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The Point Reyes Light
Type	Weekly newspaper
Format	Broadsheet
Owner	Tomales Bay Publishing Company
Publisher	Robert Plotkin
Editor	Robert Plotkin
Founded	1948 (as The Baywood Press)
Headquarters	Point Reyes Station, CA 94956 United States
Website: ptreyeslight.com

The Point Reyes Light is a weekly newspaper published since 1948 in western Marin County, California.

The paper was originally known as the Baywood Press, and published for less than a year in Inverness before moving to Point Reyes Station. It was renamed The Point Reyes Light in 1966 after the lighthouse at Point Reyes.

The Light covers regional issues in and near West Marin, including the communities of Point Reyes Station, Inverness, Olema, Bolinas, Inverness Park, Nicasio, Stinson Beach, the San Geronimo Valley, Tomales, and the nearby Point Reyes National Seashore, as well as Fairfax and Bodega Bay. The only other established media outlet serving this region full time is the community FM radio station KWMR, also of Point Reyes Station.

The Point Reyes Light consistently wins awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association and National Newspaper Association, including nine awards for work done in 2006.^[1] In 1979 under publishers Dave and Cathy Mitchell, The Light earned the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for reporting on a cult, Synanon, which had a major presence in the area and had attempted to murder an attorney who won a lawsuit against the cult. The two major newspapers in the state, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Examiner, had dropped their coverage of Synanon after libel threats.

Contents 1 The Plotkin Era 2 Publishers 3 Notes 4 External links

[edit] The Plotkin Era

In late 2005, Dave Mitchell sold the Light to Bolinas resident Robert Plotkin. The two men soon had a falling out, culminating in a physical encounter outside the newspaper's office the following February. In May 2006, a Marin Superior Court commissioner issued a permanent injunction prohibiting Mitchell from visiting the paper, as well as a three-year injunction barring him from contacting Plotkin and his family.^[2] The following August, Plotkin obtained a court injunction forbidding Mitchell from posting his column on the Bodega Bay Navigator website. The ruling was based on a non-competition clause signed by Mitchell at the time of the Light's sale.^[3][4][5] Mitchell's byline did not subsequently appear in the Light until the following summer, when he wrote a guest column.^[6]

From early on, Plotkin has relied on a succession of interns recruited from journalism schools for much of the paper's reporting. "The only way to get the right esprit de corps — the people directed to a higher calling — is to invite [journalism students] to join the Round Table and go on a quest for the chalice," Plotkin told a Los Angeles Times reporter. "I fashion myself as sort of a Che Guevara. This paper is the Dunkirk of literary journalism. Our backs are against the wall. The Huns are upon us. It's time to fight."^[7]

In his first months, Plotkin published a sprinkling of edgier stories, which both stirred controversy while helping garner attention far beyond West Marin. Subjects included a local rapist, a body found by a mushroomer, and a satanic gathering near Point Reyes with a picture of a young woman biting into a severed goat head. Such stories, and the editorial sensibility behind them, led to angry letters from some readers, but also to profiles in the San Francisco Chronicle,^[8]Los Angeles Times,^[7] and New York Times.^[9] In June, 2006, Plotkin wrote editorial apologies for two items: a photo of young teens dancing in a manner that some saw as suggestive and for coverage that seemed to dismiss efforts by local merchants to encourage local shopping. The latter resulted in several merchants refusing to sell the next issue.

During his first year, Plotkin wrote fewer editorials than Mitchell and less about the community. He sometimes took an unorthodox approach, such as publishing pictures of and by his children, as well as a 1920s essay by T.E. Lawrence. But a one-year anniversary issue composed largely of material reprinted from the previous 12 months displayed wide and varied local coverage with an emphasis on feature stories and profiles. Plotkin took the occasion to note that while circulation has increased, income was down due to more readers purchasing the newspaper from merchants, who take a 25% cut.^[10] As would later be revealed, income was also reduced by a bookkeeper's $62,000 embezzlement scheme.^[11]

In April 2007, Plotkin converted production from manual paste-up to electronic publishing, while instituting a redesign by the Tampa firm Garcia Media that that employed color pages and a more contemporary style.^[12]Plotkin also announced expanded coverage to Fairfax, a town bordering but outside West Marin. These changes further galvanized the newspaper's critics, who complained that the Light had lost its regional focus, local voice and historical roots. ^[13][14]

A competing newspaper, the West Marin Citizen, debuted on July 5, 2007 (following a pilot edition in June) – published by Bodega Bay Navigator publisher Joel Hack, edited by former Light managing editor Jim Kravets, and staffed by several of his former colleagues. According to its backers, the paper will place more emphasis on community reporting. In response, Plotkin noted that the Light has already become more community focused through the addition of a weekly calendar section, an expanded letters section, and a page marking noteworthy achievements. He predicted that reader interest in the new paper would be fleeting. ^[15] The divide between the two papers is partly a matter of scope: the Light under Plotkin aspires to cover not just local news, but larger issues such as global warming, while the Citizen has restricted itself to what Hack calls "nuts and bolts journalism".^[16]

[edit] Publishers

• Dave and Wilma Rogers 1948-1951 (Baywood Press, first issue March, 1948)
• Al and Madonna Bartlett 1951-1956 (Baywood Press)
• George and Nancy Sherman 1956-1957 (Baywood Press)
• Don and Clara Mae DeWolfe 1957-1970 (Changed to Point Reyes Light in 1966)
• Michael and Annabelle Gahagan 1970-1975
• Dave and Cathy Mitchell 1975-1981
• Ace Ramos and Rosalee Laird 1981-1983
• Dave Mitchell 1984-2005
• Robert Plotkin 2005-current

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• The Point Reyes Light Official website
• Robert Plotkin bio
• David Mitchell's blog
• KWMR West Marin news podcasts