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''The Desert Sun'' is a local daily newspaper serving
Palm Springs Palm Springs (Cahuilla language, Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Rivers ...
and the surrounding
Coachella Valley The Coachella Valley ( ) is an arid rift valley in the Colorado Desert of Southern California in Riverside County. The valley has been referred to as Greater Palm Springs and occasionally the Palm Springs Area due to the historic promine ...
in
Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...
.


History

First issued on August 5, 1927, as a weekly six-page newspaper, ''The Desert Sun'' grew with the desert communities it serves. It covers local, state, national and world news, and has developed a variety of sections over time. The newspaper began to publish six days a week in 1955 and had its first Sunday edition on September 8, 1991. Its circulation to date is 50,000 and their distribution range is in regional communities from Beaumont to Twentynine Palms to the
Salton Sea The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly salinity, saline endorheic lake in Riverside County, California, Riverside and Imperial County, California, Imperial counties in Southern California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the S ...
. On March 1, 2024, the paper's newsroom union went on strike to protest what it called
bad faith Bad faith (Latin: ''mala fides'') is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another."of two hearts ... a sustained form of deception which c ...
bargaining from Gannet. The work stoppage was the first indefinite strike in the paper's history. The next day the union ended its strike after reaching a tentative contract agreement.


Production

Since 1988, ''The Desert Sun'' has been owned by
Gannett Gannett Co., Inc. ( ) is an American mass media holding company headquartered in New York City. It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation. It owns the national newspaper ''USA Today'', as well as several ...
. The
Indio Indio may refer to: Places * Indio, Bovey Tracey, an historic estate in Devon, England * Indio, California, a city in Riverside County, California, United States People with the name * Indio (musician), Canadian musician Gordon Peterson * Índi ...
''Daily News'' was acquired in 1990 and merged with ''The Desert Sun'' to become the sole local newspaper. The online website for ''The Desert Sun'' uses the same layout template used for most Gannett newspapers. Headquarters are located in Palm Springs, in an office complex built in 1991 to replace a smaller building. The paper was published locally for most of its existence, but as with many Gannett publications, printing presses were consolidated. On Sunday, September 20, 2020, ''The Desert Sun'' ran its printing presses for the final time. Print editions of ''The Desert Sun'' are now printed in Phoenix at Gannett's co-owned ''Arizona Republic''. ''The Desert Sun'' published the ''Desert Post Weekly'', a variety entertainment paper available on every Thursday in the distribution range, as well as city-specific publications ''The Indio Sun'', ''The La Quinta Sun'', ''The Palm Springs Weekend'', ''The Palm Desert Sun'' and ''The Cathedral City Sun''. In 2010, the second page of the primary section was known as "7 by 7:30AM", to focus on the editor's selected seven most important stories of the day. The namesake was to estimate how long it takes to read the second page in half an hour (from 7:00 am to 7:30 am). In the 2010s, the Sun published a Spanish-Language weekly ''El Sol Desierto'' based in
Coachella, California Coachella ( , commonly ) is a city in Riverside County, California, United States. It is the namesake and easternmost city of the Coachella Valley, in Southern California's Colorado Desert. Originally a railroad town, Coachella is a prominen ...
for its Hispanic/Latino readers. Its main regional competitor is the ''
Riverside Press-Enterprise ''The Press-Enterprise'' is a paid daily newspaper published by Digital First Media that serves the Inland Empire in Southern California. Headquartered in downtown Riverside, California, it is the primary newspaper for Riverside County, with h ...
'' based in
Riverside, California Riverside is a city in and the county seat of Riverside County, California, United States. It is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. As of the 2020 census, the city has a population of 314,998. It is the most populous city in th ...
.


Editors and leadership

Greg Burton served as executive editor of the paper from 2011 to 2018, before leaving to become executive editor of ''
The Arizona Republic ''The Arizona Republic'' is an American daily newspaper published in Phoenix. Circulated throughout Arizona, it is the state's largest newspaper. Since 2000, it has been owned by the Gannett newspaper chain. History Early years The newspap ...
''. On October 8, 2018, Julie Makinen became the executive editor. Makinen previously worked for ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'', ''
International New York Times ''The New York Times International Edition'' is an English-language daily newspaper distributed internationally by the New York Times Company. It has been published in two separate periods, one from 1943 to 1967 and one from 2013 to the prese ...
'', and ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'', where she served as film editor and Beijing Bureau chief. Makinen left that role in early 2023, and was replaced as executive editor by veteran ''Desert Sun'' editor Kate Franco.


See also

* '' Desert Star Weekly'' (published in Desert Hot Springs), a weekly Coachella Valley newspaper * ''
Desert Magazine ''Desert Magazine'' was a monthly regional publication based in the Colorado Desert published between 1937 and 1985. A print version bearing the same name has been revived in the Coachella Valley town of Palm Desert near Palm Springs, California ...
'' (published in Palm Desert), a monthly magazine covering desert topics * ''Desert Daily Guide Magazine'' (published in Palm Springs), a weekly magazine covering LGBT topics for 22 years


References


Further reading

*


External links

*
Gannett subsidiary profile of ''The Desert Sun''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Desert Sun, The Daily newspapers published in California Mass media in Riverside County, California Culture of Palm Springs, California Indio, California Coachella Valley Gannett publications Newspapers published in California Newspapers established in 1927 1927 establishments in California