaramella produce the Anderson Valley Advertiser.
The Advertiser boasts a national circulation of several thousand. It includes local, sometimes mundane news, as well as in-depth, intelligent analysis of international issues. "Analyse globally, gossip locally" gives some idea of what you'll find in the AVA.
For several years Alexander Cockburn, who lives in the Mattole Valley, has given Bruce advance copies of his columns for The Nation, as well as material which will appear in Counterpunch, the newsletter which Alex copublishes with Jeffrey St. Clair.
The Advertiser features several pages of lively letters, (including, back in the 80s, many from the colorful Wanda Tinasky, who some suspect was really Thomas Pynchon, in the middle of researching his book Vineland) with acidic replies from the editor.
Local coverage of Mendocino County is scabrous, with the school board, the supervisors, the local public radio station, and the wine industry being favorite targets. Essentially every self-professed "progressive" in the county has been denounced by the self-professed "progressive" editor at one time or another.
Several crusades are ongoing, the main one being against Judi Bari's former spouse, whom Bruce has repeatedly accused of being responsible for her being bombed. The editor, predictably, also has it in for Julia Butterfly Hill.
The local gossip in the paper might remind you of Garrison Keillor with a bad case of hemorrhoids. Still. it weaves a spell; all over the world people follow avidly the doings of their favorite Mendocino County characters.
some information here is paraphrased from an opinion piece in the Arcata Eye by Don Jones