California Journal suspends

The California Journal is halting publication in January—at least temporarily—after 35 years. A non-profit board has tried to build an endowment to keep the monthly journal of state politics and government alive. But money has proved tight, even with journalist and author Lou Cannon as California Journal Foundation president and a bipartisan board that includes former Gov. Pete Wilson and former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg. From the Sacramento Bee:

The end of publication leaves a hole in policy coverage that won't easily be filled, said David Lesher, a former Journal editor and now California program director for the New America Foundation, a policy think tank.

"In a time like this, we have issues in state government that will change people's lives for generations," said Lesher, who also was an editor at The Bee. "Newspapers can't cover those issues the way a policy magazine can."

The board will continue to look for funding to restart the magazine. Sacramento blogger Dan Weintraub writes:

It's hard to believe there isn't room for something along these lines in California, a dynamic, vibrant state of 36 million people with some of the most interesting politics in the nation. Perhaps a for-profit venture, with an aggressive online presence and an updated, more edgy take on the issues. We'll see.

Also from Weintraub: Former political reporter and author James Richardson is the new chaplain of the state Senate. He is reverend and canon at the Trinity Cathedral Episcopal Church in Sacramento.