Dan Schmidt | Courtesy ccharbor.com Country Media, Inc. may have published its final edition of the Del Norte Triplicate on Wednesday, but it won’t be the last-ever issue if Dan Schmidt has anything to say. Schmidt, who moved to Del Norte County nearly five years ago and was the editor for about a year and a half, purchased the 146-year-old newspaper from its previous owners. He said Thursday that he handed over the money and just needed to finalize the paperwork. It’ll be tough, but Schmidt says he plans to put out the new Triplicate’s first issue this week. “It’ll probably just be a letter from me to the subscribers letting them know what’s going on,” he told Redwood Voice Community News. Schmidt says he expects to get some vitriol from supporters of the Triplicate’s previous editor, Roger Gitlin, and from people who may not like him in general, but he’s prepared for it. “I expect to appeal directly to the subscribers and the community at large with a newspaper that’s better tuned to the needs, desires and expectations of the community,” he said. “And I intend to continue that work and to do a better job than what we’d seen in the past and I’m hoping that people will stay with me.” Based in Salem, Country Media added the Triplicate and the Curry Coastal Pilot to its roster of newspapers in 2019, purchasing both “out of bankruptcy” from Western Communications. In an article the Triplicate published Wednesday, Country Media Chief Executive Joe Warren said they wanted to add the two newspapers “to our family of newspapers along the Pacific Coast.” “We knew going in there would have to be changes to enable us to maintain sustainability of these failing businesses,” Warren said. In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Gitlin said the Triplicate closed its doors because there wasn’t enough revenue to keep it going. He called it a sad day for the community, saying that Crescent City and Del Norte County without a newspaper is “akin to not halving (sic) a soul.” Schmidt, who is now a Crescent City Harbor commissioner, said when he ran the Triplicate, he urged Gitlin to contribute a weekly column and later got him the job as editor when he had to take a leave of absence. Now, Schmidt said he’s disappointed and angry at Gitlin, who he says ran the newspaper into the ground. Schmidt cited the Triplicate’s “Graffiti Corner” feature, articles blasting local elected officials and Gitlin’s penchant for “going after our government agencies” as examples. A correction Gitlin ran on the Triplicate’s front page on Sept. 3 under the headline “We Goofed” is another example Schmidt cited as Gitlin’s low standards when it came to journalism. The correction referred to an article the Triplicate published July 30 about a Crescent City Council meeting held July 7. The article erroneously stated the Council discussed and took action on several items, including the potential renewal of two cannabis dispensaries. According to the correction, those discussions never happened. “That demonstrated knowledge of falsity — careless disregard as to whether what he was reporting was true or false,” Schmidt said, acknowledging that another reporter had written the July 30 City Council article. “When you’re the editor, you take responsibility for what’s published. And Roger had so abandoned the principles of solid journalism, he wasn’t on guard. He had failed to institute [those] kinds of checks and balances.” Now that he owns the Triplicate, Schmidt says Gitlin won’t be part of it. He said he’s also not sure he wants to keep the name, but he’ll let his readers chime in on that. Schmidt said he has nearly two decades of experience in journalism and in publishing small community newspapers. He said he started two newspapers from scratch, purchased two newspapers from their founders and sold two newspapers to “individuals and news groups capable of taking them to the next level.” Schmidt said he had one of his first newspapers, the Moorpark News, up and running less than three weeks after he graduated from California State University, Northridge with a Bachelor’s degree in journalism. Schmidt said during one memorable experience, he was looking for news to fill his paper with when a train derailed right in front of him. “I had my camera with me and took a bunch of pictures,” he said. “I climbed up on the grain elevator next to the tracks and took one final picture — that was a great aerial shot long before the days of drones.” Schmidt said he also encouraged members of the community to contribute to his Op-Ed pages. Three of those columnists were elected to the City Council — an accomplishment for them, he says. “To go from obscure citizens to viable and successful office holders — I was proud of that, giving [them] an opportunity for that to happen,” Schmidt said. “And I intended to do the same thing in Crescent City, give interested, intelligent , articulate, fair-minded people a chance to voice their opinions.” Schmidt plans to operate the Triplicate out of a 100-year-old two-story building he owns at M and Second streets in Crescent City. He said he purchased the building about four years ago. “My plans with the building were to possibly develop a YouTube/TikTok type studio and I’ve had some people that are in the radio business, locally, and [will] possibly put a radio station in there. It will be a good spot for that.” Schmidt says he also has big plans for the print edition. This includes sections of the paper devoted to senior citizens and another page focusing on youth and families. Schmidt also plans on courting long-time businesses like Rumiano Cheese Co. — he envisions an article headlined “Say Cheese!” — as well as Alexandre Dairy. One major initiative he’d like to see get off the ground is a bid to change Crescent City’s name. “I don’t like the name Crescent City. There’s already a Crescent City in Louisiana,” he said. “I want to call it Crescent Beach so when people hear about the town, they think that’s a beach town. It makes it much more attractive to visitors, tourists and people who might want to come here.” But the main thing, Schmidt said, is the Triplicate will once again be a place for free thought, ideas and expression.