Mountain Enterprise

The Mountain Enterprise is a weekly newspaper circulating in the Mountain Communities of the Tejon Pass in the Tehachapi Mountains region of California, midway between Los Angeles and Bakersfield. Its sister publication is The New Mountain Pioneer, published monthly.

History

The Enterprise was founded in 1966 by Nedra Hawley Cooper, whose first editions were produced on a blue Royal typewriter. In November 2006 the ownership was taken over by Patric Hedlund, Gary Meyer, and Pam Sturdevant under the name of Hometown Publishing, LLC. It is today published in a tabloid format of about 36 pages weekly.

Awards

2011
In April of 2011, The Mountain Enterprise won the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA) 2010 First Place award for Best Website and First Place for Online Coverage.^{[citation needed]}

2010
In April of 2010, The Mountain Enterprise won the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA) First Place award for Best Website and First Place in Public Service for its 2009 ongoing coverage of a remote community's struggle to obtain firefighter-paramedic service.^{[citation needed]}

2009
The newspaper won awards from the National Newspaper Association on July 10 for (1) a series of investigative reports on the starvation of horses in Lockwood Valley (second place), (2) reporting on the struggle by Pine Mountain Club residents to secure Kern County's first firefighter-paramedic program (third place), (3) editorial writing about the newspaper's public-service responsibility in "The Stinkin' Public and Our School District's Brain Drain," by Patric Hedlund (honorable mention), and (4) an environmental story headed "Secret Negotiation between Tejon Developers and 'Big Green' Groups Sprouts Deal" (third place).^[1][2]

2007
On July 14, the newspaper was given three awards for excellence by the California Newspaper Publishers Association, including first place for environmental reporting, first place for a newspaper website, and second place for public-service reporting.^[3]

Controversy

In December 2010 the newspaper was the target of criticism by the Kern County Grand Jury for its coverage of a controversy regarding the destruction of heritage oak trees during the construction of a new Frazier Park county library.^[4] A jury committee said a "lack of communication" was responsible for the controversy and blamed that circumstance on "the people of the area and their newspaper, " adding that the Enterprise news articles "appear to be inaccurate and/or inadequately researched."^[5] In an editorial, Meyer and Hedlund wrote that the jury made no attempt to contact them before issuing the report, which, they said, "attacks the citizens and the newspaper . . . with statements that are shocking in their shallowness.^[4]

References

1. ^ National Newspaper Association list of 2009 awards for the Mountain Enterprise
2. ^ Mountain Enterprise, July 17, 2009, page 1
3. ^ Mountain Enterprise, July 20, 2007, page 1
4. ^ ^{a b} "Report Jeopardizes Grand Jury's Credibility," Mountain Enterprise, December 17, 2010, pages 2 and 16
5. ^ "Grand Jury criticizes tree controversy; Says mountain oaks are dying," KGET-TV on mnbc.com website

See also

• Kim Noller, former editor