The Palisadian-Post has returned to Pacific Palisades after a wildfire displaced its residents, and the community newspaper’s revival seeks to reunite those displaced Palisadians.
Tim and Laura Schneider relaunched the newspaper on May 4, the newspaper’s 98th anniversary, using a digital-first model to reach Palisadians who are dispersed across California, 32 additional states and multiple countries. A January 2025 wildfire decimated the Los Angeles neighborhood, killing 12 people and destroying more than 6,000 buildings, primarily homes. Eighteen months after the fire, two-thirds of the community remains displaced, Tim Schneider said, as homeowners await the final word on their insurance settlement claims.
“The overall conceptual approach is to reunite the city and the people who live there through the Palisadian-Post, which is a much-loved and trusted brand,” he said. “There's much that needs to be rebuilt in Pacific Palisades, and the Palisadian-Post is one of those things that we’re intent on rebuilding.”
The Schneiders moved to Pacific Palisades more than two decades ago, and part of the draw for the couple was its community newspaper. Both Tim and Laura worked in the publishing industry, and they hoped to one day buy the newspaper.
The Post changed hands over the years, and about one year after the fire, its owners announced they planned to shutter the newspaper in December 2025. Tim Schneider immediately initiated contact to begin the acquisition process, and in March, the Schneiders announced they would relaunch the Post.
Tim Schneider spoke with local community leaders over a four-week period to seek out feedback and guidance, and he decided on a daily email newsletter as the best approach to reach both the Palisadians who had returned to the city and those who remained displaced.
“Our initial marketing efforts were done under the tagline ‘Once a Palisadian, Always a Palisadian,’ which really resonated with people,” he said. “That really captures the essence of how people define themselves.”
The Schneiders inherited a subscriber list in the acquisition that they augmented to create a database of more than 20,000 Palisadians, and they will offer the newsletter free with no paywall through the end of 2026.
Schneider said their data on open rates and click-through rates shows the newsletter is filling an information void.
“We’ve seen that there’s a real hunger for this information, and I think it’s because people were longing somehow to reconnect to Pacific Palisades,” he said.
Schneider said the revived Palisadian-Post got immediate interest from readers in the first five minutes after sending a newsletter.
“So, we feel like it's working, and as it works, it becomes more valuable to our business partners,” he said.
Instead of a traditional newspaper advertising model, Schneider said they are working to create partnerships, similar to the model he used in business-to-business publishing. Those partnerships are typically set at a one-year commitment, and in addition to standard advertising, like website banners, the partnerships will involve visibility at community events that the Post is reviving, including the Pacific Palisades Spelling Bee and the Citizen of the Year Award contest.
The Palisadian-Post also provides resources for the community, like the Pali Rebuild Map, which tracks the community’s recovery. It was created by Kevin Pazirandeh, a video game designer who was born and raised in Pacific Palisades.
In addition to the work done by Tim and Laura Schneider, the Palisadian-Post employs three full-time editorial staffers, a staff photographer, a social media manager and a director of business development.
As the Post adds roles, Laura Schneider said she has been “heartened” by the number of young people stepping up to support community news.
“It’s just amazing to me that young people have this really heartfelt commitment to community news,” she said. “It never ceases to surprise and delight me as we talk to people and fill these roles.”
Alyssa Choiniere is a freelance journalist based in southwestern Pennsylvania. She is writing a nonfiction book for Rutgers University Press, “Be Home Before the Streetlights Come On: The Political Hijacking of Child-Trafficking Terror.”
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here