CNPA Members have elected Emily Charrier as chairperson of the 133-year-old organization. Charrier has been a member of the CNPA Board of Directors since 2018.
Charrier, editor and publisher of Sonoma Media Investments’ Sonoma Index-Tribune and publisher of its Petaluma Argus-Courier, recognized CNPA’s crucial role in advocating for California’s newsrooms.
“This is a challenging time for the news profession, both nationally and here in California,” Charrier said. “It’s an honor to be elected by our members to help lead CNPA’s efforts to defend free speech and access to public information, preserve local journalism and ensure the integrity of news for our readers.”
“Emily has been a great asset to CNPA’s leadership team,” said Charles Ford Champion II, CNPA’s president and CEO. “She headed our Finance Committee during the pandemic downturn and now she will assume the chairperson’s role at another critical time for the association and its members. She will be a terrific leader and we are looking forward to working with her.”
Charrier, a 2006 graduate of the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism, is a former managing editor of The Argus-Courier and a former reporter at The Index-Tribune. She returned to Sonoma County after leading a hyper-local magazine group in Dallas, Texas. Charrier became publisher of The Argus-Courier and Index-Tribune in 2018. She added the editor role in Sonoma in 2021.
Charrier, 37, and her husband Matt recently bought their first home in the Sonoma Wine Country. When she’s not walking her husky-shepherd, Shiloh, Charrier is active in a variety of service clubs and charity boards, with a special penchant for saving Monarch butterflies.
Last week, CNPA Members also elected other officers: Chairperson-Elect Julie Makinen is executive editor of The Desert Sun in Palm Springs and Gannett’s California state editor. Secretary-Treasurer Norb Garrett is publisher of Picket Fence Media’s San Clemente Times, Dana Point Times and The Capistrano Dispatch. Simon Grieve, immediate past chairperson, is publisher of Southern California News Group’s weekly Gazette Newspapers in Long Beach, The Beach Reporter in Hermosa Beach and Palos Verdes Peninsula News.
CNPA Members also elected two new directors. Laura Rearwin Ward is publisher and an owner of the Ojai Valley News (Ojai Media LLC) and editor of Ojai Magazine. Bill Sullivan is associate producer at Gold Country Media, publisher of the twice-weekly Auburn Journal and five weeklies.
CNPA Members elected these directors to new three-year terms:
- Martha Diaz Aszkenazy is publisher of the weekly San Fernando Valley Sun and El Sol newspapers.
- Richard Esposito is publisher of The Mountain Democrat in Placerville and chief operating officer for its owner, McNaughton Newspapers.
- Steve Falk is CEO of Sonoma Media Investments LLC, owner of the Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, Sonoma Magazine and several weekly publications.
- Silas Lyons is executive editor of the Record Searchlight in Redding and regional executive editor of eight Gannett newsrooms in Northern California and Nevada.
