12/19/2025
https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/shalomevents/stripped-for-parts
Sunday, January 11, 2026 from 1:30 - 4:30 at Ner Shalom, 85 LaPlaza, Cotati, the must-see award-winning documentary, "STRIPPED FOR PARTS: AMERICAN JOURNALISM ON THE BRINK" will be screened and followed by a panel discussion among local journalists.
Register here: https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/shalomevents/stripped-for-parts
"STRIPPED FOR PARTS: AMERICAN JOURNALISM ON THE BRINK" has taken Best Documentary, United Nations Association Film Festival, 2023; Rose F. and Charles L. Klotzer First Amendment Award for Free Speech in Service of Democracy - 2023, Gateway Journalism Review and the Maysles Bros. Lifetime Achievement Award-2023 St. Louis International Film Festival.
FILM SYNOPSIS:
"Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink" is the story of one secretive hedge fund that is plundering America’s newspapers and the journalists who are fighting back. Investigative reporter Julie Reynolds, Denver Post editorialist Chuck Plunkett and a handful of others, backed by the News Guild Union, go toe-to-toe with the faceless Alden Global Capital in a battle to save and rebuild local journalism across America. Who will control the future of America’s news ecosystem: Wall Street billionaires concerned only with profit, or those who see journalism as an essential public service and the lifeblood of our democracy?
“Goldsmith is an amazing storyteller, able to take the important and little-understood topic about how US newspapers are being destroyed by corporate greed and explain it in a compelling way. Everyone in a community that is vulnerable to the loss of their journalistic “voice” needs to watch Stripped for Parts.”
The journalists joining us as panel members following the screening are:
Carl Molesworth: Carl worked as a journalist for newspapers and magazines throughout Washington state for nearly 40 years and is the author 17 non-fiction books about the history of air combat during World War II.
Laura Hagar Rush: She started her career at the East Bay Express in Berkeley, California and became the editor of The Yodeler, the Sierra Club newspaper for the Bay Area. After moving with her husband and two young children to Sonoma County in the early 2000s, she became managing editor of North Bay biz magazine and, later, editor of Sonoma West Times & News. When Sonoma West Times & News closed down after its sale Laura and Dale Dougherty opened the Sebastopol Times, which was founded in 1889.
Troy Niday:
Troy has over 25 years of executive leadership experience from working for the lead local news sources in Omaha, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Birmingham, and here in Sonoma County. He spent the past 11 years serving as the COO of Sonoma Media Investments publisher of The Press Democrat, until new ownership eliminated his and several other leadership positions. Additionally, Troy is the Immediate Past President of the International News Media Association’s North America board of directors.
Troy is pursuing the establishment of a nonprofit newsroom in Sonoma County to increase the impact of quality local journalism and hold governments and the powerful to account.
Praise for "STRIPPED FOR PARTS: AMERICAN JOURNALISM ON THE BRINK"
–Mike Blinder Publisher and editor, Editor & Publisher Magazine
“The collapse of local news is a deep threat to democracy and the fabric of communities. But we can't turn this around without comprehending how we got here. Stripped for Parts vividly shows the causes and consequences of the decimation of community journalism.”
- Steve Waldman, Founder and President, Rebuild Local News
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT:
I’ve been reading newspapers since I was seven years old. As a documentary filmmaker, journalism and newspapers, as subject matter, have been my “beat.” The recent collapse of the newspaper industry, resulting in “ghost newspapers” and “news deserts” and the shrinking of local journalism throughout the country, has caused me to mourn the loss--but also on the lookout for the next great journalism story to tell. When I came across this story, of journalists standing up for their own profession, their communities, and for our democracy, I instinctively knew I had it.
What do we do about hedge funds in newspapers? How do we revive, re-invent, and rebuild local journalism? And how do we sustain, in the wake of a business model that has collapsed in the digital age, a true and vibrant “public service journalism”
Stripped for Parts Official Website: StrippedForPartsFilm.com
This program is a presentation of the Ner Shalom Tzedek (Social Justice) committee.
