Artesia’s Gateway Guardian Lies About Newspaper Circulation

Claims 10,000 when email from Editor indicates the circulation is 4,000.

Hews Media Group-Community News has obtained an email that indicates the Gateway Guardian Newspaper (GG), based out of Artesia and owned by fledgling newspaper Publisher Melinda Kimsey of Cerritos and Editor Jerry Bernstein, are fabricating their newspaper circulation raising a number of ethical and legal questions about the newspaper and its staff.

Melinda Kimsey (above) Jerry Bernstein (below). The two claim their newspaper is 10,000 circulation but an email obtained by HMG-CN indicates they are only 4,000 circulation.

Part of the email also raises questions of the newspaper’s objectivity in reporting the news while favoring certain City Council members.

Bernstein states in his email that the circulation is 4,000 when the GG has claimed 10,000 circulation since it started in 2014.

The revelation places the cities of Cerritos and Artesia, two cities that advertise with the newspaper, in an awkward position on several fronts.

The GG claims its circulation to all interested and active advertisers to be 10,000, and charges rates based on that circulation. They would owe the two cities, and others who have advertised with the newspaper, over half the money they have been paid for advertising given this revelation, and would have to explain why they fabricated their circulation.

Janet Beach, an appointed Cerritos Fine Arts and Historical Commissioner, designs the newspaper and likely knows about the circulation discrepancy. Beach could be in violation of several California Laws regarding appointed Commissioners, for instance, Beach is paid by the GG, and the city of Cerritos advertises with the paper, a conflict of interest.

Biased News Reporting

In the email conversation started March 17, an Artesia resident asked Bernstein to publish a letter to the editor about a hot-button local issue in Artesia, a new 7-11 convenience store, which many Artesia residents are against.

Bernstein indicates several times that he will run the letter, but as of today-5 issues of the newspaper have been published-Bernstein has not published the letter.

“I have seen these kind of ‘newspapers’ my entire career,” said HMG-CN Publisher Brian Hews. “They start the newspaper and the City Council orders the staff to advertise in it, it happened here in Cerritos. Then you see pictures of the Council on the front page of every publication, the editor and publisher ignoring hard news stories so they keep the Council ‘happy.’ And then surprise!, they generate huge amounts of advertising from those very same Council members during election campaigns. It is really disgusting, not to mention they are basically stealing from the cities due to lying about their circulation. But, the cities will likely keep advertising given Cerritos’ Carol Chen and Artesia’s Tony Lima, and some of their a fellow council members are in on the sham, even though this email exposed them. What does that say about the Cerritos and Artesia Council ethics?”

Hews went on, “look at the paper, it has 10% advertising to 90% editorial. The paper is losing money, the ratio has to be 70% advertising to 30% editorial, any competent publisher knows that. Someone is funding this paper because it is losing money, or they are lying about their circulation.”

Texts messages to Bernstein and Kimsey went unreturned.

A frequent online reader of HMG-CN commented, ”

Hello, doesn’t everyone know that the Gateway Guardian News ‘leases’ space from Artesia Mayor Tony ‘Lambada’ Lima, who
helped spearhead the ‘No’ on AA campaign, taking millions of dollars away from our children (when nearly every other school
bond measure passed in SoCal).

Didn’t everyone know that the GG harmed our children of ABCUSD during the Bond election with their unethical, unbalanced, reporting and editorials, most of which were knowingly untrue?

Doesn’t everyone notice Kimsey and Bernstein pandering to Carol ‘free lunch’ Chen and her groupies, while smiling and posing for photos with the students of ABC in the GG, whom she sold down the river to support her cronies who didn’t want to pay their fair share of property tax on their many, many property holdings?

Yes, the election is over, but we are better than needing to lie, deceive, tearing down campaign signs. We should be setting positive examples to our kids.

Gateway Guardian and zero ethics, that’s old news.”