First of all, a note on OVN’s personnel change a couple weeks back – I teased the story that Bret Bradigan was fired with a quick post and stated more to come. OP author Demitri Corbin subsequently posted a behind-the-scenes blog post, which was the “more to come” I was referring to. Because that blog post ruffled some feathers, Demitri decided to pull it down, which is his prerogative. Apologies to those who were confused by the course of events – I should have been more cautious in teasing a future story. – Tyler
Following is from Ojai resident Clive Leeman.
The recent departure of Ojai Valley News editor and publisher Bret Bradigan was nasty, brutish, and short. Before we even knew he was going, he was gone–no official announcement, no explanation, not even a story in the local newspaper, which Bret had edited for nine years.

Only a brutal, throwaway line from owner Bill Buchanan: “Bret Bradigan no longer works for the Ojai
Valley News. We wish him well and we don’t know what his plans are” (quoted in the Ojai Post), and a single, sentimental sentence in the Ojai Valley News: “Bret Bradigan… has moved on to other ventures.”
Is this the way to treat a man who was a significant presence in this community for nine years? Is this the way to treat the community itself, subjecting us to a form of censorship that can only be seen as contemptuous? We want to know what happened. Why was Bret fired so unceremoniously? Why did he disappear before we could say goodbye and pay tribute to him?
I wonder how many of us know that of all the editors of the Ojai Valley News, Bret had the longest tenure after that of the legendary owner editor Fred Volz? And, in my opinion, after Fred Volz (assisted by Dee Volz), Bret was the best editor.
The Ojai Valley News had a couple of short-term editors who were good, but two fairly long editorial regimes were simply calamitous, and Bret came to the rescue I
believe that Bret arrived in time to rescue the paper from complete ruination. I disagreed with Bret on many issues and I thought some of his editorials were flowery to the point of being baroque (however, one essay he wrote on the death of his childhood friend I considered to be a classic). But he consistently put out news that was objective and informative. The paper’s coverage was comprehensive and fluently written.
Bret started the innovative front-page column “Neighbors,” based on interviews with ordinary members of the community, and he had the discernment to recruit several talented writers, including Daryl Kelley, a long-time reporter on the Los Angeles Times.
Consider, for a moment, the Los Angeles Times: that paper has hired and fired quite a few editors and publishers in the last few years. In every instance, the Times always had a front-page story on the hiring and the firing, giving a full background report, with quotations from the editor or publisher in question.
So what’s the problem here with the Ojai Valley News? Is the paper trying to hide something? Does it have so much disrespect for the Ojai community that it cannot bring itself to tell us the truth?
- Clive Leeman