A DIFFERENT KIND OF NEWSPAPER WAR

JONATHAN ROWE, COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW - Out here in West Marin County, California, we live in a quiet, constant state of siege. The rolling ranchlands and ocean beaches are iconic. Point Reyes National Seashore, which occupies much of the coastland, draws more than two million visitors a year. You scan the unspoiled hills and it is not hard to imagine encampments of developers, waiting like guerrillas for their moment to descend. . .

The protected seashore is expanding literally to the edge of Point Reyes Station, which is the closest thing to a hub. More tourists are coming, traffic is increasing, and second and third homes are proliferating. . . The resulting tensions are ripe journalistic fodder, but instead of just covering them, the local paper itself has become a focal point.

The Point Reyes Light is almost as iconic as the landscape it inhabits. In 1979, the Light became the little paper that could, when it won a Pulitzer for its investigations of the cult-like Synanon, a local drug rehab center whose officials once left a rattlesnake in the mailbox of a critic. But the prize meant less to local readers than did weekly news about the National Seashore’s expansion plans, run-off into Tomales Bay, and reckless motorcycle riders who accelerate into blind curves and fly off coastal Highway One (not that anyone’s grief would be less than total about that). It was our forum.

But a couple of years ago, the Light changed hands, and the new owner soon became an embodiment of the worst fears for the area the newspaper used to symbolize.

Now West Marin has a second weekly, the West Marin Citizen, which has made a strong start with the Light’s disaffected readers. "Newspaper war" may be too strong a term; the competition is low-key, as is most of life out here. Like former spouses at a social gathering, the two weeklies barely acknowledge one another’s presence. But the advertiser and subscriber bases are limited (total population is about 15,000) and few people expect that two papers can survive for long. . .