NEVADA COUNTY SCOOPER - WHO ARE THEY?

On August 24th I posed a question to the 3,394 members of the Nevada County News and Information Facebook group for-which I'm an administrator. The question asked was, if the The Nevada County Scooper should be allowed to post to the group? The members gave feedback and it was all positive. The reason I was motivated to question the group is due to a few of their post being flagged. Click here to read what they wrote the following day about the event. They were "Swift" in getting the story out.

The idea of the NC Scooper is classic. The writing is fun, funny, smart and the stories seem to be based in and around current Nevada County events, people or news stories. The team of writers have crazy names along with what look to be real Facebook pages.

There are two names that I think are real. The first is Giovanni Paredes who's bio says he lives in Nevada County, and has other magical powers besides weather forecasting. He also hosts the extremely popular Nevada County Weather website. The other is the popular cartoonist RL Crabb whose work can be seen in The Union Newspaper. But I have no idea who these other very creative thinkers are.

Publisher of The Nevada County Scooper is Randall Finkelstein (Fink) of Penn Valley and Louis LaPlante (Lou) of North San Juan is the President.

On the "Companies" Facebook page it gives the history of the Scooper. See Below.

About
Throughout its 92 year history the Scooper, as it is affectionately called by locals, has striven to provide its citizens with the most up to date news.
Mission To provide a news source "for the rest of us."

DescriptionAbout the Nevada County Scooper

The Nevada County Scooper was founded in 1914 by Fred Bloomfield III, esq. and his wife Vinalla A. Bloomfield.

Throughout its 92 year history the Scooper, as its affectionately called by locals, has striven to provide it’s citizens with the most up to date and hard-hitting journalism the area has ever witnessed.

As the recipient of many, many awards, the Scooper recently ran out of wall space in it’s Penn Valley office after receiving a Gold record from long time supporter and Nevada County Scooper reader Alice Cooper.

Early History
In its early days the Nevada County Scooper was published from downtown Grass Valley and was the chief competitor to another, to be unnamed, local newspaper. During this time, the Scooper did not possess a printing press, nor the courage to borrow one. So the Scooper relied solely on shouting at people on the street to circulate the news. Later in the 1930s, the Scooper expanded its shouting service to Nevada City, frequently paying vagrants to assault citizens with news. Mr Bloomfield was a firm believer in enlightened self interest and believed that he was serving both the community and the paper’s interests.

Middle History
In 1949, after 17 long years of World War II, the Scooper finally purchased a printing press. However due the untimely death of Mr. Bloomfield’s wife in a bizarre gardening accident, he decided to sell his holdings in the newspaper to the Hearst Corporation for an undisclosed sum. The monies from this transaction were used for various failed housing developments around Nevada County including the infamous “homes over Wolf Creek” project.

Fresh History
After over 94 years of Hearst Corporation operation, the company sold the Scooper and its assets to former kid genius Randall “Fink” Finkelstein. Fink immediately set out to build a World Class local newspaper, as he put it, “for the rest of us, in Nevada County. Maybe Sierra County too if I get up there.” His goal of bringing worldly worldliness and his insightful blog commentary to Nevada County is first and foremost. Unless there’s money to be made in Sierra City. Then he will include them as well.

The Future
Fink hopes one day to put everyone in a flying car. Lou is hoping to retire to Cedar Ridge.

Thank you Fink and Lou for your contributions to this place we call home. You have shed a different light on the community.