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The story ends for a nearly century-old community paper in the Pacific Palisades

Dañiel Andres Martinez is an associate producer for LAist.

Published Jan 4, 2026 5:00 AM

A man in a tan hat, a dark green shirt, gray pants and brown shoes leans against a brick wall with a sign that says "Pacific Palisades Post Printing & Publishing". The man smiles at the camera. A glass door behind him has the address "839" on it.

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The Pacific Palisades bids its paper of record goodbye

The Pali-Post, the community paper for the Palisades for nearly 100 years, has shut down. Dañiel Martinez reports.

The Palisadian-Post, the community paper that’s been covering the Pacific Palisades for nearly 100 years, printed its final issue on Christmas Day.

After January’s fires, subscriptions basically fell to zero, as did advertisers, according to a memo announcing the paper's closure from owner Alan Smolinisky.

But its end brings with it nearly a century of memories.

The Post remembered

The seaside community of Pacific Palisades was founded by members of the Methodist church in 1922. Six years later, the first issue of what would become the Pali-Post was published to document town life.

“ A little 12-point, 12-page tabloid, they called the Palisadian” said Bill Bruns, a former editor of the Palisadian-Post from 1993 to 2013, and member of the Pacific Palisades Historical Society. Before he was editor, Bruns was a loyal reader of the paper.

In 1934, the paper was purchased by Clifford Clearwater, one of the first settlers of the Palisades. Bruns said Clearwater had been an ambulance driver in World War I, and was the Palisades's original postal carrier where he would deliver mail by horseback.

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He wasn’t trained as a journalist, but his life experiences gave him the confidence to keep publishing the paper, serving as its photographer and editor until his death in 1956.

“He had a friend who had a little plane and he would take Cliff up and Cliff would shoot these great aerial pictures of the town growing, hanging out of this little plane,” Bruns said.

Over the years, Clearwater took about 3,000 aerial photos of the community as it developed and grew. All of those pictures survived the Palisades Fire and are stored at the Santa Monica Library for the public to see.

In 1950, a rival paper — the Pacific Palisades Post — came on the scene and by the end of the next decade, the two papers would merge to become the Pali-Post that most people think of today.

A staff picture of the "Palisadian-Post". Six people stand together, four people are in front and two are in back. The person at the far left and foreground wears a light blue jacket and scarf and a red shirt. The person in the middle foreground wears a green blazer and a green and blue scarf. Another person stands to her side and wears a pink scarf and dark red shirt. On the right side of the picture a woman wears a purple shirt, jeans and a purple cardigan. In the background, on the left side, one person wears a white button up shirt. To the side of him Bill Bruns wears a white and blue striped button up shirt. They all smile and pose for a camera. They are in a garden surrounded by green shrubbery.

A 'heyday' for community news

The paper changed hands again in 1981 and a little over a decade later, Bruns began as editor.

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With an average of about 30 pages to fill every week, he said what readers appreciated most was the focus on local news. Reporters went in person to cover stories and were often seen at local meetings, sports events and businesses.

“So they knew that they were getting firsthand coverage of what was happening in the town,” Bruns said.

Readers like Sue Kohl who lived in the Palisades for 32 years, respected the breadth of its coverage.

The Post covered school sports her children participated in. She said it featured plenty of advertisements from neighborhood businesses, including her own real estate agency. She especially liked the small town bulletin feel of the paper.

“They talked about local issues. They talked about local residents, whether they were famous or not famous,” Kohl said.

One of her favorite sections to read was the “Two Cents” column, stray thoughts and opinions from Palisadians. She also appreciated the in-depth obituaries.

Bruns said the obit section was always appreciated by the families since the paper didn’t charge for them.

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“ Because we didn't charge, people would write nice obituaries because they weren't worried about the cost and they would give us a picture and we ran those,” Bruns said.

A room is seen through a window. A red sign with white letters that says "news" sits in the middle of the room. Old newspapers can be seen on the other side of the windowpane. Next to the newspapers are a basket and a straw hat. A copy machine is seen in front of the window. Desks and a bulletin board filled with pictues can be seen beyond the window in the room.

The paper was known for its responsiveness to the community. The staff took pitches from readers, Bruns said, and put the spotlight on Palisadians themselves.

There was a “golden couples” column for anybody married for 50 years or more; a “young Palisadians” column for enterprising youngsters and a “people on the move” column for the movers and shakers.

The paper also announced the first birth in the community each year.

“It was kind of a cool thing to be the first baby in the Palisades. They gave them prizes like baby gifts and things. Very local, community driven, small town emphasis,” Kohl said.

More than a paper

That small town emphasis remained a constant. Gabriella Bock was a reporter at the Pali-Post from 2016 to 2018. She said it her first real newsroom experience.

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A desk is seen in an office. The desk is black with silver cabinets. A black desk chair sits underneath part of the desk. There is a computer on top of the desk. The desk has various post-it notes and papers taped to its walls.

“ We were a small, tight-knit news team of myself, a sports reporter and one other staff reporter,” Bock said. “So I was able to be taken under their wing and learn a lot in a short period of time.”

A dark blue laminated "media pass" is seen. The media pass depicts a woman with brown hair in a white T-shirt and blue sweater. Underneath the picture is written the word "reporter". Above the picture the words "Gabriella Ayres" is written. Above those words "Palisadian-Post Media" is written.

But the paper was more than just a place to work. When Bock got married, her fellow reporters wrote a marriage announcement in the paper. When she was pregnant, they threw her a baby shower.

When she heard about the paper closing its doors, she said it was heartbreaking. To Bock it’s not about being nostalgic or sentimental about a former workplace. She sees the giant hole the disappearance of another local newsroom can leave people with.

“It's how people learn what's happening on their block, in their schools, in their city, and when that disappears, people oftentimes will lose a reason to stay engaged at all,” said Bock.

A woman in a dark blue hat wears food gloves and handles small baskets of food inside a food truck. She wears a gray shirt and light blue jeans. Napkins, a black bag, and condiments can be seen on the table in front of her. Behind her a person in a black shirt is working.

Bruns echoes Bock’s sentiment. He saw the paper as a unifier of the community in his two-decade tenure.

“It just made people feel more like they really liked their town, and the Palisades Post was a crucial element in that whole spirit of community,” Bruns said.

A man in a blue suit wearing a blue collared shirt and a blue and tan tie stands next to another man with glasses, a black suit, a blue collared shirt and a light blue tie. An aerial view photograph of downtown Los Angeles can be seen behind them. The man in the blue suit holds an honorary certificate up.

Kohl, whose home is more than halfway rebuilt, hopes that the spirit will return one day.

Last time she drove through her old neighborhood of The Alphabet Streets she saw several homes in the process of coming back up.

“I have faith that we will all come back, and I hope that the newspaper finds that as well,” said Kohl.

A woman in a blue puffer jacket, a sweatshirt, jogging pants and running shoes stands in the construction site of a home with a white dog on a leash. She wears sunglasses and makes a thumbs up gesture to the camera.

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The story ends for a nearly century-old community paper in the Pacific Palisades

The Post remembered

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A 'heyday' for community news

More than a paper

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