From Laura Tate / Associate Publisher / Editor
The Malibu Times is celebrating its 60th anniversary as Malibu’s source for local news.
What started out as a 12-page tabloid sized newsy, yet community-oriented paper on May 2, 1946, has grown into a two-section newspaper that averages a total of 28 to 30 pages each week.
William J. Macfadyen was The Malibu Times first publisher, and Reeves D. Templeman was the editor. Templeman later took over as publisher of the paper.
The first issue, which we reprinted in parts on pages A8 and A9 this week, included interestingly quaint sections such as the “Reserved for the Ladies” column, written by the publisher’s wife, Marian MacFadyen. The column contained advice on “Proper Food Balance” and “Fashion Notes,” as well as mild “gossip:” “Shopping in Malibu Inn Market one day last week was Kay Kayser and his charming wife, the former Georgia Carroll who has the stork slated for an early appearance.”
One headline reads, “Television Wave Signals Too Weak For Malibu Area,” a precursor to complaints about spotty Internet service that Malibuites suffer these days.
Front-page news included a trial overseen by Judge John L. Webster (Webster Elementary School was named after the judge), whose article about Malibu he wrote for the Santa Monica Evening Outlook 15 years earlier, in 1931, was reprinted on the front page as well.
Webster’s description of Malibu shows that the city’s reputation and its population has endured the decades: “The home of artists, writers, musicians, picture stars and lovers of ‘outdoor California’ and in time destined to be the most beautiful stretch of coast line on either the Atlantic or Pacific seaboards,” he wrote.
Other sections, columns and news included travel, book reviews, a church column and editorial columns. The staff photographer, Eileen Templeman, Reeves’ wife, supplied “news stories and stories of general human interest in pictorial form.”
The Malibu Times wasn’t Malibu’s first newspaper. In 1935, the eight-page weekly Malibu and Roosevelt Highway News came out, but then ceased publication after its second issue because its publisher, A. C. Gull, had died. The Malibu Gull was next, published in 1942 as a four-page paper as “an organ of Civilian Defense” it was reported in the first issue of the Times, and “it soon dropped out of the scene.”
The founders of The Malibu Times, Macfadyen and Reeves, touted the fact that it would be an “ALL MALIBU paper a fundamental need for the community.” Both men were Malibu residents. MacFadyen owned a ranch estate in Escondido and lived “in the Malibu for two years.” Templeman had lived “in the Malibu” for seven years at the time.
Current owners of The Malibu Times, Arnold G. and Karen York, who bought the paper from Templeman in 1987, have lived “in the Malibu” 30 years.
We invite readers to take part in celebrating the 60-year history of The Malibu Times by not only reliving, or learning, the history of Malibu, but also by sending in photos and written memories of what Malibu was like six decades ago, and the changes, good and bad, that have taken place over the years. We will be publishing stories and photos throughout the rest of the year and plan to do a special section devoted to the past 60 years. As assistant editor Jonathan Friedman noted in his front page story on the paper this week, The Malibu Times has never missed a week of publication since its inception, despite floods, fires and other threats. We hope we can always maintain the standards set by the original founders-to provide timely, unbiased, informative news, as well as interesting features on the people and events of Malibu for many years to come.