WeHo News Publisher Chronicles Tough Two Years and Announces New Venture

In a revealing and sometimes sad email message chronicling his last two years, the publisher of WeHo News has reached out for support for a new media venture.
Ryan Gierach recently sent the message to friends and contributors to his blog saying that an undisclosed company has agreed to buy WeHo News and fund his plan to create a “hard copy newspaper — without using text.”
Gierach, saying he was writing “from a flea bag motel in Lynwood,” said his work with WeHo News had been disrupted in the last two years because of treatment of his infection with Hepatitis C, a struggle with mental illness and his arrest on charges of felony assault, felony elder abuse and felony making of terrorist and criminal threats stemming from conflicts with his apartment building manager and other tenants.  Gierach has previously disclosed his infection with HIV and addiction to meth.
“I have been, for nearly two years now, not well,” he said. “The saga began with a worsening of my Hepatitis C and a liver that almost quit on me, followed by a life-saving clinical trial of an experimental drug to cure that Hep C. The treatment, which fortunately lasted only three months, laid me flat.”

Ryan Gierach (LinkedIn)

Then came his arrest after the altercation at his apartment complex. “We spent four days in jail on $100,000 bond, before being released without charges filed,” Gierach wrote, referring to himself and his husband, Marcus Fant. “No DA would touch the case, as the claims they all made appeared specious. The arresting deputy worked for three days to find a DA that would press charges, to no effect.”
Gierach said he spent last August through October in court contesting the landlord’s effort to evict him and attempting to overturn a temporary restraining order that limited his access to facilities in the apartment complex. Eventually, Gierach said, the landlord agreed to pay him to leave.
Gierach said things looked promising with the payment from the landlord and an anticipated $14,000 in ad revenue. But he said that KLEAN, the drug treatment center and his major advertiser, decided not to continue advertising and another major advertiser didn’t respond to requests to pay its bill. In addition, he said, his landlord didn’t pay the agreed settlement. Finally, KLEAN rescinded an offer to buy WeHo News and keep Gierach on board.
“On November 1, Marcus spent a few days on a friend’s sofa,” Gierach said. “They could not accommodate me and WeHo (his dog), so we did what everyone without a home does; WeHo and I slept on the streets for a few days …
“Each week, or every few days, depending on our resources, we went from hotel room to motel room, from one condo to the next and back to motels… The housing instability caused regular disruptions in my medication. Each month for four months I would be forced to go without my meds for as much as ten days at a time.
“None of you can imagine what that on-again off-again treatment for bi-polar disorder does to the brain chemistry and, in combination with the constant housing worry hanging over my head, the need to relocate as often as twice a week, how desperately ill I became.”
Gierach said he now is updating his blog, which for a while was  silent, more often. And he said he is in negotiations with a media company whose identity he did not disclose to purchase WeHo News and fund the “newspaper without text” that he hopes to launch in West Hollywood. While the deal is not done, Gierach said he is optimistic.
Gierach founded the WeHo News blog in 2005 and for years it was one of the only web or print vehicles covering West Hollywood. Unlike more objective traditional news media, WeHo News was known for its opinion journalism, with Gierach never reluctant to attack political figures he didn’t like or praise those he favored. WEHOville.com launched in 2012, offering the first serious competition to WeHo News. Today, according to Amazon’s Alexa analytic service, WEHOville ranks number 60,000 among websites that Alexa tracks in the United States. WeHo News ranks a far distant 750,000.
“It would be my honor to once again carry your thoughts, work and words,” Gierach said his former contributors. “I will continue to deliver the hard news without the dirty tricks, biases and censorship of our competition,” he said in a reference to WEHOville.
Gierach did not respond to requests from WEHOville for comment.