Saratoga News
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McCombs Award recognizes Levine's career in journalism
By Dick Sparrer
When Mort Levine left Wisconsin in the early 1950s, he wasn't seeking awards and recognition; he was following his dream.
He had worked as the editor of the daily newspaper at the University of Wisconsin, then as a reporter for the Waukesha Daily Freeman near Milwaukee. But he wanted more.
So in early in the '50s, he and his wife Elaine packed up and headed west. By 1954, they had founded the Milpitas Post, a weekly newspaper in the northeastern corner of the Santa Clara Valley. And the rest, as they say, is California newspaper history.
Levine went on to build a community newspaper empire of sorts in the Santa Clara Valley, a group that numbered 16 newspapers that included the Los Gatos Times-Observer (the predecessor of the Los Gatos Weekly-Times) and the Saratoga News.
After selling Suburban Newspaper Publications to the Meredith Corporation, he went on to start another newspaper group with the Country Almanac of Menlo Park as the anchor publication, and later returned to the Milpitas Post before his retirement.
Levine, a longtime Saratoga resident, is considered a pioneer in many aspects of the newspaper business, and was recently recognized for his outstanding career in journalism by the California Press Association with the presentation of the Philip McCombs Lifetime Achievement Award.
The award is presented annually to retiring publishers to honor them for their dedication to journalism and their contributions to the communities they serve.
In the statement read to those in attendance at the California Press Association's December meeting in San Francisco, Levine was praised for his achievements:
"As one of the weekly editor-publishers who served the rapidly expanding California communities after World War II, he brought a dedication to the editorial mission of the press along with an entrepreneurial instinct."
The Levines pioneered the use of offset printing to produce the newspaper, and used the Milpitas Post as a building block.
Levine ran the group until the early 1980s when he sold to Meredith. He would go on later in the decade for a new group in San Mateo County with the Country Almanac as the centerpiece publication. He sold that group in the 1990s and returned to Milpitas to start a group that also served Alameda County with the Post as the foundation. That group was sold to Media News in 2000, and he officially retired as a publisher.
The CPA statement said, "Through the years, his newspapers were frequent award winners at [California Newspaper Publishers Association] and [National Newspaper Association] contests with their strong emphasis on local editorial content, investigative stories and dramatic graphics and photographs.
"Offset and cold type were in their infancy and the Levine newspapers were among the first in Northern California to use these techniques to capture a graphic look different from conventional products."
Levine is a former CNPA president, has served as a longtime county parks commissioner and civil service commissioner, helped save the San Jose Art Museum from closing and was one of the founders of the California First Amendment Coalition to wage the battle for open meetings and public records. The Levines have also restored the Saratoga home of a famed turn of the century crusading newspaper editor Fremont Older and opened it to the public.
Mort Levine came west more than 60 years ago to pursue his dream. That he has now won the Philip McCombs Lifetime Achievement Award is confirmation that his dream came true.